Chatter Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Rick Ankiel and our BookBrowse Review of Chatter.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Discuss a time when you felt you were impacted by your own mental chatter. Were you able to work your way through it? If so, what tactics did you use? Were any of those tactics similar to those described by Kross?
2. Kross explains that our childhood caretakers can have a strong influence on our internal voice as we develop. Do you recognize the influence of your childhood caretakers on your inner voice now? Why or why not?
3. In Andrew Irving 's study of New Yorkers' recorded internal speech, he observed that people's inner monologues "often landed on negative content with utterly no transition, like a gaping pothole appearing suddenly on the unspooling road of thought." Why do you think people are often drawn to the negative?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Crown. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.