Often, before deciding to talk about an exciting problem with someone, we recite the text to ourselves, conducting a kind of internal dialogue. Our habit of uttering a thought within ourselves in the process of real dialogue is well known, which is often discernible during a therapeutic session. I found it interesting to explore this phenomenon a little deeper in order to better understand its significance in building contact with a client. I started by analyzing my own internal dialogues and was surprised that some of them remain in memory for many years. The first episode that I remembered related to events more than ten years ago, when my life consisted of constant business trips to different cities in the south of Russia and Ukraine, I drove my car, often a thousand or more kilometers a day. One morning I discover a dead battery, the reason is that I forgot to turn off the lights. Within a couple of minutes I hear inside an angry stream of rude abuse directed at myself, which is replaced by some calmer admission of inattention, and not at all a moron and the like. It was nice that the sane part as the observing Ego turned on quickly enough, stopping the affect of self-flagellation, but the question remained for a long time, what unrecognized internal object shoots through the mechanism of retroflection from the role of a very harsh accuser? The very discovery of the internal dialogue indicates a merger, probably of the first type – failure to recognize one’s own feelings, especially anxiety. The second component can be considered an obvious dissociation into at least two different parts, subpersonalities or some rather polar internal objects of the “good-bad” type. A working hypothesis at this stage of the study may be the recognition that a person has repressed anxiety and the second is that internal dialogue may be attributed to a fairly mature form of adaptation in situations of uncertainty with a high level of anxiety. Internal dialogue allows you to minimize the affective reaction by attempting to symbolize the image of a certain internal object that acts as an opponent and enter into dialogue with it. In this sense, internal dialogue is a very interesting transitional process between the so-called middle zone of consciousness and deeply unconscious phenomena. With the help of symbolization, we can help the client gain access to deeper experiences from the field of internal phenomenology, helping to switch retroflection, which is very toxic for personality, into projection. At the same time, the observing Ego, freed from the threat of destruction, gets the opportunity to place itself in a metaposition. During therapy, falling under the projection of the client, the therapist has the opportunity at some point to be in the position of an observer from the outside, which allows him to help the client recognize and differentiate through the images of participants in the internal dialogue the essence of the conflict and which need is most unsatisfied. We, of course , we understand that such a need is the feeling of simply being, which arises in conditions of at least relative safety, which in turn allows the indicative phase of pre-contact to unfold. Therefore, an intermediate conclusion can be the statement that a detailed internal dialogue, which can be remembered and reproduced in the future, requires sufficient time and slowdown. In the case of critical time pressure, the process unfolds along a different path, but more on that a little later. Next, an interesting discovery was the dependence on the primary reaction, since affect can never be completely eliminated, on the quality of further internal dialogue. From my own experience and observations in my work, I come to the conclusion that the degree of initial fear, powerlessness, guilt, shame, resentment and all their derivatives determines the structure of internal dialogue. In the case of low intensity of primary affect, as a rule, a figure close to the concept of “sibling” appears as an opponent, that is, having similarparameters with me, for example, old friend, buddy. The dialogue is built in the form of a conversation between two equals without criticism, commands, threats, etc. This is the case when you can allow yourself to at least internally complain to someone, ask for help, advice, consolation. From practice I know that these are very resourceful moments in working with clients who present a narcissistic type of interruption of contact, since it allows them to subsequently seek support not only within themselves, but also on others, in particular, on the therapist. A completely different scenario unfolds when feelings of guilt or shame is very strong, then with a high probability the figure of someone older, authoritative, and in power appears, which may indicate parental figures. A deeper level of dissociation in this case affects age identity, making you feel like a small child and, accordingly, begin to repent and ask for forgiveness. In the most severe cases, such a figure is given the status of an accuser, judge, or even executioner, with obvious regression of the object’s personality. A frequent role option in the continuation of internal dialogue is the position at one of the poles - “bottom-top dog”. For example, I often come across defense options like “turn on the fool and pretend to be a rag,” taking a position of absolute helplessness or moving along the path of complete profanation of what is happening. At the other pole, it is possible to discover the opposite position in the form of a search for a “scapegoat” who is guilty of the fact that I feel bad; attempts to punish the villain so that he will answer for all my grief. It is clear that in these cases there is a habitual shifting of responsibility onto another. In less dramatic scenes, and most importantly, as I think, with a lesser degree of primary traumatization, this internal opponent acquires the features of a helping figure of someone to whom you can simply complain about misfortune and the severity of your experiences. In both of these options, the mechanisms of formation of the Karpman triangle are clearly distinguishable, which becomes obvious in the dynamics of therapy through a series of projections onto the therapist. Work with a client is somewhat structured if it is possible to discuss these very internal dialogues, and this, in turn, reduces the severity of affects and maintains sensitivity. The most alarming cases in my practice were cases when the client, through the retelling of his dialogues, actually admits to despair and the impossibility of reaching out to anyone at all. - to turn, the turning occurs as if into a void, where everything must be done by oneself to the extent of auto-aggression, masochism. The lack of experience in the skill of relying on another quickly becomes obvious; the “I” hangs in the void, losing support on the Background. Identification arises with outcasts, freaks, and so on. Often suicidal thoughts also appear. Once a fantasy even arose that the triangle was growing a fourth corner - an outcast of society, accompanied, for example, by the client’s assumption that his real mother abandoned him, and those who became parents took him out of pity and now they regret it, it bothers everyone, it brings only misfortunes and other painful fantasies towards magical thinking. It is not surprising that internal dialogues very often correlate with dreams, being in a sense their continuation, the next step of adaptation and self-regulation in an attempt to bring out repressed experiences . There is also a certain coincidence with the general trend of the crisis. And here it is appropriate to turn to the dynamics of the crisis itself, against the background of which the most painful dialogues (even to hallucinosis) and dreams unfold, and also to try to figure out what type of personality a given client has, which definitely helps with working with dreams and internal dialogues. Moreover, in some cases, a certain compensatory role of dialogues regarding dreams, especially serial ones, is discernible. For example, a client is haunted in a dream by a certain scary object, and the dialogue reveals an attempt to contact a supporting figure as a way to integrate polarities and search for resources. Understanding this experience in therapy contributes to its implementation incontacts with the outside world. Continuing to study the specifics of a crisis for a particular client, first of all, it is worth paying attention to the crisis phase: acute stress with vital threats of very high intensity and chronic crises with a low degree of experience. The client’s internal dialogue does a good job of marking the peculiarities of experiencing crisis and trauma depending on the type of personality. If we are initially ready to recognize some adaptive meaning of internal dialogues, then it is worth trying to detect and separate the resource part and the clearly toxic part, which gives a hint about the tendency for the development of psychopathology. I am inclined to consider the phenomena of internal dialogue one of the mechanisms of self-regulation. From my own experience, I know the phenomenon of the inner voice in a situation of acute crisis with an obvious threat to life. This is what they say about moments like this - your whole life flashed before your mind’s eye in a second. In my version it was different - a distinct voice inside uttered a soothing phrase. There was a great temptation to attribute it to some higher powers, but in the end the version of a brief split of consciousness turned out to be closer, when the logical part of thinking turns out to be absolutely powerless, then the magical part turns on. In my case, without claiming to provide for the future, the dominant of magical thinking, due to a brief splitting of consciousness, allowed me to simply reduce the degree of affect, prevent panic, without dissolving into field behavior. I've heard similar stories from clients and acquaintances. This is not in the full sense of a dialogue in the moment, but a short direct message in the form of an imperative - an instruction or even an order. It is very difficult to bring such an experience even into therapy, let alone share it with someone close. It’s scary to be branded crazy, but by being talked through in therapy, a person gains access to a very powerful resource - the ability to look into his “pocket of madness” and return to himself. The perception of oneself and the world around us becomes wider, more diverse, more plastic or something. It’s no longer a shame to admit sometimes that you’re so big, but you believe in fairy tales. Somehow life becomes more interesting. I assume that the basis of all beliefs is largely connected with experiences of similar phenomena, which are enhanced by certain prayer practices and rituals. The transition to the mode of habitual automatisms is very close to obsessive-compulsive disorders, which I have more than once found confirmation in the stories of clients - in moments of increasing anxiety, the transition to internal dialogue was accompanied by automatic counting, tapping a certain rhythm, reciting some nursery rhymes and a wide range of automatic movements , reminiscent of trance states. Internal dialogue in a low-intensity crisis often becomes a substitute for real contacts: “Why should I answer you, I’ve already told myself everything,” one long-time client told me more than once after a pause of 15-20 minutes, demonstrating and other signs of schizotypal behavior - a very unformed “I” identity, lack of skills to rely on another. We had to go through a very long period of meetings in fusion and under the projection of some figure, and a long discussion of internal dialogues, which made it possible to gradually distinguish other internal phenomena, recognize needs, identify projection figures in the end, finding a balance of support and frustration, coming everything more often in the here and now from the magical part of childhood protections. From little differentiated internal objects, fetishes of childhood, which became ordinary transitional objects, toys and the same quality of complaints - everything is bad, all evil - to the recognition of fears, anger and the need for love and attention. As usual, the most difficult clients are remembered for a long time. Unlike a client with manic radical behavior, when the task of slowing down becomes the first place in therapy, when working with a client in a depressed state, if not only internal phenomena, but also external processes proceed extremely slowly, viscously, at times.