For the first time, anxiety about talking to oneself arises in childhood, when the child becomes able to monitor and control internal mental processes. With age, a person ceases to pay attention to this, but self-talk continues throughout his life.
Inner speech, or self-talk, is a dialogue between the components of mental processes. The human psyche is heterogeneous. According to Z. Freud, it consists of the Ego (everything that is realized by a person and comprehended), Id (everything that is forbidden is displaced from consciousness and is not realized) and the Super-Ego (conscious and unconscious processes that represent conscience, norms and rules of behavior).
Starting from birth, a small person develops consciousness due to the knowledge gained. Some information, due to the cultural limitations of society, is forced out into the unconscious. Contact with this information is difficult, but possible with the help of fantasies.
In fact, a conversation with oneself is an internal dialogue of consciousness with the unconscious. Such conversations contribute to the continuous process of human development: the boundaries of consciousness are expanded by finding forms of satisfying forbidden desires. The presence of rigid boundaries between these structures, and, as a consequence, the absence of inner speech, hinders the development of a person, and the absence of these boundaries makes a person mentally ill, unable to control his desires and drives.
When forming the structure of the Super-Ego, the child is required to comply with the norms and rules adopted in society, in the family, in a specific team. Its foundations are laid by the parents. It is with their demands that the child measures his actions: How would the father act in this situation? What would mom say? How would my older brother feel about this? Gradually, parental figures ideal for the child become internal objects, their requirements and regulations become the requirements of a person to himself.
Self-talk is a constant dialogue, agreements between the three structures of the psyche: Ego, Id and Super-Ego. An adult often does not even notice how this conversation is going on, but in difficult life situations, he notes internal conversations that break out in himself, which sometimes help him to make the right decision.
