Predictive coding concepts in the working-through process

Dr Maggie Zellner, PhD, LP

Saturday, 26 October
11 a.m. (EDT- Eastern USA)

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This webinar will be approximately two hours long.

Many clinicians have found Bayesian ideas about predictive coding to be incredibly resonant with our psychodynamic models. The “free energy principle”, as articulated by Karl Friston, emphasizes the critical role of learning (“priors”) in shaping our perception and behavior at multiple levels and timescales, as well as the role of “surprise” or prediction error in facilitating new learning. This harmonizes with our psychodynamic understanding of how early interpersonal experience shapes our internal templates, which manifests in transference, defenses, modes of self-regulation, and more. In addition, Bayesian ideas may shed light on how change happens – how working through, within the therapeutic dyad and outside in the “real world”, can be both supported and blocked by predictive processing. 

This talk will review a few aspects of Friston’s free energy principle which have been taken up in our community over the past decade – including prediction, prediction error, and precision – in ways that directly relate to our clinical work and our human experience. I will make some connections with the dynamic BrainMind model as articulated by Pankepp & Solms (2012), to create a framework for thinking about prediction and surprise in developmental process and in the therapy process. In addition, I will create space for participants to share brief vignettes of how these ideas have affected clinical work. For example, in your thinking, do you ponder predictions as you develop a clinical hypothesis? Do you find yourself wondering how to better facilitate the updating of priors? Do you think about Markov blankets when encountering resistance? And in your discussions with patients, do you use any of these terms, and if so, what do they seem to find especially useful? I look forward to exploring these ideas with you.

Suggested reading:
Panksepp & Solms (2012): Please click here to access this paper.

Friston (2010): Please click here to access this paper.

Bio
Maggie Zellner, Ph.D., L.P., is a neuropsychoanalytic educator and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. She is the Executive Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation in New York, and former Managing Editor of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. Maggie received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in the Neuropsychology Sub-program at Queens College. She is a founding member of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society, and a graduate and member of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP) in New York. Maggie has taught neuroscience to the psychoanalytically-minded since 2003.

CPD credits: 2
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