Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It

by Ethan Kross

While all of these strategies apply to how you help the people in your life manage their inner voices, they can also help you make better choices when selecting the people you go to for emotional support. After they’ve made you feel validated and understood, do they guide you toward brainstorming practical solutions? Or do they excessively extract details and revive the upsetting experience by repeating things like “He’s such a jerk! I can’t believe he did that.” By reflecting after the fact, you can often determine if someone helped you immerse or distance. Most likely, it’ll be a combination of the two, which can be a starting point for a dialogue about how the person can better help you next time. By thinking through other experiences with your “chatter advisers,” you can also narrow in on which people are right for which problems.