PhronesisChronic over-responsibility for others' feelings — the pattern in which all negative emotional states present in a shared environment are automatically attributed to the self as cause, regardless of actual causal contribution — is here analyzed as a wrong attractor W_CROF in the state space of relational self-regulation. The healthy ground state S0 is calibrated emotional responsibility: the capacity to take appropriate ownership of one's actual emotional impact while accurately distinguishing others' independent emotional states.
The distinguishing feature of W_CROF is a standing causal attribution error rather than a motivational one: the person does not merely want to help with others' pain; they structurally believe they caused it. Three reinforcing mechanisms sustain the attractor: emotional climate attribution (all negative affect in the shared environment is read as originating from the self's action or inaction); preemptive emotional management (to prevent the generation of others' distress, the person monitors and manages their own behavior compulsively); and a guilt-confirmation loop that renders the belief structure unfalsifiable (any attempt to relax management is met with normal environmental negative affect, which is read as confirmation that management was necessary).
Nine formal propositions establish the geometry of the attractor, the structural paradox by which the pattern generates the very relational harm it attempts to prevent, and return paths through calibrated attribution practice, IFS work, somatic differentiation, and graduated non-management exposure.