Childhood Emotional Neglect as Invisible-Wound Wrong Attractor: The Absence Injury, Emotional Hunger Architecture, and Return Paths Through Self-Validation and Earned Security

Childhood emotional neglect (CEN)—the systematic absence of emotional attunement in caregiving—is here formally reconceptualized as a wrong attractor W_CEN in the landscape of emotional development. Unlike trauma, CEN leaves no visible mark: it is constituted entirely by what was absent rather than what was done. The healthy ground state S^0_CEN is defined as emotionally attuned caregiving: the caregiver perceives, names, validates, and responds to the child's internal states, building emotional vocabulary and a self-concept grounded in authentic affect.

W_CEN arises through an absence injury mechanism: systematic non-response teaches the child that emotions are unreal, unimportant, or dangerous, producing characteristic adult patterns of emotional numbness, self-neglect, and identity confusion. Nine formal propositions characterize the basin self-concealment property, emotional hunger as unnamed drive state, shame-based self-concept formation, transgenerational transmission, and return paths through schema therapy, compassion-focused therapy, and earned security.