Self Talk
Self TalkSelfTalk is a psychological term for all the things that a person tells themselves about themselves in their own head, such as "I'm bad at math" or "I don't have any friends" or "I am a good programmer." Self-talk varies widely in frequency of occurrence, quality (positivity/negativity) and content. Not everyone thinks about themselves in such a manner. Not everyone's self-talk is negative. Not everyone's self-talk is centered on friendships, math and programming.
People supposedly subconsciously fill in the roles that their self-talk assigns to them, so one method of changing oneself is to consciously change one's self-talk messages into new ones. If someone is trying to overcome shyness, for example, they may repeat to themselves many times throughout the day "I am confident in social situations and I am comfortable around other people." The idea is that this new self-talk message will get into the subconscious, and the person will assume the new characteristics that they assign themself.
Despite sometimes suggestions to the contrary, SelfTalk is often good for us, beyond its obvious use of a reminder not to get manic about our abilities.
It is a well-known mechanism for people to consider their positions on a subject matter.
I am talking to myself even as I am restructuring this and preceding two paragraph. "talking to yourself" isn't necessarily self-talk. In the context you describe, it would be highly unlikely and extremely strange.
SelfTalk can be temporarily stopped when we use our vocalcords, so chanting can quiet our minds down, empty our brains so fresh stuff can get in. So they say.
How does self-talk differ from mental chatter / consciousness? At the other extreme, how does self-talk differ from critical superegos?
Name change
Should be merged?
I dislike this page's title on the basis that it's an UglyWordConstruction.
Related terms that are in actual usage include
Agree with you this section should go once there is convergence. And SelfTalk is definitely different from ThinkingOutLoud, now that I have read the page again. SelfTalk is not thinking, by the way, there is actual a voice within every person that tells him / her about things of importance. People with mental "situations" sometimes thought there are actual people talking to them (e.g. movie A.Beautiful.Mind)
I may be agreeable to a name change, but make it much better than the term given to it by the field of psychology.
selfObsessedMentalChatter comes close to describing what I think it is, but not quite. Overblown Ego / Overblown Superego seems to be dead on. -- rk
Self-talk versus critical superegos
I agree that we all have one of those voices in our heads mostly they say bad stuff about us (that are not true i.e. we mentally put ourselves down) that stop us doing our best, but we are all capable of changing that and making the voice say good things which support us and reaffirm all the good things we always suspected about ourselves. I believe this is a vein of 'positive thinking' and is somehow connected to 'good vibes'. Unless the voice inside your head is not you talking in which case you really should get a TinFoilHat. -- Loon-o-pants -- SusannahWilliams?
Just because you have a critical superego doesn't mean everyone else does. Not everyone's self-talk is filled with self-condemnation as yours apparently is. And in point of fact, not everyone has self-talk going on in their heads. My self-talk is at least as indirect, and even then occurring only very rarely, as self-talk is in explicitly spoken or written speech. And I'm probably more obsessed with myself and my own actions than most people are. That's because my mental chatter is pragmatic, dissecting my actions and words for improvement, not judgemental. I very, very rarely pass judgement on myself, or even think about myself in terms of myself. And I almost never pass negative judgement on myself. And this is in the context of someone who constantly, routinely and explicitly reviews (often multiple times) and analyzes their own words, thoughts, feelings and actions. -- rk
Ok, first, put away the defensive guard dog you have there, I wasn't talking about you, or me, or anyone in particular, so you can't speak for 'most' people in the same way that I can't, I just heard that self talk when mostly negative holds us back (because apparently it's easier to be negative than positive about things). Admittedly it came out wrong but please don't hurl personal insults and accusations at me based on your own interpretation of what's inside my head dear, so just for the record I don't have a critical superego, I have a relatively balanced one because I'm aware of this information. Secondly, I didn't say we all had self talk I said we all have some sort of internal dialogue, I am a visual thinker so most of my thoughts are pictural or conversational, I heard about 80% of people are like that, others are conceptual thinkers and also mathematical thinkers nad emotional thinkers - this affects how we learn also (don't ask for details, I don't really know). P.S. I think you missed the humor intended in the last line? I dunno, maybe not? -- SusannahWilliams?
[How exactly do you think "I think we ALL have one of THOSE voices in our heads" was supposed to be interpreted? You were sweeping me in with your overbroad and ugly paintbrush and I don't like it. Not only that, but there's nothing funny about the subject. And don't try to weasel out of things by legalisms. I am careful about what I write and always take responsibility for it even when it's misunderstood. -- rk]
Fine you didn't get the joke may be it wasn't that funny, maybe you really do wear a TinFoilHat. Again, those voices i.e. dialogues are in everyone's head they just don't always manifest as talk. They can manifest as pictures, numbers, concepts, emotions or a sequence of any of the above just because I said voice in you head doesn't mean it has to communicate through speech or words - but I'm so not going to argue semantics with you over this. -- SusannahWilliams?
[Good thing too. The phenomenon you're describing is called consciousness and it's not even true that all people are conscious.]
[Oh, and whoever gave you the impression that having a 50/50 ratio of positive to negative self-talk was healthy? Maybe I object to that as well.]
I'm sorry you object to my apparent level of sanity but tough crap. you need to lighten up dude. -- SusannahWilliams?
Normality of hallucination - um, isn't hallucination visual? No, people can have aural hallucinations. These are probably more frequent as well.
Is it bonkers to speak out loud to people who aren't there though? I often re-run arguments or important conversations in my head, sometimes before I have them sometimes after, sometimes they're completely fictional conversations all together. I find (usually when I'm doing the dishes) that these conversations leak out into verbal, especially when in my head I'm quite animated about the conversation. -- Loon-o-pants -- SusannahWilliams?
Not if you're aware the people aren't real. It can be an indication of borderline obsessive/compulsive disorder if you can't get out of the habit if you try -- but it's a very common thing to do, and not necessarily a negative unless the conversations have a typically negative emotional tone. On the other hand, it's a common folk belief that it indicates insanity, so people might think you're nuts :-) Generally it's just another kind of mental chatter, like having music running in your head. -- Anon1
It's common for the voice to be someone else (e.g. parents), the crossover into psychosis is when one thinks the voices are real -- in which case you don't have to recommend a TinFoilHat, the voices will tell you to get one. -- Anon2
A big proportion of people, something like 1/7th or 1/11th, have vivid hallucinations of dead people. Nearly all of them know that these are merely hallucinations and there is no harm in that.
The crossover into psychosis is not when you think the hallucinations are real, but when they are more real, more vivid and more compelling than reality. And this is harmful only when the hallucinations displace reality to some extent and/or hamper that person's functioning in the real world. What the first contributor describes doesn't even look like it qualifies as a hallucination.
The idea that psychosis is something as simple and harmless as "deciding" something, it is stupid and flat out wrong. What next? Are children psychotic when they take pretend games a little too far? People in psychotic states can know their hallucinations aren't real, but it doesn't do them any good because it's not subject to their control. Psychosis is not a choice or a decision as the phrase "think the voices are real" implies.
Note again that what the first contributor describes is not at all hallucinatory in nature. And it's far less loony than self-talk (self-obsessed mental chatter) is by itself. I think that self-talk is at least as loony as AlanKay's practice of referring to himself in the third person in spoken conversation. It indicates to me a vastly overblown ego. -- rk ''(The name for this practice is "illeism"
Self-talk versus mental chatter
Wow that's annoying - that stops me sleeping some nights. I suppose the mental chatter is like a form of fantasizing (just to lower the tone for a moment) we create or re-create situations, encounters or scenarios that we enjoy, but we mainly do it in our heads - what's to say that doing this in a non-sexual nature is an insane thing to do? I think it's just not a common thing to do that's all. Maybe that's what people call having a dream or does a dream (as in an ambition) have to be more long term? -- SusannahWilliams?
Note that mental chatter or internal chatter is vastly different from "self talk". Mental chatter is another word for consciousness, whereas self talk is when mental chatter is about oneself.
"I'm a worthless human being" or "I'm Yahweh's gift to humankind" are examples of self-talk when you think them. This is because they have the term I in them. Having a conversation or argument with someone else entirely in your head doesn't qualify as self-talk despite its being first-person. In fact, first- second- and third-person mental chatter can all qualify as self-talk independently of its being first- second- or third-person.
For example, a man who says "Buddy, you're so handsome, you are Jehovah's gift to womankind." in their head. It's self-talk because they are speaking to themselves about themselves.
Or in the third person, someone who visualizes themselves and then thinks "There goes Jehovah's gift to womankind." -- rk
So it's not really to do with 1st or 3rd person but more to do with if they speak to themselves as an additional person (who is also themselves). You do know that's me you're speaking to at the top of the page too? Didn't mean to upset you by the way. -- SusannahWilliams?
I know now. And yes, it was quite upsetting even if you didn't mean it.
"Speaking to themselves as an additional person" is a very interesting way to put it. I think it's correct. I think it also embodies why I think the phenomenon is loony. Congrats, this earns you great karma from me. -- rk
Yea speaking to yourself as a third person is a bit weird. I used to have a boss who would say stuff like "you've earned lots of credits for the bank of Barry" and "Barry think that such and such is a bad idea..." - we laughed lots at his David Brent style of management, lots. What I was referring really was to speaking to a third person who isn't yourself, like with the re-running of conversations that spill out into verbal, or saying stuff like "I know can do x because I'm good enough blah blah blah..." or "I really deserve this I do :)". Surely a big ego is to do with the what you say, like "I am the most beautiful and charismatic person in the world" compared to "I deserve the new job I just got and I have the ability to do well at it" or "I am an attractive person with a kind and likeable personality" to me only the first one sounds really big headed. -- SusannahWilliams?
Yes, it's perfectly sane. My mental chatter, even conversational mental chatter, never spills out because I'm not a very verbal person. I'm not used to speaking nearly so much as writing, probably due to my childhood.
I agree that self-talk by itself ("I really deserve this, I do") isn't that looney. When it's negative or obsessive then it can become a real problem. By itself I mostly consider it a very odd and strange phenomenon because I don't engage in it. 95% of my "self-talk" is public, like the "I mostly consider it ... since I don't engage in it" in this paragraph, or at least imagined to be public (wherein I imagine explaining myself to someone else). And such "self-talk" is largely depersonalized. It's not so much that I talk about myself as that I consider myself an interesting subject of study, like physics or philosophy. -- RK
yes, that's what I mean, you imagine you are talking to someone else. As female I'm likely to be more verbal (due to the left side of the brain thing going on) it's definitely a conscious effort for me to talk to myself as a 'you' person rather than an 'I' person, unless it's something like "you wally" or something, ok I know I'm not a walley or an idiot or anything so it's probably more of a little mental comic device really. But what about when it's like a full conversation with someone who isn't there - you're aware it's not real, and if it's in you head then it's just thinking, right, but what when you get so carried away (the "ooh, I was miles away" thing) that you realize it's coming out of your mouth and people think you're talking to you invisible friends. Could you call that just day dreaming or is that 'sanity has escaped it's cage and is loose on the moors' moment?
Note that you're confusing two separate issues, the self-talk and the runaway conversational mental chatter. The runaway conversational mental chatter just looks like having a very good imagination. It doesn't sound like it's hallucinatory at all, so it's far, far from being insane.
My not being verbal can only partly be attributed to being male. And when I say that not being verbal can be partly attributed to being male, I mean that parents are prejudiced against boys and don't encourage them to verbalize.
In my case, it's mostly a result of being emotionally abused and not having had friends during my childhood. It actually takes conscious effort for me to verbalize, so when I talk to myself, which I do sometimes, it gives it a fake quality.
Try singing it then in a style like Elvis or something, try and make yourself laugh when you do it, I just try to make myself laugh, just to have fun and jump around and make loads of noise and giggle lots. I sometimes try to be as weird as possible and make my voice do funny things just to freak myself out and test my boundaries (always on my own though, never in front of anyone, I'd just die). I'm kinda like that. I was bullied a lot as a kid and don't make friends now. I'm very verbal, which is a problem as I often come across as aggressive and opinionated. I have to work hard to be nice to people and I use a lot of emotional energy reassuring myself that I'm a nice person and hey, it works :) but enough of the chicken-licken stuff for now - at least I know I'm vaguely sane now (and to be fair there's nothing wrong with being a little bit bonkers some of the time either :).
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