Overview
“Intellectualization” is considered a defense mechanism against unwanted emotions that draws someone’s focus to abstractions rather than the lived experience of painful feelings. One of the most commonly depicted forms of intellectualization follows the death of a loved one, where someone might throw themselves entirely into the headspace of resolving the logistical problems of a person’s absence, like spending more time working to compensate for the lost income but also to avoid sitting alone with uncomfortable emotions surrounding that loss. In recovery spaces, those who were good at school, myself included, can quickly learn how to give facilitators or therapists the answers they’re looking for by working in jargon like “challenging my black-and-white schemas that were responsible for my self-sabotage around the fears of success”, but also bypass any real emotional experience.