PhronesisShame is an adaptive social emotion that signals violation of community standards. Chronic shame is a wrong attractor W_shame in which the person's self-concept is captured in a stable 'defective self' configuration — not 'I did something bad' (guilt) but 'I am bad' (shame). We apply the Displacement Framework to formalize chronic shame. The healthy self-evaluation ground state S0_self is defined as a self-concept capable of acknowledging mistakes, experiencing proportionate guilt, making repair, and returning to basic okayness.
W_shame arises when shame-eliciting experiences generate not episodic behavior-condemnation but structural self-condemnation — a character-level wrong-attractor identity. Nine formal propositions cover: S0_self as self-concept with basic okayness (P1), W_shame as defective self wrong attractor (P2), the hiding imperative — shame-concealment as basin-deepening mechanism (P3), the shame-hiding loop — a formally coupled system where concealment → isolation → amplified shame → deeper concealment (P4), bypassed shame — unconscious shame generating rage, contempt, and grandiosity as defenses (P5), developmental origins — attachment-based shame experiences constructing W_shame self-concept (P6), narcissism as shame defense — grandiosity as counterphobic W_narcissism relative to W_shame (P7), cumulative Phi_shame across psychological, relational, behavioral, somatic, and suicidality domains (P8), and return paths including self-compassion (Neff), shame resilience (Brown), schema therapy, group disclosure, and Complex PTSD developmental work (P9).
Body shame, cultural shame, the shame-pride axis, and Nathanson's Compass of Shame are analyzed.