Predictive Processing: The Corner Stone of Trauma Therapy

Have you ever wondered why your body can react to something as though you’re in danger, even when you know you’re safe?

One way of understanding this is through something called predictive processing.

Our brains are constantly trying to predict what is going to happen next. They use everything we have experienced before to help us make sense of what is happening now. Most of the time, this is incredibly helpful.

But trauma can change those predictions.

If you have experienced something frightening, overwhelming or deeply painful, your brain may learn to expect danger. You might find yourself on edge, easily triggered, struggling to trust, avoiding certain situations, or having a strong emotional or physical reaction to something that seems relatively small.

It doesn't mean you are overreacting.

Your brain is simply be doing its best to protect you based on what it has learned.

When the past gets carried into the present

After trauma, the brain can sometimes continue to predict that the danger is still there, even when it isn't.

This is one of the reasons trauma can feel so confusing. You can know something logically, while another part of you is still responding as though the past is happening in the present.

This is where I find the idea of predictive processing particularly helpful.

Rather than seeing your symptoms as something that is "wrong" with you, we can begin to understand them as learned protective responses.

And if the brain can learn something, it can also learn something new.

Predictive Processing Flash Trauma Therapy

Predictive Processing Flash is one of the approaches I use in my trauma work.

The Flash Technique allows us to work with traumatic memories in a way that can feel much gentler than repeatedly talking through every detail of what happened.

Instead, we briefly connect with the difficult memory while your attention is held on something positive, absorbing or meaningful. We are not trying to force you to relive the trauma.

The aim is to give your brain and nervous system a different experience.

Your brain might have learned:

“If I go near this memory, I won't be able to cope.”

But through the process, it can begin to experience:

“I can think about this, and I'm still here. I'm safe now.”

That difference matters.

It gives the brain new information, information that can begin to challenge some of the old predictions created by trauma.

Why I use it

One of the reasons I value this approach is that you don't have to tell me everything in order for us to start helping you feel differently.

For many people, talking in detail about traumatic experiences can feel daunting or overwhelming. I want therapy to feel like a safe, collaborative process rather than something you simply have to endure.

Predictive Processing Flash can give us another way in.

It can help us work with the impact of what happened, rather than needing to spend lots of time going over the story itself.

It isn't a magic wand, and it isn't right for everyone. But for some people, it can be a surprisingly gentle and effective way of helping the brain begin to let go of old alarm signals.

Your brain is trying to protect you

Perhaps the most important thing I want clients to take from predictive processing is this:

You are not broken.

Your reactions make sense when we understand what your brain has learned.

The part of you that feels anxious, on guard, overwhelmed or easily triggered may not be trying to make your life difficult. It may be trying to keep you safe.

Trauma therapy is, in part, about helping your brain discover that what happened then is not necessarily what is happening now.

And when that starts to change, life can begin to feel different too.

If you'd like to explore whether Predictive Processing Flash might be helpful for you, you're very welcome to get in touch.