WOUND THEORY
“People don’t just believe things. They cling to them for survival.”Wound Theory isn’t about blame. It’s about truth. This is where politics, cybersecurity, and psychology converge to explain why people cling to pain—and how we start to heal it.
What Is Wound Theory?
Wound Theory is a trauma-informed framework that explores how emotional repression, shame, and insecure attachment shape political identity, online behavior, and susceptibility to manipulation.It bridges insights from psychology, cybersecurity, and political science to explain why we fuse with leaders—not just ideologically, but emotionally.
Emotional clarity is the foundation of societal clarity.
“When logic fails, emotion leads. Wound Theory helps us understand why.”
Eric Conklin is a cybersecurity professional and independent researcher whose work bridges emotional psychology, political identity, and digital behavior. With a background in red teaming and adversary emulation, he has spent years studying not just how systems are breached—but why people fall for the breach.His development of Wound Theory grew out of a lifelong curiosity about human behavior and a drive to uncover the emotional roots of identity, leadership loyalty, and societal dysfunction. Drawing from trauma-informed psychology, attachment theory, and lived experience, Eric explores how unhealed emotional wounds shape everything from politics to phishing.He is currently sharing this framework with psychologists, researchers, and security professionals to spark new conversations across disciplines.“Understanding behavior starts with understanding pain — and from there, we can build clarity, safety, and truth.”