PhronesisWe apply the Displacement Framework to prolonged grief disorder (PGD), formalizing it as entrapment in a bereavement wrong attractor characterized by oscillation failure between loss-orientation and restoration-orientation. The bereavement ground state S°_bereaved is defined not as a return to pre-loss functioning but as a new integrated configuration in which loss is metabolized, continuing bonds are maintained, and fluid oscillation between grief-work and restored-life engagement is possible.
Normal adaptive grief follows the Dual Process Model (Stroebe and Schut): the LO↔RO oscillation constitutes the return path, progressively reducing D(ξ_loss) over 12-18 months. PGD is formally defined as oscillation failure: W_grief = {ξ: ξ ≈ ξ_acute-loss, D(ξ) ≫ 0, ∂_t ξ ≈ 0}, a wrong attractor in which acute grief is preserved without integration. Nine formal propositions are derived covering: grief as the return path rather than displacement from S°; PGD as loss-orientation entrapment; approach behaviors (rumination, compulsive memory-seeking) as wrong-attractor maintenance; avoidance behaviors as basin-deepening barriers; counterfactual loops as non-acceptance maintenance; insecure attachment and absent alternative figures as basin-depth risk factors; Shear's Complicated Grief Treatment as forced oscillation therapy; meaning reconstruction (Neimeyer) as S°_bereaved construction; and the medicalization controversy resolved by the oscillation-failure criterion.
The framework distinguishes PGD from MDD and PTSD and clarifies why each requires a different return path. Core insight: grief is not displacement from S°; grief is the path. PGD is what happens when the path closes.