# Intellectualization

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Psychological defense mechanism

In [psychology](/source/Psychology), **intellectualization** (intellectualisation) is a [defense mechanism](/source/Defence_mechanism) by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an [unconscious](/source/Unconscious_mind) conflict and its associated emotional stress – where thinking is used to avoid feeling.[1] It involves emotionally removing one's self from a stressful event. Intellectualization may accompany, but is different from, [rationalization](/source/Rationalization_(psychology)), the pseudo-rational justification of irrational acts.[2]

Intellectualization was among the first defense mechanisms identified by [Sigmund Freud](/source/Sigmund_Freud). He believed that memories have both conscious and unconscious aspects, and that intellectualization allows for the conscious analysis of an event in a way that does not provoke anxiety.[3]

## Description

Intellectualization is a transition to [reason](/source/Reason), where the person avoids uncomfortable emotions by focusing on [facts](/source/Fact) and [logic](/source/Logic). The situation is treated as an interesting problem that engages the person on a rational basis, whilst the emotional aspects are completely ignored as being irrelevant.

While Freud did not himself use the term "intellectualization",[4] in *On Negation* he described clinical instances in which "the intellectual function is separated from the affective process....The outcome of this is a kind of intellectual acceptance of the repressed, while at the same time what is essential to the repression persists".[5] Elsewhere he described an (unsuccessful) analysis with "the patient participating actively with her intellect, though absolutely tranquil emotionally...completely indifferent",[6] while he also noted how in the obsessional the thinking processes themselves become sexually charged.[7]

[Anna Freud](/source/Anna_Freud) devoted a chapter of her book *The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense* [1937] to "Intellectualization at Puberty", seeing the growing intellectual and philosophical approach of that period as relatively normal attempts to master adolescent drives.[8] She considered that only "if the process of intellectualization overruns the whole field of mental life" should it be considered pathological.[9]

[Jargon](/source/Jargon) is often used as a device of intellectualization. By using complex terminology, the focus becomes on the words and finer definitions rather than the human effects.

Intellectualization protects against anxiety by repressing the emotions connected with an event. A comparison sometimes made is that between *isolation* (also known as [isolation of affect](/source/Isolation_(psychology))) and *intellectualization*. The former is a dissociative response that allows one to dispassionately experience an unpleasant thought or event. The latter is a cognitive style that seeks to conceptualize an unpleasant thought or event in an intellectually comprehensible manner.[10] The *[DSM-IV-TR](/source/DSM-IV-TR)* thus mentions them as separate entities.[11] It allows one to rationally deal with a situation, but may cause [suppression](/source/Thought_suppression) of feelings that need to be acknowledged to move on.

## In the defense hierarchy

[George Vaillant](/source/George_Eman_Vaillant) divided defense mechanisms into a hierarchy of defenses ranging from immature through neurotic to healthy defenses,[12] and placed intellectualization – imagining an act of violence without feeling the accompanying emotions, for example – in the mid-range, neurotic defenses.[13] Like rationalisation, intellectualization can thus provide a bridge between immature and mature mechanisms both in the process of growing up and in adult life.[14]

[Donald Winnicott](/source/Donald_Winnicott), however, considered that erratic childhood care could lead to over-dependence on intellectuality as a substitute for mothering;[15] and saw over-preoccupation with knowledge as an emotional impoverishment aimed at self-mothering via the mind.[16] [Julia Kristeva](/source/Julia_Kristeva) similarly described a process whereby "symbolicity itself is cathected...Since it is not sex-oriented, it denies the question of sexual difference".[17]

One answer to such over-intellectualization may be the sense of humour, what [Richard Hofstadter](/source/Richard_Hofstadter) called the necessary quality of playfulness[18] – Freud himself saying that "Humour can be regarded as the highest of these defensive processes"![19]

## During therapy

Among the intellectual defenses against analysis are a refusal to accept the logic of emotions, attempts to refute the theory of psychoanalysis,[20] or speculating about one's own problems rather than experiencing them and attempting to change.[21]

Such intellectualizations of therapy may form part of wider manic defenses against emotional reality.[22] A further difficulty may be that of assimilating new and unfamiliar feelings once the defense of intellectualization begins to crack open.[23]

Alternatively the therapist may unwittingly deflect the patient away from feeling to mere talking of feelings, producing not emotional but merely intellectual insight[24] an obsessional attempt to control through thinking the lost feelings parts of the self.[25] As [Jung](/source/Jung) put it, "the intellectual still suffers from a neurosis if feeling is undeveloped".[26]

## Psychoanalytic controversy

Freud's theory of psychoanalysis has been criticized by some for revealing intellectual [grandiosity](/source/Grandiosity).[27]

[Jacques Lacan](/source/Jacques_Lacan), however, would defend it on the basis of its intellectuality, arguing that one could "recognize bad psychoanalysts...by the word they use to deprecate all technical or theoretical research...*intellectualization*".[28] Lacan himself was exposed to exactly the same criticism: "My own conception of the dynamics of the unconscious has been called an intellectualization – on the grounds that I based the function of the signifier in the forefront".[29]

Freud himself stated that he had a vast desire for knowledge[30] and reflected on how theorizing could become a compulsive activity.[31][Didier Anzieu](/source/Didier_Anzieu) analyzed "Freud's Self-Analysis", claiming "his elaboration of psychoanalytic theory...corresponded to a setting up of obsessional defenses against depressive anxiety" – "to defend himself against [anxiety] through such a degree of intellectualization".[32]

## Examples

Suppose John has been brought up by a strict father, feels hurt, and is angry as a result. Although John may have deep feelings of hatred towards his father, when he talks about his childhood, John may say: "Yes, my father was a rather firm person, I suppose I do feel some [antipathy](/source/Antipathy) towards him even now".[33] John intellectualizes; he chooses rational and emotionally cool words to describe experiences which are usually emotional and very painful.

A woman in therapy continues to theorise her experience to her therapist – 'It seems to me that being psycho-analysed is essentially a process where one is forced back into infantilism... intellectual primitivism' – despite knowing that she 'would get no answer to it, or at least, not on the level I wanted, since I knew that what I was saying was the "intellectualising" to which she attributed my emotional troubles'.[34]

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Glen O. Gabbard, *Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy* (London 2010) p. 35

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** George E. Vaillant, *Ego mechanisms of defence: a guide for clinicians and researchers* (1992) p. 274

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** ["Defenses"](http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/counseling/defenses.html). PsychPage. Retrieved 2008-03-11.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Edward Erwin, *The Freud encyclopedia* (2002) p. 202

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** Sigmund Freud, *On Metapsychology* (Penguin 1987) p. 438

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** Sigmund Freud, *Case Studies II* (London 1991) p. 390

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** Freud, *Studies* p. 124 and note

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** Otto Fenichel, *The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis* (London 1946) p. 112

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** Anna Freud, *The ego and the mechanism of defense* (London 1993) p. 172

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** ["The caller's coping styles"](https://web.archive.org/web/20120327023424/http://www.uic.edu/orgs/convening/coping.htm). *UIC.edu*. Archived from [the original](http://www.uic.edu/orgs/convening/coping.htm) on March 27, 2012. Retrieved December 14, 2011.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** *[DSM-IV-TR](/source/DSM-IV-TR)*, p. 808

1. **[^](#cite_ref-12)** Skinner/Cleese, *Life* p. 53

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13)** Skinner/Cleese, *Life* p. 54

1. **[^](#cite_ref-14)** A. Bateman and J. Holmes, *Introduction to Psychoanalysis* (London 1999) p. 92

1. **[^](#cite_ref-15)** Adam Phillips, *On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored* (London 1994) p. 43-4

1. **[^](#cite_ref-16)** Rosalind Minsky, *Psychoanalysis and Gender* (London 1996) p. 40

1. **[^](#cite_ref-17)** Julia Kristeva, *Powers of Horror* (New York 1982) p. 44-5

1. **[^](#cite_ref-18)** Quoted in Peter Gay, *Reading Freud* (London 1990) p. 127

1. **[^](#cite_ref-19)** Skinner/Cleese, *Life* p. 56

1. **[^](#cite_ref-20)** Fenichel, *Neurosis* p. 28

1. **[^](#cite_ref-21)** Peter Gay ed., *The Freud Reader* (London 1995) p. 362-3

1. **[^](#cite_ref-22)** Hanna Segal, *Introduction to the Work of Melanie Klein* (London 1964) p. 70

1. **[^](#cite_ref-23)** Fenichel, *Neurosis* p. 477

1. **[^](#cite_ref-24)** Patrick Casement, *On Learning from the Patient* (London 1990) p. 178-9

1. **[^](#cite_ref-25)** Charles Rycroft, *A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis* (Penguin 1977) p. 72

1. **[^](#cite_ref-26)** C. G. Jung, *Memories, Dreams, Reflections* (London 1995) p. 167

1. **[^](#cite_ref-27)** Roy Porter, *A Social History of Madness* (London 1999) p.222

1. **[^](#cite_ref-28)** Jacques Lacan, *Ecrits: A Selection* (London 1996) p. 171

1. **[^](#cite_ref-29)** Jacques Lacan, *The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis* (London 1994) p. 133

1. **[^](#cite_ref-30)** Quoted in Gay, *Reading* p. 49

1. **[^](#cite_ref-31)** Sigmund Freud, *The Uncanny* (Penguin 2003) p. 58

1. **[^](#cite_ref-32)** Didier Anzieu, *Freud's Self-Analysis* (London 1986) p. 581 and p. 182

1. **[^](#cite_ref-33)** [Changing Minds explanations for coping behaviours](http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/intellectualization.htm) retrieved February 18, 2009

1. **[^](#cite_ref-34)** Doris Lessing, *The Golden Notebook* (Herts 1973) p. 455

v t e Defence mechanisms Level 1: Pathological Delusional projection Denial or abnegation (German: Verneinung) Psychotic denial or disavowal (German: Verleugnung) Distortion Foreclosure or repudiation (German: Verwerfung) Extreme projection Identification with the Aggressor Splitting (Black-and-white thinking) Level 2: Immature Acting out Fantasy Idealization Introjection (Internalization) Passive-aggression Projection Projective identification Somatization Level 3: Neurotic Displacement Dissociation Hypochondriasis Intellectualization Isolation Rationalization Reaction formation Regression Repression (German: Verdrängung) Undoing Level 4: Mature Altruism Anticipation Humour Identification Sublimation Suppression Other Compartmentalization Defensive pessimism Minimisation Postponement of affect

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Intellectualization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectualization) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectualization?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.