Why is it good to talk?

We are often told that it is good to talk. We see the message in mental health campaigns, in the growth of support groups, and in the encouragement to reach out when life becomes difficult. In counselling too, talking is at the heart of what happens. But why is it good to talk?

Many of the things we eventually tell someone else are things we have already thought about countless times ourselves. We might have gone over conversations in our heads, questioned how we feel, tried to make sense of what happened or told ourselves that we should be coping better.

So what changes when something we have carried privately becomes something we share with another person?

The moment we say it out loud

There can be a considerable difference between thinking something and saying it. Inside our own minds, we remain in control of who knows. We can minimise something, push it away, argue with it or tell ourselves that it doesn't really matter. Speaking it aloud is different.

The moment we tell someone that we're frightened, lonely, struggling in our relationship or simply not coping as well as everyone thinks, something previously private becomes shared. That requires vulnerability.

Perhaps this is one reason opening up can feel so difficult. It isn't always finding the words that frightens us. Sometimes it is what those words might reveal about us. What will they think of me? Will they see me differently? Will they understand? And then something interesting can happen. We say it. The other person hears us. And the response we feared doesn't necessarily come.

When another person knows

Perhaps the person listening doesn't try to fix things. They don't dismiss what we've said or tell us that we shouldn't feel that way. They might recognise something of their own experience in ours, or perhaps they simply stay with us and try to understand.

On the surface, very little may have changed. The problem might still exist. Work may still feel overwhelming. The loss we are grieving hasn't disappeared. Yet another person now knows something about us that we had previously carried alone, and we have experienced what it is like for that part of ourselves to be known.

If I tell somebody something I am ashamed of and they don't reject me, I experience that shame differently. If I admit that I'm struggling and somebody responds, "I know what you mean," perhaps my struggle no longer feels like evidence that there is something uniquely wrong with me.

The other person's empathy and acceptance are valuable. But something more subtle may also be happening. The relationship between us can influence the relationship we have with ourselves.

Sharing vulnerability

Perhaps this helps explain some of the value people find in support groups, particularly men's groups. There can be something powerful about sitting alongside people who are prepared to speak honestly about their experiences. Someone takes a risk and says something real. Another person recognises it. Someone else begins to talk.

Hearing somebody speak about fear, loneliness, shame or uncertainty can challenge the feeling that we are somehow alone in what we experience. Their willingness to be vulnerable can give us permission to be vulnerable too. There can be a recognition of ourselves in another person: you feel this too. Perhaps it isn't just me. 

But vulnerability isn't only about what we reveal to other people. It can expose something about the way we see ourselves. If I believe I should always cope, struggling can feel like personal failure. I can become ashamed not only of what I am experiencing, but of the person I imagine that experience makes me.

Sharing that part of myself offers another possibility. I can admit that I'm struggling without becoming less capable. I can let other people see something I normally hide and discover that I haven't become less worthy of their respect.

The circumstances of my life may not have changed, but what struggling means about me may have. Through recognising ourselves in others, some of the judgements we have carried about ourselves can loosen.

The counselling relationship

Individual counselling offers a different kind of relationship. Unlike the mutual sharing we might experience in a group, counselling is centred on you. You don't need to manage the counsellor's response or feel the need to filter what you want to say. There is space to notice what it is like to share something of yourself and what happens within you as you do.

Most of us develop ways of presenting ourselves to the world. We might be the capable one, the dependable one, the person who makes people laugh or the person everyone turns to when something goes wrong. These ways of being can become so familiar that we barely notice them, yet our inner experience can be quite different.

You might appear confident while privately questioning yourself. You might be the person everyone relies upon but find it difficult to ask anyone for help. Perhaps saying "I'm fine" has become so familiar that you don't always notice yourself saying it. And some of these ways of being may appear in counselling too.

Perhaps you notice yourself wanting your counsellor to know that you're coping. You find yourself filtering something you want to say, giving the answer you think you should give or making a joke just as the conversation becomes uncomfortable. Maybe you wonder what your counsellor might think of you if you told them what you actually feel.

These moments give us something to become curious about together. You might begin to ask yourself: what am I protecting here? What am I frightened you might see? What would it mean about me if you did?

This is one reason the counselling relationship can be so important. What happens within that relationship can help you become more aware of the difference between the person you have learned to present to others and what you experience within yourself.

That doesn't mean the person others see isn't really you. Being strong, dependable, funny or capable may be genuine and valuable parts of who you are. But they don't have to be the only parts of yourself you are able to share.

As you pay attention to what happens both within you and in the counselling relationship, there is an opportunity to become more aware of yourself without immediately needing to change, hide or judge what you find. And perhaps, as more of you becomes possible within the counselling relationship, the relationship you have with yourself can change too.

The relationship within

Talking, then, isn't only about getting things off our chest. Nor does another person necessarily need to give us an answer. We may have spent a long time carrying not only a difficulty, but also our judgement of ourselves for having it. I shouldn't feel like this. I should be coping. There's something wrong with me.

As those old judgements loosen, curiosity can take their place. Rather than simply criticising the ways we respond, we can begin to wonder why we learned to protect ourselves in those ways and what they may have meant for us.

This doesn't mean accepting that nothing can change. When we spend less energy hiding from, fighting against or judging our experience, there may be more space to decide what we want to do with it.

Instead of asking: "What's wrong with me?" another question becomes possible: "What do I understand about myself now that I didn't understand before?" And perhaps, eventually: "What would I like to do differently?"

So, why is it good to talk?

Talking cannot change everything that has happened to us, and another person will not necessarily have the answer. But perhaps that isn't the only reason we need one another.

When something difficult has existed entirely within us, sharing it means allowing another person into that experience. We take the risk of being known. And when we discover that we can be known without being diminished or defined by what we have shared, we may begin to experience ourselves differently too.

Perhaps this is why it's good to talk. Not simply because somebody else gets to know us, but because, through the experience of being known, we can begin to know ourselves differently.

If there are things you have been carrying alone, counselling can offer a relationship in which you don't need to have all the answers or even know where to begin. Sometimes beginning to talk is enough.