PhronesisThe displacement framework defines a unified language for any system maintained away from its ground state: S^0 (ground state), (displacement), D() 0 (instantaneous cost), and = D()\,dt (accumulated displacement cost). Psychology has long lacked a common metric that spans phenomena as distinct as trauma, flow, loneliness, and burnout. We argue that the displacement framework provides exactly this: ground states operationalize psychological health, displacement operationalizes the direction and magnitude of disturbance, accumulated cost measures cumulative burden, and the return path defines the direction of therapeutic change.
This paper is organized as a directory — by domain — of how the framework applies across clinical, sport, developmental, social, and neuropsychological contexts. Each entry specifies the ground state S^0, the displacement, the cost function D(), the canonical return path, and where applicable the irreversibility condition (DC5). The directory is intended as a reference and generative scaffold: each entry is a research program compressed to its essential structure.
Sport and performance psychology receives extended treatment as the domain where the framework's predictive precision is sharpest.