Hoarding Disorder as Acquisition Wrong Attractor: Possessions as Displaced Security, Discarding as Return-Path Terror, and the Basin Geometry of Accumulation

We apply the Displacement Framework to hoarding disorder, formalizing it as a wrong attractor W_hoard maintained by an asymmetry: acquisition cost D(ξ_acquire) ≪ wrong-attractor cost D(ξ_hoard) ≪ discarding cost D(ξ_release). Each acquisition briefly reduces underlying displacement D(ξ_security) — providing simulated return to S°_security from four sources (insecurity, grief, identity fusion, perfectionism) — but does not address the source displacement, ensuring continued accumulation.

The discarding terror is the exit barrier: releasing possessions triggers D(ξ_release) disproportionate to actual cost through four mechanisms (anticipated regret, retrieval-confirmation dynamics, identity loss, catastrophization). Nine formal propositions are derived covering the acquisition-hoarding-release cost hierarchy, acquisition as simulated return from underlying displacement, exit barrier growth dynamics, three structural subtypes (squalor, animal hoarding, compulsive buying), saving-for-later rationalization as displacement-cost inflation, the OCD-HD distinction (ego-syntonic vs. ego-dystonic basin architecture predicting treatment resistance differences), social isolation as positive-feedback loop deepening W_hoard, and CBT-H (motivational interviewing, graduated exposure, cognitive restructuring) as systematic return-path unblocking by reducing D(ξ_release).