Psychoanalytic psychotherapies and the free energy principle

Abstract

In this paper I propose a model of the fundamental components of psychoanalytic psychotherapies that I try to explicate with contemporary theories of the Bayesian brain and the Free Energy Principle (FEP). I first show that psychoanalytic therapies require a setting (made up of several envelopes), a particular psychic state and specific processes (transference, free association, dreaming, play, reflexivity and narrativity) in order to induce psychic transformations. I then analyze how these processes of transformations operate and how they can be enlightened by the FEP. I first underline the fact that psychoanalytic therapies imply non-linear processes taking time to unfold and require a setting containing high entropy processes. More precisely, these processes are characterized by an interplay between extension and reduction of free energy. This interplay also favors the emergence of new orders of subjective experience, which occur following states of disorder, according to a certain energetic threshold allowing the modification and improvement of mental functioning. These high entropy states are also characterized by random functioning and psychic malleability which favors the exploration of subjective experience in an original manner. Overall, the approach proposed in this paper support the dialogue between psychoanalysis and other fields of research while underlining how psychoanalytical theoretical and conceptual constructs can also be useful to other disciplines, in particular the neurosciences of subjectivity.

Neural correlates of psychodynamic and non-psychodynamic therapies in different clinical populations through fMRI: A meta-analysis and systematic review

“…Patients with major depression showed increased activity following psychological therapy while healthy subjects have shown decreased activity at the follow up scan. In our current result, we found the involvement of the dorsal ACC, part of the salience network, implicated with emotional processing and the supramarginal gyrus, part of the DN, which plays a role in the therapeutic process (Cieri, 2022 ; Rabeyron, 2022 ). The poor specificity of our study (disorders and therapies) and the relatively small sample size could be among the reasons why the ACC did not survive multiple comparisons correction.…”

“…If subjectivity is given more consideration by clinicians, therapists, and scientists involved in individual-differences level research, using a meta-analytic approach, a compromise between quantity (sample size) and quality (subjectivity) might be more reasonably reached. Such a compromise would meet the need to reinforce an already existing bridge between neuroscience and psychoanalysis, a process yearned for by psychoanalysts and neuroscientists alike over the last 20 years, and started by Freud more than a century ago (Kandel, 1999 , 2016 ; Kaplan-Solms and Solms, 2000 ; Solms and Turnbull, 2002 ; Carhart-Harris and Friston, 2010 ; Boeker et al, 2013 ; de Greck et al, 2013 ; Scalabrini et al, 2018 ; Solms, 2018 , 2021 ; Cieri and Esposito, 2019 ; Cieri et al, 2021 ; Northoff and Scalabrini, 2021 ; Rabeyron, 2021 , 2022 ; Cieri, 2022 ).…”

Friston, Free Energy, and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

“…In pursuit of this problem, the free energy principle (FEP) and active inference have been brought to bear on CBT [5] and a less well-known therapeutic modality, coherence therapy [6]. Others [7][8][9][10] have considered FEP in relation to psychoanalytic work. This speculative non-systematic review is a non-mathematical and possibly naive attempt to show how Karl Friston's ideas can help unravel the thorny issue of psychoanalytic psychotherapy's 'mechanisms of action'.…”

Hyperactivity of the default mode network in schizophrenia and free energy: A dialogue between Freudian theory of psychosis and neuroscience

“…But the FEP does not only constitute an epistemological focus in the interdisciplinary dialogue. It also opens onto important clinical applications in the field of psychopathology (Rabeyron, 2022 ).…”