@icekatze—
To say that a psychological method focusses upon things that can be done in a short amount of time does not contradict a claim that some specific task cannot be done in a short amount of time.
You're right that perceived disorder is not dichotomous, but you miss the proper application of that point here. And your introduction of what philosophers call “the problem of heaps” is not helpful; while there is not a well-defined line separating living spaces that are considered to be in reasonably good order from those that are considered to be in poor order, there certainly are spaces about which few would feel or express concern.
I have encountering many people who don't won a great many things (which precludes their being classified as having a hoarding disorder) but struggle greatly to get their things in order. Rather that hoarding disorder, this problem can be a result of
learned helplessness, which as it happens
would perfectly conform to what we know of one of the characters. When I encounter someone who, as an adult, seems unable to keep his or her living space in order, I ask about how that person's parents responded to his or her efforts as a child to clean his or her room. With only one exception, the people whom I've asked have reported that his or her parent would always respond “I don't see any difference.” A parent inculcated a sense of
futility. There are people who manage to own rather a lot of things without chaos, and then don't get classified as having hoarding disorder; my guess is that a lot of cases of learned helpless are misdiagnosed as hoarding disorder.
(The aforementioned one exception said that she was just never shown how to clean her space, because her parents paid little attention to her.)
There isn't an “either” separating cases of stress from those of compartmentalization; the latter is likely a result of the former. It's a given that these two women are, each in her own way, compartmentalized, though the compartment in which Uno is most successful is that of personal appearance and she seems to be in trouble everywhere else. Plausibly, some of the stress that Uno feels and that Satou may possibly feel has been relieved by the personal connection that the two have made, but much of the stress would largely still be there, and it remains implausible that both would get her living space in order that evening.
And, yes, this discussion is not fun.
EDIT (I should have made this point earlier; I plead fatigue.)
: It's important to distinguish
order from
boxed chaos. If one cannot quickly locate anything, then things are not in order. Preparing to move or making things look acceptable for guests often results in greater disorder.