PhronesisGenuine altruism — helping others from care and abundance — is prosocial and adaptive. Pathological altruism (Oakley et al. 2012) is a wrong attractor W_altruism in which helping behavior is driven not by genuine care for the other but by the helper's own psychological needs: relief from guilt, escape from one's own pain, regulation of anxiety, or identity maintenance. The pathological altruist harms others through misguided helping while believing they act from selfless love.
The key distinction: genuine altruism serves the other's actual needs; pathological altruism serves the helper's own needs through the other. We apply the Displacement Framework to formalize pathological altruism. The balanced prosociality ground state S0_prosocial is defined via Batson's empathic concern (other-focused) vs. personal distress (self-focused) distinction. W_altruism is maintained through the helper's high trap (Luks & Payne 1991 — neurobiological reward from helping becomes primary driver; as tolerance develops more helping needed for same reward, structurally parallel to substance use) and empathic distress substitution (Batson — personal distress pathway activated; one's own distress drives action labeled as helping).
Nine formal propositions cover: S0_prosocial as balanced prosociality (P1), W_altruism as other-directed escape wrong attractor (P2), the helper's high trap (P3), empathic distress substitution (P4), enabling and fostering dependence via Karpman's drama triangle (P5), the guilt-driven altruist and codependency overlap (P6), organizational and systemic pathological altruism including White saviorism (P7), cumulative Phi_altruism across helper, recipient, relational, and systemic domains (P8), and return paths including Batson's distinction training, motivational interviewing, and wise compassion (P9).