This presentation aims to provide an integrative account of relational trauma through the lens of the Predictive Processing framework (PP) (Clark, 2016; Friston, 2010). Approaches to understanding developmental trauma from the perspective of PP have been diverse and sometimes apparently contradictory (Haim-Nachum et al., 2024; Putica Agathos, 2024; Eisenberg et al., 2023; Leone et al., 2022). We seek to to articulate these accounts within a broader model.


Predictive Processing conceptualizes the brain as a generative model that anticipates sensory input, reduces prediction error, and minimizes expected free energy. Central to this process is precision weighting, namely, the confidence attributed to priors, sensory evidence, or policies for action.
Developmental trauma is marked by very high volatility in the early experience of the developing brain, leading to a distinctive configuration of the individual's predictive profile. This includes distortions across several levels of the predictive hierarchy. At the level of the generative model, priors about the social and emotional world tend to be poor, unstable, and overly global, undermining the capacity to build reliable predictions. At the level of prediction error minimization policies, individuals display little confidence in their ability to manage uncertainty, fostering reactive mechanisms such as avoidance and dissociation. Finally, at the level of overall predictive dynamics, low precision is assigned to disconfirmatory inputs—such as signals of safety or non-threatening contexts. This bias impedes corrective learning and contributes to the global accumulation of prediction error, even though local defensive strategies may appear effective in the short term.


Clinically, these dynamics shed light on the paradoxical presentations of traumatized patients: simultaneous hypervigilance and avoidance, unstable yet rigid predictive models, and reduced capacity to integrate corrective experiences (Liotti, 2009; Fonagy & Allison, 2016; Bateman & Fonagy, 2017). Psychotherapy can thus be conceptualized as a relational space for recalibrating precision, fostering epistemic trust, and restoring generative flexibility.