an introduction
Framework of Emergent Coherence
Exploring prediction, presence, and the patterns that help us stay human.
FEC unites trauma theory, neuroscience, and predictive processing into a flexible, trauma-aware approach that holds both therapist and client in the work of healing.
Why a New Framework was Needed
Traditional trauma trainings often explain why
people fragment, but not what to do next.FEC bridges that gap, offering therapists a map of how coherence re-emerges, drawn from predictive coding, active inference, and lived therapeutic experience.It’s flexible enough for real sessions, yet grounded in science.
10 Principles
1. Embodied Presence
Therapy begins not with technique, but with presence. Clients don’t just hear your words, they feel your steadiness, your patience, your safety. Presence is the soil where healing grows.2. Rhythmic Safety
Safety isn’t built once, it’s renewed again and again. In FEC, safety has a rhythm: predictable rituals, gentle continuity, and steady repetition. These rhythms teach the nervous system: what was safe yesterday will be safe again today.3. Attuned Constraint
Safety isn’t the absence of limits, it’s the presence of attuned ones. In FEC, boundaries are held as protective handrails: clear, steady, and collaborative. Constraint, when offered with warmth, reduces chaos without taking away agency.4. Witnessing
Sometimes the deepest healing comes not from fixing, but from staying. In FEC, witnessing means holding pain as valid and survivable, without rushing, minimizing, or demanding disclosure. Presence itself becomes intervention.5. Humble Growth
Therapists are not finished products. In FEC, humility means knowing there is always more to learn, from clients, from mistakes, from new ideas. Growth is not a performance; it is a posture of openness.
6. Curious Orientation
Curiosity is the lifeblood of coherence. In FEC, curiosity means asking with wonder, why these words, this gesture, this silence? Curiosity replaces judgment, opening new meaning where certainty would shut it down.7. Compassionate Steadiness
Compassion is not sentiment, it is staying kind and grounded when pain feels unbearable. In FEC, steadiness means the client never has to hold the therapist. Safety is felt in calm, unwavering presence.8. Radical Consent
Agency is non-negotiable. In FEC, clients decide the pace, the depth, the direction. Consent is not a formality, it is the foundation of safety, telling the nervous system: you are in control here.9. Patience with Timing
Not all healing is ready on demand. In FEC, patience means honoring the nervous system’s pace, allowing ‘not yet’ to be a full and valid answer. Trust and disclosure emerge when they are safe, not when they are pushed.10. Creative Responsiveness
Healing doesn’t follow one script. In FEC, creativity means staying open to metaphors, symbols, and rituals, giving shape to what words cannot yet hold. Responsiveness keeps therapy alive, adaptive, and attuned.
What FEC Offers Therapists
1. Clarity in Complexity
FEC gives you a way to see beneath chaos, to track the hidden patterns of prediction, regulation, and meaning that shape each moment in therapy. It turns complexity into something observable, understandable, and workable.
2. Flexibility Across Modalities
FEC adapts to the realities of any clinical approach while remaining its own evolving system. Therapists often enter through familiar modalities like EMDR, IFS, or somatic work, but the deeper integration happens through FEC’s own branches: Predictive Dissociation Therapy, Echoes Without End, and others that expand its principles into specialized domains.These aren’t add-ons; they’re the living extensions of the same root framework.
3. A Safe Base
Therapists also need coherence. FEC offers a conceptual and emotional home, a way to stay regulated, curious, and connected even in the most dysregulated sessions. It holds you, so you can keep holding the work.
