Understanding Life Struggles: Causes and How to Overcome Them

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I believe “ikizurasa” (a pervasive sense that life is hard to live) is a central concept in contemporary clinical work. Even for understanding surrounding issues and problems that seem unrelated at first glance, knowing the term and its background is highly meaningful.

 

To share what the contributing factors are and, concretely, how we can improve things, a licensed psychologist compiled this article under medical supervision. I hope many people currently struggling will find it helpful.

Please have a read.

 

<Created: 2025.9.26 / Last Updated: 2025.9.26>

*If you wish to reprint or otherwise use any content on this site, please credit the site name as the source or include a link.

		Author Ichitaro Miki — Psychological Counselor (Licensed Psychologist) Graduate of Osaka University; Master’s, Osaka University Graduate School; member of the Japanese Psychological Association, etc. After working as a research director at a think tank, I have been engaged in counseling and clinical practice for about 20 years. Click here for full profile

		Medical Reviewer Yoshio Iijima — Physician (Psychosomatic Medicine, etc.) A psychosomatic medicine physician who is also a clinical psychologist, Kampo (traditional Japanese) doctor, and general practitioner; highly knowledgeable across fields, with a particular focus on medically unexplained symptoms and autonomic imbalance. Click here for profile

<Editorial Policy>

• Written by a licensed psychologist drawing on many years of clinical experience and clients’ lived experiences (especially from attachment and trauma-clinical perspectives), offering explanations and key points.

• We consult specialized books and objective data to the best of our ability.

• We strive to update the content with the latest insights whenever possible.

• This article has been translated from the original Japanese using AI. Therefore, it may contain unnatural translations, particularly for specialized terms.

 

 

Table of Contents

• What Is “Ikizurasa” (Living with Persistent Difficulty)?

• The Mechanism of Ikizurasa—“Individualization of Relations” and “Compulsive Internalization”

• Ikizurasa in Families
• Ikizurasa in the Workplace
• Where the Concept of Ikizurasa Comes From

• Background Factors Behind Ikizurasa
• How “Individualization of Relations” Is Brought In by People Close to Us

• Even Counselors Aren’t Fully Free from the “Personal Responsibility” Creed
• People Who Feel Ikizurasa Are Often Overly Social, Not Lacking Social Skills

• How to Overcome Ikizurasa

 

 

→ Related Articles

▶ What Is Harassment (Moral Harassment)? — Causes and Characteristics

▶ 6 Key Strategies to Deal With Moral Harassment (Psychological Abuse)

▶ What Are Trauma (Developmental Trauma), PTSD, and Complex PTSD? Causes and Symptoms

 

 

 

 

What Is “Ikizurasa” (Living with Persistent Difficulty)?

Ikizurasa refers to a state in which, despite the real problems lying in an unfair environment surrounding the person, everything is pinned on the individual. Guilt is instilled, and as a result, people are driven into compulsively internalizing external norms and over-adapting, which produces self-denigration and a sense of alienation from others.

It is a social phenomenon that surfaced after 2000, yet the same mechanism also underlies earlier forms of suffering.

 

 

The Mechanism of Ikizurasa—“Individualization of Relations,” “Compulsive Internalization,” and “Over-Adaptation”

• Individualization of Relations

Humans are “shaped by environment.” It is very hard to resist our environment by personal will alone. The very fact that we use the language of our country and society shows we are not free from the environment. Even things seemingly determined by personal effort—academic pedigree or work performance—are powerfully affected by background factors such as family income and peer networks. Even “communication,” thought of as an individual trait, falters without the groundwork of job roles, skills, and relationships.

Depending on environment, we can become either “failing” people or “good” people—this is human reality.

Over the past two decades, globalization, inequality, and the loss of “work” as a basis for communication have all altered the environment. Yet modern individualism hides these factors and pins everything on the individual—this is the individualization of relations.

 

• Compulsive Internalization

Environmental impacts appear, phenomenally, as “individual failures.” People half-accept that “I’m the problem,” attributing ikizurasa to their own lack of effort—even as their intuition whispers “something is off,” which they can’t articulate or get others to understand.

The very statements that relocate cause from environment to the individual often come from those closest to us—family or friends: “You always mess up,” “Stop making excuses and work harder.” Such messages instill guilt, isolate us, and exert control. Under the guise of “common sense” or “proper norms,” they force us to internalize standards as if “Because you’re defective, you must follow my instruction”—this is compulsive internalization.

What fuels internalization is guilt. Once guilt is planted, we swallow “common sense” and rules even when they feel wrong.

With young children, their helplessness is used against them—“You’re a bad child for not doing as told”—to impose psychological abuse and guilt. In couples, a partner is berated for poor housekeeping; at work, someone is blamed without ever receiving proper training. Like old colonial logics, conditions are set so people fail; then failure is used to condemn and control their minds and bodies.

 

• Over-Adaptation

Convinced we’re “no good” and steeped in guilt, we overexert sociality to compensate—and spin our wheels. This over-adaptation produces hypersensitivity, misfires, and an aching inability to feel united with others. We get trapped in a cycle of self-blame for being “clumsy.”

This is the true face of ikizurasa—and it recurs across many kinds of struggles. 

 

Ikizurasa in Families

• Home Environments That Suppress Capability

How we grow and what abilities we can express depend on environment. Yet many households deploy harassment—excessive rule-imposition, verbal abuse, labeling—to keep members from functioning.

Incapable because of the environment, people get scolded as “bad child/husband/wife.” If they resist, they’re castigated as “disobedient.” Guilt takes root, and they strive to internalize and live up to the family’s imposed norms—only to “fail,” because the environment blocks their capability. Often the person has little explicit memory of early unfairness.

 

• Family as a Funnel That Pours Society’s Pressure onto the Individual

Even when social conditions are harsh and options constrained, blame gets redirected to the person by family, who then berate them. Family acts like a funnel that pours societal hardship into the individual.

When one tries to name the structure—“This is environmental!”—they’re told, “Don’t blame society,” or “You’re making excuses.” Sometimes the control is more subtle and insidious.

 

• Being Cornered by a Manufactured “Reality”

Because real outcomes look poor, self-loathing deepens and people lose the power to object. The heart knows something is wrong, and ikizurasa peaks.

Even attempts to escape an unfair environment are blocked by a learned belief that one “can’t stand on their own” financially or ability-wise—like the tamed elephant tied by a thin rope—psychologically shackled from pursuing independence. 

 

Ikizurasa in the Workplace

• Squeaking, Strained Workplaces

Work depends on environment; individual power only goes so far. Over the last 20 years, meritocracy spread and blinded many to this fact. Soon, everything at work was pinned on individuals: the individualization of relations completed the sense of ikizurasa.

As organizations fray and training/mentoring functions erode, doing one’s job and getting along have both grown harder.

 

• Systemic Dysfunction Reframed as Individual Fault

In dysfunctional workplaces, mistakes multiply and negativity spikes. Individuals are blamed—and start blaming themselves. Many even wonder if they have a developmental disorder because they “fail so much.” In reality, the environment is at fault, but no one recognizes it. Every failure gets personalized.

 

• Exposed to High Stress with No Shield

In high-pressure settings, targets chase targets; even after achieving them, the goalpost moves. Fail to hit it? You’re cut. In other places, relations grow acidic; calling out problems invites “Maybe you were the problem.”

Left bare as “just an individual,” people over-manage impressions while their insides are drained.

 

• The Importance of “Belonging” and “Togetherness”

Think of when work feels meaningful—often it’s like preparing for a school festival together. Even as a freelancer, one needs felt connection—with clients or end users—to keep going. We learn work, but also how to relate to things and people; that’s how we feel part of society.

 

• The Breakdown of Work Structures

When structures crumble and the individualization of relations pins everything on you, you lose ways to relate to tasks and people. Everything becomes “your fault.” Many eventually burn out. Even those who keep working must constantly numb themselves just to sustain it until retirement.

From here, we’ll look more closely at the background of your ikizurasa.

 

 

Where the Concept of Ikizurasa Comes From

The term “ikizurasa” emerged only about 20 years ago—quite new.

A National Diet Library search shows the earliest paper bearing “ikizurasa” is from 1981, with nothing comparable until 2000. Books took up the term in earnest from the 2000s.

Journalist Tetsuya Shibui wrote online that when he began using the term in 1998, it wasn’t widespread; he had to explain or explicitly define it for editors. In other words, circa 1998 it was still a novel term.

Before then, people spoke of “suffering,” “worry,” or “hardship,” but not in terms of “ikizurasa.”

Even around the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo incident, while many youths felt dissonance with society, the phrase “ikizurasa” was not common in coverage. If it had been, debate would have erupted then. Ikizurasa gradually surfaced in the late 1990s and was fully felt from the 2000s—a social phenomenon.

*Sociologist Eiji Oguma points to the late 1960s (student movements) as the origin of “modern unhappiness,” akin to ikizurasa. Without a fitting word then, youth borrowed Marxist terms like “alienation” and “subjectivity,” tying them to politics such as the Vietnam War (source: Oguma, 1968, Shin’yōsha).

 

 

Background Factors Behind Ikizurasa

• Ikizurasa Arises in Relation to Society

Ikizurasa is not just an inner issue; it is socially structured. Especially here, it arises in relations with society (and its gateways: friends, companies, families).

 

• Not a Coincidence: Poverty, Developmental Disorders, School Refusal

These topics often appear alongside ikizurasa not by chance, but because they clearly exhibit its shared features.

 

• Multiple Background Factors

Journalism often singles out neoliberalism. While widening inequality and shocks like the Lehman crisis matter, neoliberalism is not the only cause; multiple factors intertwine.

 

 

Loss of “Work” Through Consumer Society & the Rise of Services

Consumer society took hold in Japan in the mid-1970s, blossomed in the 1980s, and peaked in the bubble. Why is that a problem? Because it correlates with the loss of “work” from everyday life.

• Consumption Makes People Lonely

Playwright Tsuneari Fukuda famously said, “Human beings can only truly associate through production; consumption isolates us.” (1961). His foresight has gained recognition over time.

He also wrote: “Today, couples prize ‘spiritual understanding’ or sex and streamline all household ‘production’ as mere chores. What remains? They’ve lost the occasions and means to truly associate.” In short, “production” means work. Humans relate to others through work.

 

• Humans Relate Through Work

In the past, home and work were entwined; appliances were limited; many tasks required human hands. The gestures and forms of work enabled communication—even for the quiet or awkward. This included nonverbal, embodied ways of relating.

Without shared work, even ordinary people struggle to communicate sufficiently.

 

• Losing Work, We Lost Ways to Associate

Look at a typical weekend: one can get by without talking to anyone. Without deliberately creating roles through hobbies or volunteering, there’s hardly a reason to approach others.

Consumption alone—without roles—deprives us of ways to relate. The problem with consumerization is that work got cut as “mere chores,” and we lost “occasions and means” to associate.

 

• The Non-Standardization of Work

Meanwhile, services expanded not only in numbers but in logic: even traditional sectors shifted from hardware/skills to invisible software. Formerly, “sales is X,” “clerical is Y”—roles were definable. Now, definitions blur; everyone must do everything. While IT progressed, overtime grew because work became undefined and unbounded.

Reference: Fukuda, “On the Consumer Boom,” in Collected Essays 16 (Reitaku University Press).

 

 

Rapid Rise in College Enrollment, Decline of Liberal Education, and Thinner Corporate Training

• A Sharp Rise in University Attendance

Japan’s college enrollment rose from ~25% in 1990 to about 60% in 2023. That’s structurally unusual: more graduates than society practically needs. Many who might have learned skilled trades instead enter universities, only to graduate into roles unrelated to their studies.

 

• The Decline of Liberal Education

“Liberal education”—as historian Kinya Abe puts it—means not ornamental knowledge but an internalized awareness of how one stands in relation to society (source: Abe, What Is Liberal Education?).

 

• Youth Thrown into Society Unarmored

As liberal studies eroded in the 1990s, many more students entered society without acquiring “forms” or “ways of relating.” After the bubble burst, firms slashed training and demanded immediate value. Instead of nurturing rookies like family, companies sought finished products. New grads found themselves alone among veterans, with few near-senior “older siblings” to show them the ropes.

Temp workers likewise drifted through easily replaceable roles, assumed capable from day one and cut in downturns.

With less training and more nonstandard work, “naked” interpersonal skills were demanded over acquired craft and forms.

 

 

Unemployment and Globalization

Post-Lehman, unemployment surged. Globalization made lives precarious via distant events beyond our voice. People were condemned for “personal failure” amid macro shocks.

 

 

Nuclear Families and Thinning Human Ties

• “The fewer people we can depend on, the more we submit.”

Nuclear families and thinner ties matter because, as Prof. Ayumu Yasutomi notes, when dependency options shrink, submission increases. Formerly, people relied on many—family, neighbors. With fewer ties, people become more subordinate within a narrow relationship, heightening the risk of being controlled by a “harasser.” The rise of “toxic parents” and moral harassment reflects this.

Those raised in such dynamics may later accept unfair workplaces as “normal,” falling under harassers’ sway. The spread of “black companies” feeds on this.

 

• Thus Ikizurasa Emerges

Society is meant to be related to through work. Yet many can’t find work; or, once working, they face nonstandard roles without mediating structures. Without the garment of liberal education, they stand bare and cannot keep up; maladaptation results.

Meanwhile, with fewer relationships to lean on, people over-adapt to others, ironically creating conditions ripe for harassment.

Given this, feeling ikizurasa can be a normal reaction. Not feeling it may simply reflect fortunate circumstances.

 

 

Neoliberalism and the Individualization of Relations

• Neoliberalism Accelerates Individualization

Neoliberalism shrinks the state and exalts markets and competition, presuming free, responsible individuals. But “free individuals” are a myth; humans are largely shaped by environment. Academic achievement and corporate performance track context (family income, department conditions) far more than individual merit.

 

• What “Individualization of Relations” Means

Psychology also recognizes “free will” more as belief than fact; people are “sediments of external inputs.” Despite environment accounting for the lion’s share, anything becomes a “-skill” and is blamed on the individual. Sociologist Rie Kido calls this the individualization of relations: locating cause in the person when it rightly belongs in environment/relationships.

 

• Society’s Problems Poured into the Individual Like a Funnel

As we’ve seen, many forces—modernization, consumerization (loss of work), service-ization, nonstandard work, downturns, the decline of liberal education, nuclear families, globalization—converge. Individualization is terrifying because it funnels these huge forces into a single person and blames them.

 

• Getting Blamed Without Knowing It

Case by case, “personal responsibility” sounds plausible. Even sufferers don’t perceive the background. Name it, and you’re told “That’s an excuse.” Try to change things alone, and the structural forces defeat you; you spiral into self-blame. No wonder people say, “I don’t know what to do.”

We’re made to “own” what isn’t ours—so of course life feels hard.

 

Other Contexts Vary by Position

The above are major factors; specifics differ by social position—especially for minorities. But the structure remains: environmental problems get individualized, producing ikizurasa.

 

 

 

How “Individualization of Relations” Is Brought In by People Close to Us

Where does individualization come from? Government? Companies? Society? Yes—but often it enters through those closest to us, like parents or partners who have internalized social values.

• The Creed of “Personal Responsibility” and Harassing Communication

We ourselves believe deeply in personal responsibility. “In the end it’s on you,” “Blaming society solves nothing.” Family and partners, acting from that creed, employ harassing communication to impose individualization.

Harassing communication, explained elsewhere, uses double binds to force one’s values on another, disrupting their bond with their own heart and with society.

 

• The Spell of “It’s Your Fault”

When we feel ikizurasa and freeze, people around us send the message, “It’s your fault, right?” Even if we intuit it’s wrong, we can’t counterargue. Say the environment is the issue, and they escalate: “Stop making excuses,” “Blaming environment shows weak character.” Our intuition gets suppressed; we turn the blame inward.

 

• Second Harassment When We Seek Help

There’s also “second harassment”: we confide in someone and hear, “That’s just how the world is,” or “Everyone endures.” The attempt to name the issue gets framed as the issue.

 

• The Completion of Ikizurasa

Thus ties with others get severed, inquiry into root causes is blocked, and ikizurasa is completed:

• No allies; no one believes me.
• I’m prevented from seeing real causes.
• No escape.

Ikizurasa consists of: (1) environmental/social problems being individualized; (2) ties with close others being cut; and (3) inquiry into causes being stifled.

Because “personal responsibility” is so entrenched, escaping ikizurasa requires recognizing, and relativizing, the unfairness. Support is often necessary—but hard to find.

 

 

 

Even Counselors Aren’t Fully Free from the “Personal Responsibility” Creed

Even helping professionals may not be free of the “it’s on you” creed, nor fully aware of ikizurasa’s structure.

Counselors try to empathize and appear accepting, but as people shaped by society, many still think “ultimately it’s personal responsibility.” They can’t truly understand clients’ suffering, grow irritated when change doesn’t happen, and slip into blaming.

Conversely, if one grasps the structure, one can truly understand—and clients, seeing the background, can resist and stop blaming themselves.

But this structure is hard to notice alone; good support is hard to find. That it’s hidden, hard to articulate, and hard to consult about is itself a feature of ikizurasa.

 

 

People Who Feel Ikizurasa Are Often Overly Social, Not Lacking Social Skills

Those with ikizurasa are often viewed as “spoiled,” “maladapted,” or “lacking social skills”—and they often see themselves that way, with low confidence. But in reality, it’s often the opposite.

Sociologist Rie Kido notes that those feeling ikizurasa are, if anything, excessively social (source: Kido, Before You Worry You ‘Lack Communication Skills’).

 

• “Excess Sociality” That Produces Ikizurasa

In social theory (e.g., Mead), social self emerges as “seeing oneself as others see you.” Those with ikizurasa are earnest and internalize others’ gaze, turning it into harsh self-critique; this very sociality immobilizes them and erodes confidence.

If the surrounding “expectation” is “You’re a failure,” then by internalizing that gaze, the person loyally enacts it. If sociality is “seeing oneself as others see you,” those with ikizurasa possess it in spades.

Far from “spoiled,” they have endured harsher conditions by having environmental problems individualized onto them. Ikizurasa stems not from lack of sociality but from its excess.

 

• What’s Needed Is to Soften “Excess Sociality” and Know You Are Already Okay

Over-accepting others’ gaze, they freeze. What’s called for is softening that excess. Society’s message is the reverse: “Don’t be soft,” “Develop social skills.” That’s painful.

We once consulted with a family about a young person who was semi-withdrawn. The person seemed highly sensitive. The family wanted “counseling to build social skills,” but our counselor replied, “Counseling isn’t needed.”

Why? The young person had already internalized others’ gaze and was suffering enough. It wasn’t a lack of sociality but excess—what was missing was family understanding and the message: “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Forcing counseling might have conveyed, “You’re a person who needs counseling ≈ you’re abnormal,” a negative message. The counselor said, “Do nothing—just hold in your heart that they’re okay.” They recovered without counseling.

To resolve ikizurasa, recognize that you’ve been immobilized by individualized relations—and soften the “excess sociality.”

 

 

How to Overcome Ikizurasa

First, learn the structure of ikizurasa and know it’s not your fault. That lets you externalize the environmental pressure funneled onto you.

Also, notice the “common sense” and norms you’ve internalized. You’ll see that defining yourself as “a bad person” wasn’t truth but coercion.

If your environment is harmful, consider plans—however gradual—to leave. Resisting environment is hard. For some, that means a transfer; for others, changing jobs, marriage, or divorce.

If you feel compulsively attached to certain norms or environments, trauma (e.g., guilt) may be at play; address it.

When you can feel that your authentic self is fine as-is and live by your own heart, you can become free of ikizurasa.

 

 

→ Related Articles

▶ What Is Harassment (Moral Harassment)?—Causes and Features

▶ Coping with Moral Harassment—Six Key Points

▶ What Are Trauma (Developmental Trauma), PTSD/Complex PTSD? Causes and Symptoms

 

*If you wish to reprint or otherwise use any content on this site, please credit the site name as the source or include a link.

(References)

Rie Kido, Before You Worry You “Lack Communication Skills” (Iwanami)

Yuki Honda, Pluralizing “Ability” and Japanese Society (NTT Publishing)

Yuki Honda, A Squeaking Society—Education, Work, Youth Today

Tsuneari Fukuda, “On the Consumer Boom,” Collected Essays 16 (Reitaku University Press)

Ayumu Yasutomi, Techniques for Living (Seitosha)

Ayumu Yasutomi & Seiichiro Honjo, Harassment Is Contagious (Kobunsha)

Nobuyori Oshima, People Who Get Controlled (Aoyama Life Publishing)

Kinya Abe, What Is Liberal Education? (Kodansha)

Eiji Oguma, 1968 (Shin’yōsha)

Ichitaro Miki, Developmental Trauma: The Real Face of “Ikizurasa” (Discover Keisho)

etc.