Chronic Catastrophizing as Worst-Case Simulation Wrong Attractor: The Threat-Probability Distortion Architecture, Simulation-as-Preparation Basin, and the Return to Calibrated Probability Assessment

Chronic catastrophizing—the compulsive generation of vivid worst-case scenarios from ambiguous or mildly negative stimuli—is reconceptualised within the Displacement Framework as a wrong attractor W_CCZ in the landscape of threat-appraisal cognition, structurally opposed to the healthy ground state S^0_ccz: calibrated probability assessment, the capacity to notice genuine threats, evaluate their likelihood accurately, take proportionate action, and return to baseline engagement rather than dwelling in simulated catastrophe.

Three interlocking mechanisms sustain the attractor: (1) threat-probability distortion, in which the threat-detection system is chronically calibrated toward worst-case outcomes, processing low-probability bad events as if they were likely, without this being experienced as distortion; (2) simulation-as-preparation belief, in which generating vivid mental simulations of catastrophic outcomes is experienced as prudent preparation— “if I imagine the worst, I won't be caught off guard”—while the preparation it supposedly enables is rarely actually undertaken; and (3) catastrophe-arrest compulsion, in which once a catastrophic scenario is generated, the person cannot voluntarily exit it; repeated attempts to stop thinking about it increase preoccupation through ironic process effects; the catastrophe loops.

The central formal result is the Catastrophe Paradox: chronic catastrophizing reliably produces the harm it is organized to prevent, because sustained activation from chronic worst-case simulation degrades the cognitive and physiological resources that would be required to respond to an actual threat. Nine propositions formalise the architecture of W_CCZ, its developmental roots in genuinely unpredictable early environments where hypervigilance was adaptive, its distinction from ordinary worry and from appropriate risk assessment, and the return paths available through probability calibration practice, simulation-interruption techniques, and Internal Family Systems work on the catastrophizer and the safety exile.