ABSTRACT
In the seventh chapter, the globalization of social isolation is detailed, arguing that hikikomori is not limited to Japan and not solely related to Japanese culture. Second, a brief overview of French hikikomori studies is provided, including accounts by a mother and a 25-year-old male. Third, a case study of a binational hikikomori, Misaki, and her parents, is presented using the most recent and stringent methodological tools of transcultural research: the Cultural Formulation Interview-informant version as well as the McGill Illness Narrative Interview. Recommendations and ways of rethinking social isolation are proposed. Overall, hikikomori resists medicalization and does not meet coherent and consistent criteria for being described as a spectrum in the psychiatric sense (i.e., Hikikomori Spectrum Disorder). Rather, it should be seen as a psychosocial condition. The chapter concludes with 20 lessons on hikikomori.
