I have drawn on accounts of people like Lisa Feldman Barrett, Anil Seth, Klaus Stephan, Mark Solms, and, of course, Karl Friston – but have tried to apply their ideas to explain the clinical presentation of depression. I hope you enjoy the read!

When we lose confidence in our futures, and these interoceptive processes are disturbed, that’s when we experience a mood state we describe as depressed. It underpins the changed array of emotions we experience (associated with shorter term interoceptive processes) such as anxiety and irritability

The active inference framework provides a way of linking them. In essence, longer term interoceptive processes (such as those that underpin sleep and appetite) are modelled according to our confidence in our social environments, and especially what they hold for our futures