A study to be conducted by researchers of the UPF Department of Humanities entitled “Comunicación, habla interna y salud mental (CHS)” (Communication, Inner Speech and Mental Health), has recently been selected within the framework of the first National Competition for the Award of Research Grants in the Humanities (2024 announcement), in the Philosophy section, convened by the Ramón Areces Foundation.

Víctor Verdejo, a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the UPF Department of Humanities, is the principal investigator of the project, which is scheduled to run for three years, and is endowed with 36,000 euros. Its goal is to integrate research, within the field of mental health, with regard to the fields of interpersonal and intrapersonal communication, based on a global and interconnected vision of the two.

The project sets out to apply the latest advances in the philosophical literature on interpersonal communication to communication with oneself, with the aim of advancing in the characteristic complexities of this critical phenomenon

Several academic studies have shown that self- or intrapersonal communication (self-talk, the ability to talk to oneself) is common and cognitively fundamental: the lack of or alterations to the capacity for inner speech are often associated with psychological or neurological conditions and neurodivergent realities (people who present variations in mental functions, within human diversity, as opposed to neurotypical people, who adjust to typical or standard neurological patterns of society).

The CHS project sets out to apply the latest advances in the philosophical literature on interpersonal communication to communication with oneself, with the aim of advancing in the characteristic complexities of this critical phenomenon. It also seeks to analyse communication in neurodivergent groups, and between these groups and the neurotypical population, both within and without the academic field.

According to Víctor Verdejo, “the main hypothesis of our project, inspired in Vygotsky (according to whom inner speech is the result of a process of internalizing external social speech), is that the concepts and frameworks developed in the most recent research on interpersonal communication can be applied fruitfully to clarify the notion and forms of communication with oneself, in a relevant way for the study of neurodiverse profiles, with a special emphasis on autism and schizophrenia”.

In intrapersonal communication, the research has shown that some ways of communicating with oneself can be fundamental for our cognitive life, in such aspects as self-regulation, planning, problem solving and memory and reasoning abilities. With regard to interpersonal communication, an approach exists that is restricted to the various subjective and social aspects related to neurodivergent experiences, and how these experiences are communicated in clinical and everyday contexts, but it is not addressed comprehensively.

Special attention to the stigma suffered by neurodivergent people

Based on an analytical and integrative methodology and a multidisciplinary approach, the CHS project will be structured into three separate blocks in a single research agenda: firstly, the conceptual connection between interpersonal and self-communication; secondly, the adequate delimitation of communication with oneself as an inner speech phenomenon, and finally, communication in social interactions between neurodivergent groups and experts in mental health and neurotypical populations.

According to Víctor Verdejo, the latter development of the project is related to the study of the stigma and discrimination suffered by people affected by autism or schizophrenia, for instance. “We will also be alert to any extension in other fields, such as those related to depression or anxiety, where cognitive and neurodivergent aspects play an important role”. And he adds: “This line of research can help us better understand how inner speech is manifested in these people, and their ways of communicating with others”.

The research team of the UPF Department of Humanities is completed by Marta Jorba, a Serra Húnter associate professor, and Adriana Alcaraz, a postdoctoral researcher (as of September 2025). In addition, this project will be combined with the ongoing work of the doctoral students Daphne Bernués, Pol Herrero and Valentí Simpson, the latter linked to the University of Valencia.