The computational unconscious: Adaptive narrative control, psychopathology, and subjective well-being
George Deane, Jonas Mago, Aikaterini Fotopoulou, Matthew D. Sacchet, Robin Carhart-Harris, Lars Sandved-Smith
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation Psychedelic-assisted therapy |
| Keywords | Psychopathology Psychological well-being Subjective well-being Emotional health Mental well-being Psychological distress Consciousness Conscious experience Mind Mental processes Cognitive mechanisms Reality perception Internal computational mechanisms Emotion regulation Mental action Emotional control Psychological regulation Adaptive behavior Maladaptive strategies Therapeutic interventions Mental health treatments Psychological therapies Healing practices Recalibration |
| Citations | 7 |
| Key points | Argues that avoidant mental action, while adaptive, can lead to psychopathology and decreased subjective well-being under certain environmental conditions, and that this conception can refine the REBUS model of psychedelic action and explain benefits of meditation. |
Abstract
This paper introduces the notion of adaptive narrative control, a conception of how subpersonal computational processes shape the contents of conscious experience to realize adaptive behavior. We unpack the implications of the theory for understanding the computational mechanisms underwriting psychopathology and improvements in subjective well-being associated with psychedelic therapy and meditation. The core idea of adaptive narrative control is that systems equipped with an ‘attention schema’ — a model of its own attentional states and how attentional states can be controlled — can come to anticipate not only the epistemic implications of certain attentional states, but also the pragmatic consequences, such as how certain attentional states potentiate certain affective responses. In anticipating affective states, the system is able to regulate affective states through ‘mental action’ — the endogenous control of attention. We argue that using mental action to bias the sampling of evidence to control the ‘narrative’ — the upshot of inference understood to correspond to the contents of conscious experience — allows the system to regulate affective and physiological states in ways that potentiate adaptive behavior. However, it is this adaptive capacity which gives rise to the computational mechanism — ‘avoidant mental action’, or equivalently ‘motivated inattention’ — which we argue is a core mechanism underlying psychopathology. We unpack this approach within the active inference framework to provide specification of the candidate mechanisms. We argue this conception can be used to account for the rigid belief formation characterizing ‘canalization’ and show how the decrements in subjective well-being come as a consequence of reduced recognition and categorisation of emotions (i.e., alexithymia or impaired emotional granularity). We argue that while avoidant mental action facilitates adaptive behavior, certain environmental conditions can lead it to resulting in decreased subjective well-being and psychopathology. Our account partially echoes a Freudian perspective on the function and effects of avoidant defense mechanisms like repression, and brings into view a novel computational conception of the dynamic unconscious— the ‘computational unconscious’. Finally, we explore how this conceptualisation can expand and refine the ‘REBUS’ model of psychedelic action and therapy, and explain some of the increments in subjective well-being associated with meditation.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on psychedelic-assisted therapy, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Theorizing that Psychedelic Assisted Therapy May Play a Role in the Treatment of Trauma-Induced Personality Disorders. | 2024 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Learning to Let Go: A Cognitive-Behavioral Model of How Psychedelic Therapy Promotes Acceptance | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Awe: a putative mechanism underlying the effects of classic psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy | 2018 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Ethical and legal issues in psychedelic harm reduction and integration therapy | 2021 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Towards psychedelic apprenticeship: Developing a gentle touch for the mediation and validation of psychedelic-induced insights and revelations. | 2022 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- Mindfulness, cognition, and long-term meditators: Toward a science of advanced meditation. Imaging Neuroscience 2025
- Computational spirits: a neuroscientific account of psychedelic entity encounters. Neuroscience of Consciousness 2026
- Shifting boundaries, extended minds: ambient technology and extended allostatic control. Synthese 2025
Cites 26
- REBUS and the Anarchic Brain: Toward a Unified Model of the Brain Action of Psychedelics Pharmacological Reviews June 20, 2019
- The Therapeutic Potential of Psychedelic Drugs: Past, Present, and Future. Neuropsychopharmacology April 26, 2017
- Patients’ Accounts of Increased “Connectedness” and “Acceptance” After Psilocybin for Treatment-Resistant Depression Journal of Humanistic Psychology June 19, 2017
- The default-mode, ego-functions and free-energy: a neurobiological account of Freudian ideas Brain February 28, 2010
- LSD-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety associated with a life-threatening disease: A qualitative study of acute and sustained subjective effects Journal of Psychopharmacology November 11, 2014
and 21 more in the library