PhronesisCompulsive over-disclosure is formalized as a wrong attractor W_COD within the displacement framework: the pattern of sharing personal information in quantities and depths that exceed what the relationship, context, and relational stage warrant, organized around the intimacy-through-information equation — the belief that sharing more personal material produces more genuine connection.
The healthy ground state S0 is calibrated self-disclosure: building intimacy through reciprocal gradual revelation. Three mechanisms sustain the over-disclosure basin: the information-as-intimacy equation (depth of connection is understood as proportional to volume and intimacy of disclosed material; this leads to rapid disclosure escalation that bypasses the gradual reciprocal trust-building that actual intimacy requires); disclosure-as-authenticity performance (over-disclosure is experienced as radical honesty or courageous vulnerability; the receiver experiences it differently — as boundary violation, burdening, or relational demand); and contact-through-revelation compulsion (genuine contact is experienced as requiring maximum disclosure; this prevents the discovery that contact is available through presence and listening rather than information transfer).
The Disclosure Paradox states: compulsive over-disclosure reliably prevents the genuine intimacy it is organized to produce; rapid deep disclosure creates distance — the receiver feels overwhelmed, objectified as a container for information, and the relationship is structurally prevented from developing earned depth. Nine formal propositions characterize the attractor, with developmental roots in enmeshed family systems and attachment anxiety.
Return paths include disclosure calibration practice, presence-based contact experiments, and IFS work on the discloser and connection exile.