Neuroscientists have found similarities between Freud's ideas and the modern understanding of the brain

The brain not only perceives what is happening around, but also constantly tries to predict what will happen next. How a person interprets other people's words, actions, and emotions can be influenced by past experiences and expectations. Scientists have discovered similarities between modern ideas about the work of the brain and some of the ideas of psychoanalysis that Sigmund Freud developed more than 130 years ago. About why it can be difficult for a person to change habitual patterns of thinking and behavior — in the material of Izvestia.

Scientists compared Freud's theories with modern neuroscience

Researchers from the University of Oslo compared the ideas of Freud and later concepts of psychoanalysis with the modern theory of predictive information processing by the brain. The results of the work by Eric Steenicke, Bendik Sparre Hovet, Lina Indrevoll Steenicke and their colleagues are published in the journal Entropy.

According to this theory, the brain is constantly making predictions about what will happen next, and then compares them with information coming from the senses. When expectations don't match reality, the brain updates forecasts. This process is involved in perceiving the world around us, making decisions, behaving, and regulating emotions.

The authors note that psychoanalysis and neuroscience consider mental processes from different angles. Neuroscience studies the biological mechanisms of thinking and behavior, while psychoanalysis focuses on unconscious processes, emotional experiences, and the impact of past relationships on the present.

Researchers say that for more than 130 years, psychoanalysis has been developing psychological theories about how predictions occur on a subjective level, which cognitive neuropsychology is now studying on a physiological level.

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Past experiences affect other people's perceptions

The researchers found one of the similarities between the two approaches when comparing the psychoanalytic concept of projection with the mechanism of prediction in neuroscience. In psychoanalysis, projection means attributing one's own feelings, intentions, or qualities to other people. Predictive brain theory explains how previous experiences shape the expectations with which a person interprets new situations.

For example, a person who has repeatedly faced rejection may react particularly acutely to signs of a negative attitude. He is able to interpret even an ambiguous remark or facial expression of the interlocutor as evidence of hostility, since past experience has influenced his expectations.

Scientists also distinguish between two processes. In perceptual inference, the brain interprets sensory information and adjusts expectations based on the received signals. With active withdrawal, a person acts in such a way as to change the situation in accordance with their forecasts or reduce uncertainty. Both mechanisms help explain why people may not perceive what is happening exactly as it is presented in reality.

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Why Negative Expectations are difficult to change

According to the researchers, the similarities between psychoanalysis and modern neuroscience may help to understand why some patterns of thinking and behavior persist for years. Both approaches consider the desire for stability and predictability as an important feature of the work of the psyche. Familiar expectations help a person navigate the world around them, even if they no longer correspond to reality.

According to Stenike, psychoanalysts talk about the tendency of the psyche to reproduce familiar patterns of relationships, even if they are poorly adapted to circumstances. Such patterns can manifest themselves in a steady expectation of criticism, rejection, or hostility. A person continues to interpret what is happening through this filter, even when real circumstances do not provide grounds for such a conclusion.

The authors suggest that habitual expectations can be fixed not only at the level of conscious beliefs, but also in procedural memory — long-term memory associated with acquired skills and habitual actions. Therefore, a person can understand that others are not necessarily opposed to him, but still automatically react as if rejection is inevitable.

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Researchers believe that understanding the role of fixed expectations can be useful for studying psychological difficulties and approaches to psychotherapy. If habitual reactions are formed, including through the experience of interacting with other people, it may not be enough to simply realize the fallacy of your own beliefs to change them.

According to the proposed approach, new situations and communication experiences can gradually change habitual expectations and ways of responding. At the same time, we are talking about a possible explanation of the mechanisms of psychological changes, and not about proving the effectiveness of a particular treatment method within the framework of this work.

The authors propose to consider neuroscience and psychoanalysis as approaches that can complement each other. The first helps to study the biological mechanisms of the brain, and the second helps to describe subjective experiences and how expectations manifest themselves in relationships. However, the discovered similarity does not prove the correctness of all Freud's theories: the study is devoted to comparing individual ideas, rather than confirming psychoanalysis as a whole.