Free Energy

The Free Energy Principle

Recorded Saturday 14 November 2020

With Professor Jeremy Holmes, Dr Barnaby B. Barratt and Dr Saadia Muzaffar

CPD Credits: 4 hours

The aim of psychotherapy is freedom: to liberate sufferers from repetitive self-defeating patterns of thought and relationship. Its clients feel stuck, unable to move forward, trammelled by depression, anxiety, physical and/or mental pain and cut-offness.

In this webinar we shall consider psychotherapeutic freedom from three different, but related, viewpoints. Based on his recent book, The Brain has a Mind of its Own: Attachment, Neurobiology, and the New Science of Psychotherapy, Jeremy Holmes will present a contemporary neuroscience perspective.

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FULL PROGRAMME

Professor Jeremy Holmes
The Free Energy Principle: The Neuroscience of Dynamic Psychotherapy
The Free Energy Principle, (FEP), a new model of brain function, parallels Freud’s abandoned neuroscience project. FEP sees the brain/mind as continuously engaged in “free energy minimisation”, in which “bottom up” information from the sense organs is met and bound by pre-existing “top-down” models of the world. This dynamic process depends on subjects’ action in order to enhance sensory precision, and capacity for model modification. People with psychological distress typically have inhibited agency; ignore their feelings and sensations; cling to outdated models or attempt to reproduce the familiar, however maladaptive. Effective therapy addresses and redresses these themes, and psychoanalytic theory itself needs reformulation in the light of relational neuroscience.

Dr Barnaby B. Barratt responds to Jeremy Holmes

Dr Saadia Muzaffar
Spirituality, & CAT as Psychotherapy in Psychiatric Practice
As a trained psychiatrist and an accredited Cognitive Analytical Therapist, Saadia believes the relationship of an individual to themselves as ‘I’ or that of a transcendental one beyond themselves, is of great value and meaning in achieving a better understanding of peoples’ lives. Over the years she has discovered the role of spiritual freedom in patient’s lives especially where science and algorithms have failed and uncertainties prevail. The use of Balint groups, the role of the CAT formulation, and the practice of writing letters to patients using their own words at the beginning of the therapeutic alliance as well as the endings, has helped patients embrace the tangible as well as think of their relationship to the other, in a spiritual manner.

Professor Jeremy Holmes responds to Dr Saadia Muzaffar

Dr Barnaby B. Barratt
Free-association, Subtle Energy, and Intimations of the Spiritual
As we use certain sorts of methods – for example, free-associative speaking and listening, meditation and movement – to explore all that occurs in our “mind” and in our “body,” we find depths that are surprising, often terrifying and often enriching. This is a wellspring of meaningfulness that takes us behind, beneath or beyond what may be encapsulated in our everyday modes of interpretation or even in the most sophisticated representations of our self, of others and of the universe we inhabit. This talk will discuss these ideas in relation to psychoanalytic and spiritual practices.

Professor Jeremy Holmes responds to Dr Barnaby B. Barratt

All panel Q&A

Ends

FEES

Includes: 1 year’s access, test and CPD Certificate of Attendance, subtitles and transcript

INDIVIDUAL

£60 (or £48 Confer member)

GROUP RATE

£50pp in groups of over 10 (please apply to accounts@confer.uk.com)

CPD

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits for 4 hours are available as part of the course fee. You will need to fill out an evaluation form and pass a multiple choice questionnaire related to the content in order to receive your certificate. You can submit this test up to a maximum of 5 times.

SCHEDULE

00:03:32
Professor Jeremy Holmes
The Free Energy Principle: The Neuroscience of Dynamic Psychotherapy

00:41:42
Dr Barnaby B. Barratt responds to Jeremy Holmes

01:11:11
Dr Saadia Muzaffar
Spirituality, & CAT as Psychotherapy in Psychiatric Practice

02:00:18
Professor Jeremy Holmes responds to Dr Saadia Muzaffar

02:28:50
Dr Barnaby B. Barratt – Free-association, Subtle Energy, and Intimations of the Spiritual

03:11:06
Professor Jeremy Holmes responds to Dr Barnaby B. Barratt

03:25:34
All panel Q&A

04:13:43
End

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By attending this workshop virtually, participants will be able to:
  • Discuss the model of Free Energy Principle (FEP) and its implications for therapy
  • Utilise ideas and techniques from Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT)
  • Reflect on issues around spirituality and clinical practice