The Devil You Know: The Free Energy Principle And Psychotherapy
Ideas of active inference and free energy minimisation applied to human relations and psychotherapy. A unifying framework for all therapies?
(Perception as prediction in optical illusions: transparency effect and Kanizsa's triangle.)
Take a good look at the pictures above. Do you see the light blue circle in the first one? And the triangle(s) in the second? Yes? And yet they are not really there. They don’t exist.
In the first image, only the lines are cyan; there is no actual circle. In the second, there is no triangle, its presence merely suggested by the surrounding shapes. In both cases, our brain fills in the gaps, constructing what it predicts to be the most likely visual ‘reality’ in front of us.
By showing you this, I hope to prime your mind for what’s to come: a story about the brain, not as a device that perceives reality directly, but as one that predicts what reality might be based on what we already expect about the world.
When I was first introduced to the idea of active inference in the context of the human attachment system*, I only grasped it on a superficial level and didn’t quite see what all the fuss was about. On one hand, it felt like a bit of a truism; on the other, it seemed unnecessarily lofty, abstract and frankly inapplicable to what I was actually interested in: psychotherapy. It came wrapped in concepts that sounded like they belonged in a course on Lagrangian algebra for statistical mechanics. Or information theory. Free energy. Entropy. That sort of thing.
At any rate, it had nothing to do with me. Or so I thought.
But lo and behold, the idea wouldn’t leave me. It was sticky. I started seeing how the principle applied to everything. Including therapy.
Plato's Cave
A good place to start might be Plato's cave. In this classic allegory Plato presents a thought experiment:
Imagine you are living in a cave, unable to turn your head, forever forced to look straight ahead at the cave wall. Meanwhile, ‘reality’ unfolds outside, but since you cannot see it directly, you can only guess what is happening based on the shadows cast on the wall. Your entire life is spent making these guesses because, as far as you are concerned, the shadows on the wall and inferences you make based on them are the only ‘reality’ you will ever know.
Active Inference: the Brain Is an Organic Predictive Device
Now our brain is a little bit like that fellow in the cave. In the end of the day, the brain does not see or feel reality directly. The brain does not know what reality is. The brain is enclosed in the darkness of the skull. It can only gather a partial readout of the world through a limited number of sensory channels.
So what is the 'reality' that we perceive then? Well, according to the principle of active inference the brain engages into moment-to-moment predictions of what reality could be like based on:
readout of reality moment to moment, as seen through sensory channels (external, and internal i.e. interoception)
what we already have as the working 'model' of reality (physical, biological, social and psychological, this model is partly encoded in our genes, partly in our experience and partly in the interaction of the two)
Inference being active refers to the fact that the predictions are made proactively, while being an active agent within the environment (physical and social).
Of course, things aren’t static. The brain’s ‘model’ evolves over time, constantly working to minimise the prediction error. Prediction error is simply a general term to describe the existence of a feedback system that allows for calibration of the model, refining it to better fit ‘reality’ over time.
Two things are key here for us.
One: 'my reality' is not the same as 'your reality'. The 'reality' is fundamentally subjective, on many levels. We might not live in same environment (physical or symbolic). Our bodies might not be in the same state. I might be hungry. You might not be. I might need rest, you might need action. I might need to talk about my feelings, you might be in a place where you want to listen to someone's feelings. And the list goes on. We are fundamentally, and generally speaking, out of sync. We have different needs. This is the egotistic proposition.
Two: while our realities might not be the same, we are in each other's surroundings so our realities are interlinked and inter-dependant - this interdependence increasing closer we are (physically and symbolically). Because of that, my reality could be very much IMPACTED by your reality. This is key and as we shall see later could explain much of the why MY brain is so freaking busy with trying to decipher what YOUR 'reality' is. But essentially, YOU are the part of what surrounds me (and a BIG part at that). Therefore I need to hedge my bets as to what your actions will be so that my chances of being OK increase. This is the inter-dependence proposition.
And because I CANNOT read your mind, I'm gonna make a really big deal of trying to INTERPRET what you do or say (which I can see and hear) but fundamentally I will have to fill in lots of blanks and read between many lines, for the better or for the worse. Just like on those optical illusions from the top of this article.
In a nutshell, that could be the crux of the matter, right? The root of it all. Of our endlessly complex, love-hate relationship with others.
Right, back to the nitty-gritty: how does the brain, as an active inference device, determine how far off the mark we are when it comes to aligning our perception with ‘our reality’? In other words, what actually defines the prediction error of the model? This is where the principle of free energy comes into play.
Surprise, Surprise: The Free Energy Principle And the Brain
Free energy. Sounds cool, but what exactly is it?
One intuitive way to understand this is through the notion of surprise. We can all agree that, as organisms, we fare better in conditions we can predict and prepare for, biologically and psychologically. In fact, we could say that this principle underpins the state of being alive.
Let me expand on this a bit more. Take a simple example: if I want to stand up and move, my body needs to prepare for that by slightly increasing sympathetic arousal. There will be a small shift in stress hormone balance, an adjustment in blood pressure, and a change in heart rate. But to do this effectively, my brain needs to predict how much of a change is required, right? And also how much I need to move my muscles and extend my body in order to do that.
If my prediction is off - say, I misjudge the height of the ceiling and hit my head - that surprise will be something I remember and integrate into my model of reality moving forward.
All of the above will happen mostly autonomically, out of awareness. But will happen nonetheless. And the respective chain of decisions is made within the brain, although out of awareness. Similar processes, although more complex, sometimes including the mix between volitional, affective and autonomic control , underpin everything we do as we adjust to ever changing environment (physical and social), moment to moment and on a medium and large timescale.
While the free energy is a mathematical concept borrowed from the confines of mathematical physics, it relates to the amount of information available in the world that is relevant to us but remains unknown (think of information/order as a high-energy state, whereas chaos/randomness represent a low-energy state within the system).
In other words, for our purposes the principle of minimising the free energy is the principle of minimising of surprise.
In this sense, and according to the active inference framework, one general principle emerges:
An organism always acts to minimise free energy. We act to reduce surprise.
(Here, ‘surprise’ is understood in a broader sense of the unknown in the environment that is relevant for us)
This might seem counterintuitive because, as we know, we love surprises. And that’s true, but only so we can unravel them, right? We are hungry to reduce surprise even to the point of futility. The entire industries have been built around it.
How emotions are conceptualised within that principle?
Have you heard of the theory of constructed emotions? This prominent theory of emotions, led by Lisa Feldman-Barrett, suggests that emotions are in fact an aspect of the process of active inference.
According to this view, the brain selects the most relevant interoceptive signals (signals coming from within the body) for a given moment and assigns them a meaning. This meaning, combined with the sensation, creates the experience of emotion.
For example, the same set of interoceptive sensations - general state of body arousal, butterflies in the stomach, restlessness, and lack of hunger - could be interpreted as either anxiety (negative) or infatuation (positive). The body state is the same but the meaning assigned to it is very different.
Thinking and Feeling
Thinking or more broadly, cognitive processes, can be seen too as a function of optimisation of our relationship with the environment, this time through calculation and rational strategies.
In this framework, thinking and feeling are just two manifestations of brain's active inference. In fact, thinking and feeling are simply positioned as two different aspects of cognition (rather than the opposing forces). Two ways of learning and responding to our environment. Two strings to our bow. No hierarchy.
I find this perspective refreshing and, for what it's worth, I see it as a valuable perspective to consider, as a therapist.
How Human Connection Fits With Active Inference?
If we try to define a common environment for humans, it’s tricky: humans can live almost anywhere and eat almost anything. But one thing all humans share is being surrounded by other humans.
This obeservation leads to an interesting question: if we postt that a species adapts to its environment, could it be that our brains have adapted to others, in the same way they have adapted to availability or unavailability of another metabolic resource, such as air, food, heat etc. ? Is the brain treating the presence of others interchangeably with presence of other things that we need for survival? And indeed evidence is mounting to support this view.
And by the same token, the process of active inference would then account for the presence (or absence) of others when deciding on how to engage with the world. As explained before, this leads to many levels of complexity of human relationships and the neural machinery that allows for it.
And how attachment fits into this framework?
As we have seen, predicting how other will be with us occupies large place in our existance. But this goes to a whole new level when it comes to our attachment figures, the key individuals in our lives on whom our survival depends. It’s absolutely crucial that we can predict their behaviour, right?
And therefore it makes complete sense that those specific predictive models have a special place in our psyche. That is where the idea of the internal working model (IWM) from the attachment theory fits perfectly:
A synonym for internal working model is “expectations”. It is thought that based on their experiences in an early attachment relationship, children develop expectations (or internal working models) about the future behaviour of their attachment figure.
Stuck With A Wrong Model: The Devil You Know Principle
It seems to me that the active inference model could be quite versatile when it comes to conceptualising psychotherapy presentations. I can see a wide variety of psychotherapy presentations as our brain being stuck with model which is in some ways outdated or maladaptive.
Let's look at some common ones.
In the end of the day, the model we have already is the devil we know.
Important to note (though it may seem self-evident)
Describing a psychotherapy presentation in terms of brain's failure to update a generative model of reality does not make it merely a ‘brain problem’, nor does it deliver a neuroscience silver bullet. One's model of an aspect of reality will typically permeate our psychology, habits, our biology, affect the nature of our social circles, can be enmeshed with our family system and or even be trans-generational. Changing the ‘model’ of a specific aspect of human experience requires to do the work and, more often than not, a whole cascade of changes outside of therapy needs to happen. It is a journey, sometimes even a work of a lifetime.
Process of Therapy And the Free Energy Principle: A Unified Framework For Psychotherapies?
One reason it is so difficult to regulate and define our profession is that no single approach can fully capture what psychotherapy is. Every approach tends to zoom in on one particular aspect of human experience and declare that as the key to change.
Should we focus on thoughts? Or is it feelings that matter most? Or is it our story? Our childhood? Or our neurobiology? Could it be the family? It is the endless debates.
But going back to our active inference framework, if a person struggles to adjust their generative model in a way that provides 'good enough' predictions, that person could be seen as being stuck in a specific minimum (or a 'valley') of the landscape of possibilities. As we have seen, the beauty of the model is that it is non-specific to one aspect of existence. It is thinking and feeling and everything in between.
If we take a broader perspective, could we say that all psychotherapy involves the therapist ‘lending’ their mind (brain, nervous system, presence) to the client for the duration of therapy, helping them make progress in changing their generative model?
It’s as if the figure of therapists supplements the impetus or energy needed for the client to take a leap from one minimal state (letting go of the devil you know) so they can begin a search for a better minimum valley.
As we have seen, our brains and minds have many channels of action - regulation, emotion, thinking, perspective-taking, offering specific advice, and sharing knowledge, to name just a few - all helping the client update their model of reality, as it were.
At the end of the day, whatever approach we take as therapists, we are helping our clients let go of the devil they know and step into being the princess, prince, or whoever they want to be - who they can be - today. Could that be the unifying principle of all therapies?
Food for thought. And, I am curious. What type of therapy do you practice? Can you see it fit within model of active inference and free energy minimisation?
Or does it not? Love it or hate it, but let me know your thoughts. And as always…thank you for reading.
*Shoutout to Dr. Pascal Vrticka who introduced me to these ideas and the way of thinking, for which I am very grateful.
Some useful literature:
I enjoyed this - it really reminded me of Humberto Maturana’s work on how living systems stay alive by staying in sync with their environment. He wasn’t coming from neuroscience, but he had a similar idea: that we don’t just react to the world, we bring it forth through our actions and relationships.
Some therapists were really influenced by him, especially in family and narrative therapy. People like Lynn Hoffman and Tom Andersen saw therapy not as fixing people, but as creating space for new conversations and meanings to emerge. It’s a different language, but maybe pointing to the same kind of loop you describe.
Curious if you’ve come across Maturana in your reading, feels like a rich crossover.
From a design perspective, the diagrams fall into the Gestalt Theory of Closure. Our mind closes, or reconciles, the gaps in a predictive representation to compress the information. This allows the audience to participate in the design and process the concepts, further connecting them to the maker. It is like walking into a conversation where you have no idea what they are discussing, so you have nothing to say. Once you know what is being discussed, you can join the conversation. Design works in the manner by connecting concepts and form that are now perceived connected.