The looser flow of thoughts and experiences, verbal or not, is called a stream of consciousness, which can also refer to a related technique in literature. Additionally, not everyone has a verbal internal monologue (see § Absence of an internal monologue). In some cases people may think of inner speech as coming from an external source, as with schizophrenic auditory hallucinations. It may reflect both conscious and subconscious beliefs.

As a result, it is relevant to a number of mental disorders, such as depression, and treatments like cognitive behavioural therapy which seek to alleviate symptoms by providing strategies to regulate cognitive behaviour.

It is particularly important in planning, problem solving, self-reflection, self-image, critical thinking, emotions, and subvocalization (reading in one's head). It is usually tied to a person's sense of self. An internal monologue, also called self-talk, inner speech, inner discourse or internal discourse, is a person's inner voice which provides a running verbal monologue of thoughts while they are conscious.

No inner monologue disorder