PhronesisChronic self-editing is the compulsive interposition of a revision layer between impulse and expression: one filters before speaking, rewrites before writing, and ultimately learns to anticipate the filter so thoroughly that spontaneous first-voice output is suppressed before it is even generated. Within the displacement framework, this pattern constitutes a wrong attractor W_ edit — a stable loop in which each editing act produces momentary anxiety relief but increases the perceived necessity of the next editing act, progressively narrowing the basin of authentic expression.
We define the state S^0 (ground state: full-contact, unfiltered presence), the displacement field D() (departure from S^0 at configuration), and the accumulated cost = D()\,dt (total displacement load). We then model chronic self-editing as a dynamical system that drives monotonically upward while locking the speaker into an authentic-expression foreclosure basin from which exits require explicit permission structures, not mere willpower.
Nine formal propositions characterize the attractor geometry, basin shape, and exit conditions. We conclude with the concept of calibrated first-voice: not unfiltered expression, but expression in which the filter is calibrated to the actual signal rather than to imagined threat. Clinical and practical implications span social anxiety, writer's block, imposter syndrome, and chronic self-censorship under perceived evaluation.