This paper proposes a specific mechanism for how diagnostic identity fusion ("I am depressed" rather than "I experience depression") constrains psychological capacity, and how three processes integrated simultaneously may restore what the framework calls identity flexibility. The structural observation: when diagnosis fuses with self-concept, the psychological space needed to imagine alternatives collapses. The wound-identified self lacks access to psychological resources needed to transform, not because those resources do not exist, but because the identity structure prevents access. The framework emerged through documented emergence from severe treatment-resistant depression and proposes three processes operating together: shadow work (meeting present experience without diagnostic collapse), meaning-making (extracting wisdom from difficulty), and empowerment work (recognizing functioning capacity). The proposed mechanism is recognition rather than building: breaking identification with a wound does not create capacity but reveals capacity that was already present. Language precision operates as a structural variable in this process. The paper includes a practical daily protocol, testable predictions about how three-process integration compares with single-process approaches, and explicit limitations including the framework's origin in lived experience rather than controlled research. This is offered as a hypothesis-generating contribution inviting empirical investigation, refinement, or falsification.
Vaz Sriharan (Mon,) studied this question.