PhronesisToxic positivity — the systematic suppression of negative affect through forced optimism and the invalidation of genuine suffering — is here formally reconceptualized as a wrong attractor W_TP in the landscape of authentic emotional range. The healthy ground state S^0 is defined as authentic emotional range: the capacity to experience and express the full spectrum of human affect without suppression or forced reframing, while retaining genuine access to positive affect.
Three interlocking mechanisms maintain the basin: the negativity-as-failure belief (negative emotions experienced as evidence of wrong thinking or moral failure — producing powerful motivation to eliminate rather than process them), the social reinforcement loop (toxic positivity is socially rewarded while genuine suffering expression meets discomfort or redirection — training suppression), and the processing-prevention function (chronic forced reframing prevents emotional metabolism — suppressed grief becomes somatic symptoms, suppressed anger becomes passive aggression).
The authenticity collapse is central: toxic positivity systematically destroys genuine positive affect over time — forced positivity is experienced as hollow, and genuine joy requires the capacity for genuine sorrow. Nine formal propositions characterize the mandatory-cheerfulness basin, the three mechanisms, authenticity collapse, developmental roots, distinction from healthy optimism, relational cost through invalidation of others' suffering, and return paths through validation and emotional processing.