Are You Intellectualizing or Feeling?
I am a master of intellectualization. I can blankly recite why someone is acting the way they are without ever considering my feeling or the way it’s manifesting in me. It’s my best coping skill and my worst defense mechanism.
As a therapist, I have had to fight the urge regularly to not push my clients toward this tactic. When used correctly, it can be useful and transformative. But when used in excess, intellectualization can become a shield. It leaves us feeling empty and detached.
Intellectualization and create understanding. It does not allow us to feel. These are two totally different things.
The problem is that emotional pain cannot be problem-solved. Intellectualization is trying to do that.
When we intellectualize, we’re saying “Hey mind you’re wrong. You shouldn’t be feeling this. Look at the facts.” We completely divert attention away from our bodies and into our heads.
This can be a great strategy during conflict at work or in other high stress situations. But when we intellectualize as our only coping skill and avoid feeling entirely…we usually snap.
The continual breaking of attention as a strategy for escaping pain will eventually impact our ability to pay attention at all. It’s great to know the reasons why. It’s helpful to understand. But once we understand we have to feel.
