Predictions, Presumptions, Assumptions

I woke up from a nap recently with three words running through my mind:

Predictions.

Presumptions.

Assumptions.

No narrative attached. No storyline. Just the words, insistent, almost procedural.

What struck me later was that they form a progression, not a diagnosis, but a process.

Step One: Predictions

This is where we start when we’re trying to be careful. We predict reactions. We predict outcomes. We predict harm.

“If I say this, it will destabilize.”“If I name this, it will overwhelm.”

Nothing has happened yet. But we’re already acting as if it has.

Clients do this too.

“If I hear the truth, I’ll fall apart.”“If this is named, it means I’m broken.”

Prediction feels like foresight. It’s actually anxiety pretending to be wisdom.

Step Two: Presumptions

Predictions harden quickly. Now we’re no longer imagining possibilities, we’re deciding them.

“She’s not ready.” “He can’t handle that yet.” “This would be too much.”

On the client side, it sounds like:

“I already know how this ends.” “I know what you’re going to say.”

Presumption removes curiosity from the room. No one checks. No one asks. Everyone proceeds carefully around something invisible.

Step Three: Assumptions

This is where it stops being neutral. Assumptions don’t announce themselves. They simply operate.

We assume silence is safer. We assume clarity is dangerous. We assume that not naming something prevents harm.

Clients assume the inverse:

“If no one is saying it, it must be unspeakable.”

“If it’s avoided, it must be terrible.”

At this point, everyone is responding to something no one has actually said.

The Paradox

What’s fascinating is that all three steps feel responsible. They feel measured and compassionate. They feel protective. But none of them involve reality-testing.

No data. No dialogue. No moment of: “Here’s what I’m noticing, what do you make of that?”

Instead, both clinician and client quietly agree to orbit the same unnamed center.

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From a neuroscience perspective, waking up with distilled words or concepts reflects how the brain integrates information during sleep. During slow-wave and REM sleep, the hippocampus replays emotionally salient material while the cortex compresses it into organizing principles rather than stories. As the brain transitions from sleep to wake, language networks come back online and these integrated summaries can surface as words without explanation. This isn’t imagination or symbolism, it’s cognitive consolidation. What emerges is often not emotion, but mechanism. Listen to the newest podcast for more.