Intellectualization - What is it and how do I work past it?
As a therapist, I hear this often from people who start therapy with me. “I don’t know why I don’t feel better? I have read countless self-help books, exercise, am productive, and show the world and everyone around me I’m totally FINE. But I still feel anxious and empty…”
When I hear this, my alarms start to go off in my head indicating that we have an intellectualizer in our midsts. Intellectualization is the practice of channeling mental energy into logical matters to avoid hard or painful emotions or beliefs about ourselves lurking beneath the surface. It’s a defense mechanism that keeps us distanced from our feelings, which is why so many don’t know what people mean when they say you need to “feel your feelings”.
Telling an intellectualizer that they need to “feel their feelings” is like telling a fish they need to walk on land… incomprehensible and dangerous. If I allow myself to get mad and sit with the anger rather than rationalizing it away, then what will happen?? Will I get stuck in it and become a sad and angry person? Will I lose control? Will others view me as unstable and imperfect?
“Telling an intellectualizer that they need to “feel their feelings” is like telling a fish they need to walk on land… incomprehensible and dangerous.”
How to work through it
This, though, is the precise reason you, as an so called “intellectualizer” may not be “feeling better” even with all the self-help books in the world at your disposal. You fall into “what can I do to get rid of these feelings ASAP,” rather than, “let me sit with this and allow it to wash over me. I am allowed to feel how I feel. I do not need to push it aside. Let me explore what this emotion is telling me, rather than telling my emotion what it needs to do.” Without allowing yourself to explore these emotional states, it leads to suppression of emotion and in turn panic, anxiety, depression, and/or anger.
Here is an example of someone who is utilizing intellectualization to avoid feeling. A man gets suddenly let go from his job. Instead of taking the next day to feel his sadness, grief and/or anger, he jumps right into looking for new jobs. Or, a woman who’s dog got out of her gate and ran gets struck by a car may start immediately rebuilding the gate rather than taking time to feel grief, anger, and guilt.
To feel one’s feelings, we need to pull back from the instinct to DO something after we experience or receive news of something difficult. We pause and allow ourselves to breathe, to listen to our bodies. Maybe that means with talk it out with someone whom we trust, or we order our favorite take out and sit on our porch and cry. This may mean we journal and process our thoughts around the activating event, before we try to fix or prevent it from happening again.
“In therapy we will work to honor the part of us that has intellectualized - the part that has been a survival tactic - as it was a necessary part to keep us going during difficult times in our lives.”
This does NOT mean we cannot do these “doing” things at some point, I would just encourage you to pause for a bit before jumping into it. Ask yourself sincerely, “how am I feeling right now?” If that is too hard, you may want to narrow it down by asking yourself, “how am I NOT feeling right now.”
Think about the activating experience and notice what sensations you feel in your body and where. Is it a prickly feeling your hands? A hot sensation in your ears? A tightness in your throat? You may want to then close your eyes and just breath into those spaces for a bit. If you feel you want to cry, cry. If you feel you want to yell, yell into a pillow or in your car. If you feel you need to run around, run around the block. Listen to your body and show it that it can trust you to honor its needs.
In therapy we will work to honor the part of us that has intellectualized - the part that has been a survival tactic - as it was a necessary part to keep us going during difficult times in our lives. We will also learn to better identify what we are feeling and how we can express ourselves in healthy ways. We will learn to communicate our needs to others and set boundaries that can be maintained. We will truly learn to listen to our bodies and honor the way it is feeling to align both mentally and physically and create a more balanced self.
