If you have an inner voice, it defines your inner and exterior world to the point that it’s hard to fathom an existence without it. My inner voice also seems to be the cause of a lot of the psychological pain I experience. But this reality isn’t the same for everyone. Keep reading to find out more.
What Is Angedopasia: A Life Without An Inner Voice
Most of us wouldn’t have even considered it, which is why it’s commonly assumed that inner speech, the experience of our thoughts taking the form of natural language and our voice, is universal (Nedergaard and Lupyan, 2024). However, evidence has shown that this is not the case. Having an inner voice can appear in a spectrum, where it can go from full narrator, to the occasional inner dialogue, to none at all.
The lack of some people having an inner voice was a shock to me when I first found this out, because it seems, at least to me before finding out about this, that the inner voice was part of our consciousness. However, I should have probably realised this wasn’t the case because of my lack of an inner eye, the ability to visualise things in our heads. This is something I can’t do. This is known as ‘aphantasia’ (Young, 2025).
Therapy and training to be a therapist are largely geared toward the idea that everyone has an inner voice, which is what got me interested in writing this article. I wondered if a lack of an inner voice would come with some drawbacks, which it does, but how much of an issue that might be in the real world is hard to know.
A study by Nedergaard and Lupyan (2024) found that those without an inner voice were worse at making rhyming judgments and were shown to have worse verbal working memory. However, this could be compensated for by using a talking-out-loud strategy. If this is true, then the way education is taught and how tests are done may need to change to accommodate people without an inner voice.
Changing Support To Accommodate A Lack Of An Inner Voice (Anendophasia)
The mostly missing or complete absence of an inner voice (anendophasia) is meant to lead to a type of thinking that is non-verbal and potentially more imagistic. I’ve also seen it described as being more like just knowing, akin to intuition. Therefore, it’s likely to require mental health support to shift its focus from internal dialogue to other forms of internal experience and expression.
Adaptation of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
Traditional CBT heavily relies on identifying, challenging, and restructuring negative self-talk (our inner voice). This is generally a core technique of this approach, and thus would need to be adapted.
The key to this would be to try to shift from the auditory nature of our inner voice to a non-verbal cognition, such as what could be best described as the raw or silent data. This might mean paying close attention to sensations, feelings, and responses. It might also be possible to understand the abstract, logical, or symbolic thoughts that we might understand without it being “heard”, so to speak.
From a therapy perspective, the easiest way to try to do this might be to encourage a client to record whatever they experience when a certain negative state happens, a state they’re hoping to get support for. Another option is to use a pros/cons list or a decision tree to externalise the debate.
Whereas we might name an inner critic to help create distance from those thoughts, something similar could be done with feelings. For example, we could try naming the feeling, “that’s the ‘anxiety‘ feeling”. Then we can try to address it as an external force.
Emphasis on sensory and emotional experience
Instead of focusing on their inner world to challenge beliefs and negative intrusive thoughts, a therapist might want to place greater emphasis on bodily and emotional awareness.
Although not ideal for me, as this can be a trigger for my psychosis, using techniques that focus on physical sensations can become a useful tool. This would make it a more somatic and body-oriented therapy, where the focus might be on where a person feels tension or anxiety in their body. For example, butterflies in the stomach or a shoulder and jaw ache.
Because someone without an inner voice (or with a limited inner voice) will likely process behaviours and emotions without verbal labelling or commentary, we’d need to teach ourselves (or our clients) to track the physical and behavioural manifestations of our (their) emotions to gain a better understanding.
The emotion-focused therapy (EFT) approach is quite well-suited to someone without an inner voice. This would help with working to identify, experience, and express core emotions, using the feelings themselves as the starting point, rather than using a narrative about the feelings.
Using creative and visual expression
If someone’s thinking isn’t primarily verbal, then support that would lean into other forms of communication for deep insights is a must. Using something like art, crafting, or music could be an effective way to express feelings and complex thoughts that are not easily translated into words. Encouraging the use of metaphors, analogies, colours, shapes, or textures to describe internal states might also help with developing a better understanding.
This could also be a good time to use diagrams, flowcharts, or storyboards to explore relationships, plan actions, or process memories, especially if we (they) also have aphantasia (a lack of an inner eye).
Adjustments in communication and rapport
Because therapy tends to be quite focused on our thoughts, the therapeutic communication itself might need modification. Thus, from a therapist’s perspective, we might need to change how we ask questions. For example, we might want to stop asking, “What were you thinking at the time this happened?” to “How did you process that event?” or “What did you feel at the time, and how did that manifest in your body?”.
Validation
Much like how I didn’t know that some people didn’t have an inner voice, they might also be unaware that people do have an inner voice. Or they might see this as something being ‘wrong’ with them. Therefore, it’s important to validate that “silent thought” is just another individual difference. It’s no different to how some people are left-handed.
Summary
Although it might be difficult to understand the world of someone without an inner voice, as mine never shuts up, with a few tweaks, we can still provide support to someone without an inner voice. The key is to shift from a verbally mediated self-reflection model (like traditional CBT) to a non-verbal, sensory, and externalised processing model, emphasising techniques like journaling, somatic awareness (the conscious perception of physical sensations, emotions, and signals from our body), and expressive arts.
As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with and without an inner voice (angedopasia) in the comments section below as well. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, you can sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.
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References
Nedergaard, J. S., & Lupyan, G. (2024). Not everybody has an inner voice: Behavioral consequences of anendophasia. Psychological Science, 35(7), 780-797. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/content/qt93p4r8td/qt93p4r8td_noSplash_16229df19fb3f76e5ed268b01aeb6ba0.pdf.
Young, E. (2025, March). The silent inner world of anendophasia. BPS. Retrieved from https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/silent-inner-world-anendophasia.
How interesting, I never realised that this was a “thing” as I sometimes wish my inner voice would be quiet! I feel for those who don’t have one now.
Yeah, I’d love a break from mine too. But not having an inner voice seems so different. Thanks for commenting