I have been commissioned by Phoenix Publishing House (formerly Karnac Books) to edit a scholarly volume comprising psychoanalytic studies of the phenomenon known in Japan (but emergent all over the world) as hikikomori, or severe social withdrawal / shut-in syndrome, which afflicts individuals for periods extending up to several years.
I have studied hikikomori, isolation, and solitude for several years now and have written specifically about hikikomori in my book, Ideologies of Experience, and in an article recently published in the Journal of Psychosocial Studies.
Matthew H. Bowker, Ph.D. 