Codependency as Other-Focused-Self Wrong Attractor: A Displacement Framework Analysis

This paper applies the Displacement Framework to codependency, analysing it as a wrong-attractor state in which the subject's sense of self, worth, and groundedness is organized around managing, fixing, or enabling another person. Using displacement cost D(ξ), accumulated displacement Φ, and basin geometry, we show how the subject's own needs are systematically subordinated not from generosity but from identity-maintenance, elevating the displacement cost of self-attention.

Nine formal propositions characterise the self-abdication mechanism, caretaking as meaning-making, enabling as basin maintenance, the role of parentification and attachment wounding, and return paths through Al-Anon, DBT, and Bowenian differentiation work. Published as part of The Phronesis Issues preprint series.