Active Inference, Interoception, and Psychedelics

OPS PRESENTS Active Inference, Interoception, and Psychedelics: Putting Priors-Updating Models to Work in Psychotherapy with Dr. Matt Hayler.

Psychedelics hold huge potential for use both as and in therapies for a wide range of common mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, addiction, and PTSD. There is increasing evidence that at least part of this power stems from a temporary suspension of our prior assumptions about the world. In this talk, Dr Matt Hayler discusses how predictive accounts of cognition (i.e. brains constant testing of their models of best-fit for the worlds they encounter mediated by sensory apparatus and cultural and historical shaping) can be put to work in psychotherapy, and with a particular focus on overcoming fear.

Matt is associate professor in Contemporary Literature and Digital Cultures at the University of Birmingham. His research and teaching explore human embodiment and our entanglement with technological artefacts and other non-human actors, drawing on the cognitive and digital humanities, 4E cognitive science, critical posthumanism, and (post-)phenomenology. He is particularly interested in AI, active inference, the politics of weirdness, and the potential uses of psychedelics in therapeutic settings. Matt is also a UKCP trainee psychotherapist interested in the effects and potentials of new technologies on mental health. Alongside Dr Danielle Sands and Professor Christine Daigle, Matt edits the Bloomsbury Academic series Posthumanism in Practice.

Date: Wed, 25th Feb

Time: 19:30-21:00

Location: New College, Lecture Room 6

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