is a Japanese medical researcher and a

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

. He is currently the director of the Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation,

National Institute of Mental Health The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primar ...

, Japan. Ito's research interests include

Assertive Community Treatment Assertive community treatment (ACT) is an intensive and highly integrated approach for community mental health service delivery. ACT teams serve individuals who have been diagnosed with serious and persistent forms of mental illness, predominantly ...

and assistance programs for socially withdrawn individuals, called

hikikomori ''Hikikomori'' (, "pulling inward, being confined") are reclusive adolescents or adults who withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement. The term refers to both the sociological phenomenon in gener ...

Biography

Ito was born in Tokyo in 1954. He graduated from the faculty of Medicine at the

Chiba University is a national university in the city of Chiba, Chiba, Chiba, Japan. It offers doctoral degrees in education as part of a coalition with Tokyo Gakugei University, Saitama University, and Yokohama National University. The university was formed in ...

with the degree of

Bachelor of Medicine A Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (; MBBS, also abbreviated as BM BS, MB ChB, MB BCh, or MB BChir) is a medical degree granted by medical schools or universities in countries that adhere to the United Kingdom's higher education tradi ...

in 1980. He was, then, appointed to Assistant (equivalent to

Assistant Professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

ship in North America) of the Department of Psychiatry at the Chiba University Hospital in 1984. He further became an Assistant of the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine, Chiba University in 1992. In 1994, he left Chiba University for a division chair of a research division in the Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation,

. In 1998, he completed a doctoral dissertation entitled, "Distribution of EE and Its Relationship to Relapse in Japan," and earned a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in Psychiatry and Neurology from Chiba University. He was promoted to the director of the Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation in 2000. Ito is also a founding co-chair of the Board of Directors of Community Mental Health & Welfare Bonding Organization, an authorized NPO entity aiming to improve wellbeing of persons with mental disabilities.

References

"ITO Junichiro." ''Directory Database of Research and Development Activities.'' Tokyo. Retrieved on 1 Mar. 2009. Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20090825175208/http://read.jst.go.jp/index_e.html. 1954 births Living people Chiba University alumni Academic staff of Chiba University {{japan-med-bio-stub