Talking to yourself is an adequate phenomenon if it looks like a monologue inside yourself. In addition, the norm is to talk to oneself out loud, if such a monologue helps to coordinate one’s own actions and helps cope with emotions. The inner voice is an important assistant; it gives you a chance to put thoughts in order, plan actions, and look for things.
Scientists are sure that a person talks to himself 70% of the time. If a person tells himself something out loud, then this is evidence of an encounter with an unusual task or a search for things.
Inner speech: what is it?
Every person is endowed with an inner voice, only in psychology it is called inner speech. It arises in the process of thinking and helps to perform mental operations in the mind. Remember how you count or read something, listen to someone or remember something. I’m writing this article now, and every letter of the text, every word sounds in my head. This is how inner speech works.
Why do you need inner speech?
- logical processing of sensory data;
- awareness and understanding of received or reproduced information;
- briefing during the activity;
- self-esteem and self-analysis of actions, actions, experiences;
- selection, analysis, synthesis, memorization of information;
- better concentration on the problem, task.
Inner speech is a preparatory stage. Internal assessment allows you to understand whether it is worth translating internal speech into written or spoken language. Surely you have had similar “rehearsals” of speech. Before you said anything, you spoke it out, and sometimes played out your opponent’s different answers.
Inner speech develops gradually. Thus, it is difficult for preschoolers and primary schoolchildren to read “to themselves” (not out loud). They move on to inner speech gradually, and first read out loud or in a half-whisper. Inner speech begins to develop towards the end of the child's first year of life. It comes out of the self-centered speech that is characteristic of children during play.
Techniques for managing internal dialogue
Internal dialogue helps a person make decisions and understand himself. Healthy self-analysis eliminates internal conflicts and psychological problems. However, sometimes, instead, internal dialogue creates doubts, paralyzes and prevents the individual from moving forward. The process of internal communication with oneself cannot be left uncontrolled; it is important to learn to control inner speech.
Note! Not always only one person participates in the internal dialogue. Sometimes images from the past are inserted into it. Without analysis and control, other people's beliefs can be mistaken for your own thoughts. The problem is that attitudes and beliefs imposed by other people are not always beneficial for the individual.
Managing internal dialogue is based on just two elements: awareness and immediate change. Let's take a closer look at both components.
Awareness and acceptance
Some people, noticing that they are being haunted by some thoughts, feeling a hum, noise in their heads, try to block it. But this only makes things worse. You can't ignore your internal dialogue, even if you don't like its content. For awareness and acceptance, you need to give him freedom.
Think about where the dialogue is leading you, what problems it raises, what needs and desires it points to. Using a diary, track when the thought flow intensifies and what is discussed most often. Make a portrait of your internal dialogue. Determine what principles and stereotypes it is based on, what attitudes and patterns are involved.
Thinking out loud
Inner speech is different from spoken or written speech. It is more abstract, endowed with images, associations, ideas, but at the same time with concepts and definitions. The more complex the mental task, the louder the inner voice sounds. Studies have confirmed that during internal conversation the same muscles tense as during oral speech; the tongue, larynx, and lips work. Sometimes the inner voice even turns into a whisper, loud speech or scream.
This is necessary for a better representation of the problem and task. Full-fledged monologues and dialogues with oneself help to comprehensively analyze objects, grasp thoughts, control words and actions.
From this we can conclude that in a difficult life situation or at a time of stress, tense conditions, talking to oneself helps a person find a solution to the problem. This is not a pathology, but a completely normal phenomenon - thoughts, reasoning out loud.
Have you ever had words come out as if of their own accord (“Did I say that out loud?”)? I have yes. This is a consequence of fatigue and overwork or a signal of an overly difficult thought process. What else does the expression of inner speech depend on:
- the difficulty and novelty of the task (remember how you learn new instructions or responsibilities at work, you probably say your actions out loud at first);
- emotional arousal;
- degree of automation of thought processes (depends on mental development, level of intelligence);
- inclusion of images and associations;
- individual psychological characteristics of memory and thinking;
- an overabundance of memories, thoughts, experiences, ideas, questions, suspicions (you need to isolate one thought from a “swarm” of others, focus on it).
Inner speech is a person’s speech to himself. External speech is speech for others. Sometimes the boundary between them is blurred (“what he thinks is what he says”, “he accidentally blurted out”, “that’s not what I wanted to say”). This is fine. It is explained by human overwork and the involvement of the subconscious. However, there are times when self-talk becomes pathological.
Inner dialogue as a friend
I think that after analyzing the definition, you realized that all people are familiar with internal dialogue. And also, I think you guessed that he can be both a friend and an enemy. For example, are you familiar with this state: “I can’t concentrate on anything else, thoughts about… keep popping into my head. I don’t even know how best to act in this situation.” And that’s all: work stops, energy is spent, others around you get it because of your absent-mindedness and irritability. This is an example of the negative impact of self-talk. We'll talk about how to deal with this below. In the meantime, let’s look at the features of internal dialogue as a friend.
Selection function
Have you ever thought about how many decisions we make in a day? How many of them do we accept automatically? Internal dialogue is constantly working, but you don't always notice it. Meanwhile, the more often you give up autopilot, the more conscious your life as a whole becomes. Teach yourself to make conscious decisions even in small things like brushing your teeth, preparing breakfast, etc. For example, instead of standard and automatic sandwiches, prepare porridge or an omelette, complement the first with fruits, and the second with vegetables. Prepare different foods for breakfast.
Self-talk as a pathology
Inner speech is undeveloped in autistic people, which makes it difficult for them to control their actions and organize activities. Problems with internal dialogue also arise when the language area of the brain is damaged (injuries and illnesses, for example, stroke). Such people cannot talk to themselves, which causes their self-awareness to suffer. In other pathologies, internal dialogues, on the contrary, are overly expressed.
A person's dialogue with himself can be a symptom of several mental pathologies, but it is more common in schizophrenia. However, one symptom does not signal a disease; the disorder is diagnosed when at least several of the other signs are present simultaneously:
- auditory, visual, bodily hallucinations;
- a tormenting feeling of déjà vu;
- persecution mania;
- obsessions;
- apathy;
- a feeling of unreality of what is happening;
- causeless fear, anxiety, panic.
This is a serious condition that requires urgent attention to a psychotherapist. In addition to schizophrenia, internal dialogues arise in dissociative identity disorder and intrapersonal conflict. Then a person can even hear someone else's voice, but these are just mind games. This is how the brain protects the psyche. Someone else's voice sounds those thoughts that a person does not accept, denies, considers vicious, bad. But in fact, this is the speech of his subconscious, suppressed emotions, desires, experiences. This is said by that part of the personality that he does not accept in himself.
However, dialogues with oneself can also arise with other psychological problems: neuroses, PTSD, an approaching nervous breakdown, distress. Memories of psychological trauma may sound like someone else's voice. This could be the voice of a friend, mother, father or another person. Or there may be orders from parents that force the individual to live according to the imposed scenario. All this is a signal that the subconscious wants to get rid of psychological trauma, but cannot. These conditions require the intervention of a psychologist.
Self talk. Signs of psychosis
If a person talks to himself and does not expect an answer, then this often turns out to be an early sign of psychosis - schizophrenia. If you just mumble something, this is not always a sign of such a disease. But laughter and long conversations in combination with other behavioral abnormalities (isolation, hallucinations) require immediate consultation with a doctor.
Self-talk as a mental disorder is easy to recognize. A person in such a state disconnects from everything, he is not interested in communicating with other people.
The most typical symptom of psychosis is hallucinations. This is an incorrect perception of reality in one of the sensory categories. In this case, there are no external stimuli in life, but the person hears, sees or feels something. Such phenomena appear at the moment between awakening and sleep, in an unconscious state, in delirium tremens, in severe exhaustion. Another reason is hypnosis. Most often, hallucinations are visual.
Clear hallucinations are a symptom of schizophrenia. With one of the varieties of this disease, people are sure that they hear orders from an internal voice or a voice from the outside, they obey, defend themselves, or commit suicide.
But you should not, contrary to popular opinion, assume that schizophrenia is the same as personality disorders in the form of duality, when a person also has conversations with himself.
Self-talk: Communicate constructively with yourself
All our lives we learn to build dialogue with others. First with parents and other significant adults. Then - with peers, lovers, bosses or subordinates and, finally, with your own children.
Life requires this: you need to interact with the world, first of all, using language. And we have all somehow mastered this art to one degree or another.
At the same time, another internal dialogue, dialogue with oneself, often remains scarce, annoying, conflicting, and disturbing. Do you know what is the most popular query in search engines on this topic? “How to stop internal dialogue.” Meanwhile, a well-developed internal dialogue is both a method of psychological self-regulation and the key to inner freedom and true self-confidence. Shall we master this art too?
Internal dialogue: enemy or friend?
Let’s say right away: internal dialogue can be both, and can both hinder and facilitate adaptation in life. The internal structure of such dialogues is different. Destructive internal dialogue consists of conversations (replicas) of internal commentators (introjects), unsystematic thoughts, uncontrolled images (pictures). Most often, such dialogue includes criticism, accusations, humiliation, name-calling, reproaches, orders, and ridicule. This dialogue can be scarce or, conversely, excessive, overflowing, it can be predominantly about others and almost never about oneself. Here is a typical example of such self-talk: “My internal dialogues constantly exhaust me. Well, for example, I’m tired, and then I say to myself: “How are you tired? So, I quickly pulled myself together, come on, we need to do this and that.” In this example, the girl speaks to herself as if she were a careless subordinate or a soldier shirking duty. It is not surprising that such a conversation makes her feel bad.
Constructive self-talk presupposes access to yourself and the ability to relate to your feelings: good self-talk means noticing your feelings, addressing them and yourself as a friend, seriously, respectfully, fairly. In such a dialogue, a person is able to speak with different parts of himself in such a way as to experience this conversation as supportive, approving, loving.
I remember one example of such a successful dialogue with my client. Here he is. “I had a long trip to Germany ahead of me. I was driving alone. Over the past year I have traveled like this very often. And every time I experienced jitters and fear. And usually I told myself this: “Calm down. Nothing bad happens. Why are you freaking out there?” Usually this didn't help.
This time I decided to accept this fear and told myself: “Masha, everything is fine. You have the right to be afraid, because the road is stressful and can be fraught with unpleasant surprises. Your fear is absolutely normal, so let’s be a little afraid now, think about what exactly you and I are afraid of and just drive carefully and carefully.” And after that I calmed down, drove more relaxed and generally endured the road much easier. And a kind, understanding conversation with myself helped me come to this state.” What happened as a result of this dialogue? In the jungle of various feelings associated with a difficult trip, the girl was able to understand herself, cheer her up, take her side and make a decision that brought her peace.
Constructive internal dialogue performs the most important regulatory function: by talking to oneself, a person can give himself consolation, reassurance, support, sympathy, regret, forgiveness, encouragement. Usually people want to receive this from others, but it is more important to learn to give these gifts to yourself - this is the path to balance, self-reliance and independence. Internal dialogue is also necessary for self-knowledge and self-understanding: in internal dialogue we get the opportunity to understand life’s conflicts, comprehend relationships with ourselves and other people. Thanks to inner speaking, a person comes into contact with himself, finds his own counterpart, and this frees him from the usual burden of loneliness and helps him find inner peace.
Internal dialogue: causes and consequences
So, constructive internal dialogue is necessary for the healthy functioning of the psyche. But why is it so difficult to talk to yourself as someone you love, respect and accept? One of the reasons is the lack of such communication experience in childhood.
The primary and determining dialogue for the child is the dialogue with the mother: the patterns on which communication between parent and child were built are fixed in the internal mental reality and form patterns of internal dialogue.
First, the adult addresses the child, then the child absorbs this method of address and subsequently begins to influence himself with words in the same way as the adult did in relation to him. In other words, external circulation lays the foundation for the formation of internal processes.
If your communication with yourself gives you only one desire - to find out how to stop the internal dialogue, ask yourself - “who is saying this in me now?”, “Through whom did this style of communication come into my life?”
A person is not born dissatisfied with himself, scolding or devaluing himself, he becomes this way in the process of upbringing, adopting patterns of communication and behavior accepted in the family and among significant adults. By scolding himself the way adults scolded him, the child thereby preserves his relationship with them: this is how he feels close to his family, without whom he would not survive in childhood, and... is disconnected from himself. Subsequently, such dialogue immediately makes you feel bad inside. Alas, we all know this from our own experience.
It is difficult to get through to yourself even if you have problems with feelings. Usually they say this like this: “I don’t feel anything,” “I constantly think, analyze everything.” When feelings are repressed, not realized, not experienced, dialogue with oneself is much more difficult. And in this case, a separate big work is needed to unfreeze feelings and warm up oneself.
Internal dialogue: instructions for use
So, the origin of internal dialogue is conditioned from the outside, but the further development of self-talk also depends on the person himself. Of course, it is not easy to change habitual patterns, and it is often easier to do this together with a psychologist who sets new frameworks for communication. But you can try to do something yourself. How can you learn to talk to yourself “correctly”? Let's give some simple recommendations:
- Set aside a time and place to talk to yourself. This often requires privacy.
- Address yourself by name (you can come up with an affectionate nickname) and by name. This will help create an internal distance from yourself and your feelings.
- Talk to yourself about what you are doing. The sequence could be like this:
1. Describe what you intend to do and why (“I’ll answer this letter now so I don’t forget”).2. Pay your attention to the feelings that arose in connection with this (“It’s so good that I did it! Now I feel better”).
3. Take a stand (“It is right for me to respond to important emails without procrastination.”) This conversation will allow you to gain support and clarity within yourself, and will also strengthen your relationship with yourself.
- Confront your inner critic. Monitor the appearance of devaluing, humiliating statements in your internal dialogue, protect yourself from them, rebel against unfair treatment, unrealistic statements. Learn to be kinder to yourself. Remember: every person has the right to a lawyer. And your task is to become an internal defender for yourself. And you already have a prosecutor.
- Develop interest in yourself. To do this, it is important to look away from the world and direct it to yourself. The following questions can help you with this: “How am I doing with myself?”, “How am I experiencing myself?”, “What moods permeate my life?”, “What is my mood at the moment?”, “Why?” Am I in the mood today?” Talk to yourself about what's important in your life right now.
My experience
My dialogue with myself in its negative manifestation makes itself felt in the evening (when I go to bed) after a busy day at work or after a hard day. It happens: you want to fall asleep, but there is a swarm of thoughts in your head. What do I do in this case? I give the desired direction to my thoughts. Sometimes I fantasize about something from the opera “if everything were possible” (occasionally it’s good to relax like that), but more often I imagine something positive and quite real.
For example, I think about an event I’m expecting or review global goals (visualize, remember what I’ve already done and what I’ll do next, how easily I can do it), etc. And in such a positive atmosphere, without noticing it, I fall asleep. And, by the way, after such a mood, dreams are more pleasant than after lights out under a swarm of incoherent thoughts.
I manage my self-talk at any other time in the same way.
