Highly Sensitive Person: Idiomizing Distress in Pandemic-Era Tokyo

Area of Science:

• Anthropology
• Sociology
• Psychology

Background:

• The study examines the adoption of the English pop-psychology term
• Highly Sensitive Person
• (HSP) in Japan as a framework for understanding social withdrawal and distress.
• It explores how this term evolved into a common idiom for discussing personal vulnerability within Japanese society.

Purpose of the Study:

• To trace the local adoption and adaptation of the
• Highly Sensitive Person
• (HSP) concept in Japan.
• To analyze how HSP functions as an emergent idiom of distress, enabling individuals to articulate sensitivity and suffering.
• To investigate the role of digital platforms, publishing, and media in the dissemination of the HSP concept.

Main Methods:

• Ethnographic fieldwork conducted over twenty months in Tokyo at Raku-no-Kai, a nonprofit organization.
• Analysis of how the HSP concept is used in everyday life, peer support spaces, media, and clinical settings.
• Examination of the socio-cultural infrastructures facilitating the spread of psychological terms.

Main Results:

• The
• Highly Sensitive Person
• (HSP) concept serves as a flexible language for expressing vulnerability and distress, distinct from psychiatric diagnoses.
• The COVID-19 pandemic created a societal context where discussing emotional strain and withdrawal became more acceptable.
• The ambiguity of the HSP concept can create challenges in clinical settings, bridging patient self-understanding and diagnostic categories.

Conclusions:

• The
• Highly Sensitive Person
• (HSP) concept has become a significant idiom of distress in Japan, shaped by cultural and media infrastructures.
• The term facilitates communication about sensitivity and suffering but may not align directly with clinical diagnostic frameworks.
• This study contributes to understanding the social lives of psychological categories and the formation of distress idioms in different cultural contexts.