Can You Intellectualize Feelings?

In psychology, intellectualization is a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress – where thinking is used to avoid feeling. It involves removing one's self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

What does it mean to intellectualize emotions?

Intellectualization involves a person using reason and logic to avoid uncomfortable or anxiety-provoking emotions. Intellectualization can be a useful way of explaining and understanding negative events.

Is intellectualization a form of dissociation?

Repression, intellectualization, splitting, and other defense mechanisms rely upon dissociation to accomplish their specific tasks.