Reality stabilization: a unified framework for psychosis and post-psychotic depression

Both quantum mechanics and cognitive neuroscience challenge the classical view of a passively perceived reality. Instead, they suggest that reality arises through a process of selection and stabilization from a field of possibilities. This article proposes that this "reality stabilization" framework can unify our understanding of psychosis and post-psychotic depression-two conditions that are currently studied as distinct phenomena, and which existing models of predictive coding, dopaminergic dysregulation, and network neuroscience rarely integrate into a single account. We conceptualize psychosis as a failure of neurocognitive decoherence, in which competing perceptual and interpretative states cannot be reduced to a single, coherent reality. Post-psychotic depression, in contrast, is framed as a compensatory hyperstabilization, in which a rigid, negatively valenced reality is restored, possibly mediated by altered DMN activity. The framework suggests that effective intervention must move beyond dopaminergic blockade to include strategies that promote adaptive network coherence and cognitive integration. The model remains hypothetical, and direct empirical evidence for decoherence-like processes, network changes, and the proposed temporal progression is limited. Future work should focus on empirical testing of stabilization and hyperstabilization mechanisms, longitudinal assessment across illness stages, and their possible therapeutic relevance.