Beyond the death drive: Entropy and free energy

Time exists in us, and our self exists in time. Our self is affected and shaped by time to the point that a better understanding of the former can aid the understanding of the latter. Psychoanalysis works through self and time, where the self is composed of the biopsychosocial history (the past) of the individual and able to map a trajectory for the future. The psychoanalytic relationship starts from a “measurement”: an active process able to alter the system being measured—the self—continuously built over time. This manuscript, starts from the philosophical and scientific tradition of a proximity between time and self, suggesting a neural overlapping at the Default Network. A historical and scientific background will be introduced, proposing a multidisciplinary dimension that has characterized the birth of psychoanalysis (its past), influencing its present and future in the dialogue with physics and neuroscience. After a historical scientific introduction, a neural entanglement between past and future at the Default Network level will be proposed, tracing a link with the self at the level of this network. This hypothesis will be supported by studies in cognitive neurosciences and functional neuroimaging which have used the resting state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The ontogenetic development of time perception will be discussed, consistent with self-development and the Default Network’s function. The most common form of dementia, the Alzheimer’s Disease, in which the perception of time is brutally impaired together with a loss of the self’s functions will be proposed to support this idea. Finally, the potential theoretical and clinical significance for psychoanalysis and psychodynamic neurosciences, will be discussed.

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confidence: 63%

Memory for the Future: Psychodynamic Approach to Time and Self Through the Default Network

Cieri

2022

“…Conversely, other mental disorders can be seen as pathologies of entropic excess: schizophrenia (Ciompi and Tschacher, 2021 ), manic episodes, ADHD, etc. (Rabeyron, 2021 ).…”

Section: Transformational Processes Between Chaos and Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 19 An analysis of the relationship between mental disorders and the FEP will not be covered in this paper because the objective is rather to study the underlying secondary processes that can lead to different forms of symptomatic expressions. A more specific analysis of the relationship between psychopathology and FEP can be found in Rabeyron ( 2021 ). …”

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confidence: 99%

Psychoanalytic psychotherapies and the free energy principle

Rabeyron

2022

Self Cite

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.

“…There are many notions of such barriers, starting from Freud’s “stimulus barrier,” Federn’s (1956) ego boundaries, and Bion’s (1962) “psychic membrane,” among many others. Rabeyron (2021) formulates an interesting hypothesis linking these psychoanalytic notions with the concept of Markov blankets, which is an important property of the Friston principle of free energy. In both psychoanalysis and Friston (2013) theory, the notion of a boundary between the outside and the inside of the system is crucial.…”

Section: My Somato-psychic Frontier Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another important factor in this development is that the human mind also uses “the third way” of minimizing free energy, which is illusion (which in a broad sense is the equivalent of deceiving one’s own consciousness); although we have to remember that the broad church of “illusion” includes some potentially pathological mechanisms such as massive projective identifications, but also defense mechanisms which can preserve the balance of the mind in excessively complex situations. Developmental mechanisms such as symbolization, which is crucial for mature functioning, also include elements of illusion (compare with Rabeyron, 2021 ) etc. To capture all these nuances will demand a separate body of work but in this paper I am proposing only the framework.…”

Section: My Somato-psychic Frontier Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

An economic model of the drives from Friston’s free energy perspective

Sikora¹

2022

This paper is focused on the theory of drives, particularly on its economic model, which was an integral part of Freud’s original formulation. Freud was aiming to make a link between the psychic energy of drives and the biophysical rules of nature. However, he was not able to develop this model into a comprehensive system linking the body and the mind. The further development of psychoanalytic theory, in various attempts to comprehend the theory of drives, can be described as taking different approaches. Some of them equate drives with bodily impulses, others abandon the economic model, a few stay with Freud’s original model. I believe that the Friston notion of free energy and the hierarchical model of the brain allows us to develop this model and to integrate the economic model into some contemporary theories of drives. I argue against those theories equating drives with biological impulses. My arguments are supported by Freud’s project itself but also by recent developments within neuro-psychoanalysis describing the process of mentalizing homeostasis, interoceptive signals and relations with caregivers. I argue for those theories which see the drives as psychic forces, which through developmental processes and cathexes acquire aims and objects, and become intertwined with impulses originating internally and externally, such as affect, interoceptive impulses, perception of the external world, and impulses from erotogenic zones in particular. Here, I present my analysis of the compatibility and consistency of free energy and the hierarchical model perspective, and two psychoanalytical traditions of thoughts: French psychoanalysis and the post-Kleinian school of British psychoanalysis. In particular, my analysis focuses on the contemporary Kleinian notion of unconscious phantasies, especially Bronstein’s description of their semiotic aspects. Secondly, I look at Segal’s view of drives as dialectic forces of adaptation vs. conservatism. Analyzing the French tradition, I focus on Green’s perspective on the drives, Lacan’s distinction between drives and desire, and Penot’s description of the process of subjectivation. I conclude that free energy, as described by Friston, can be seen as a source of the drives’ energy and the process of minimizing it is an equivalent of what Freud described as binding the free energy, in which psychic unbound energy acquires distinctive features and becomes bound.