Are You Overthinking Your Feelings? What It Means to Intellectualize

It is natural to want to try to figure out your emotions and solve the problem that is bothering you. However, psychiatrists warn that overanalyzing your emotions instead of feeling them is not always a healthy approach. Here is what you need to know about what it means to be intellectualizing your emotions, and why this could be hurting your mental health.

Understanding the Process of Intellectualization

Over-analyzers tend to want to solve every emotion by finding a solution. While it is never bad to look for ways to promote a better emotional state, it is important to remember that understanding your feelings is not the same thing as working through them.

Therapists refer to the tendency to try to think your way through difficult situations as intellectualizing. This process involves using reasoning and sound logic to try to rationalize what is making you feel bad and try to find a solution rather than letting your mind and heart actually process the feelings.

“Whatever’s going on in your life, you’re trying to explain and analyze it, put it into context, or solve it,” says Jessi Gold, MD, MS, a psychiatrist and the chief wellness officer of the University of Tennessee System. Gold explains that “you’re not really trying to just be in the moment and feel it.”

In practical terms, someone who is intellectualizing may look at a hard breakup and make a mental list of why things went wrong and how to avoid the problem again. However, the heartbroken person is using this logical response as a tool to avoid actually spending time in their feelings without having to acknowledge that they are hurt. Convincing yourself that the relationship was doomed and that you will be able to move on easily is a way to intellectualize the underlying feelings of loss.

Gold said that it is not wrong to try to use logic as a tool to assuage your feelings, especially if it can help to create some space during a difficult moment. The issue comes when overanalyzing what went wrong replaces a healthy emotional reaction, which will delay the natural healing process.

In addition to not healthily dealing with the acute emotions, intellectualization has also been connected to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and other health issues. Overanalyzing your feelings rather than confronting them can also negatively impact the other relationships in your life, especially if you are building up resentment towards others as you spend an excessive amount of time overthinking things.

Signs that You're Intellectualizing

How do you know what is normal processing and what is becoming excessive intellectualizing? If you can explain what happened but not necessarily how it made you feel, you are likely suppressing the feelings that you need to confront head-on. Turning your feelings into a problem that needs to be solved rather than something to sit with and feel is another sign that your intellectualization is becoming unhealthy.

Experts say that it is healthy to acknowledge that your feelings are not always in your control. Recognizing that you cannot control every emotion and simply letting them happen is a healthy coping mechanism. Give yourself time and grace to give in to the hard emotions before trying to solve them all.

Gold says that people guilty of intellectualization often come across as detached from the situation. If you find yourself describing challenging emotional moments as if they are not actually happening to you, you are likely not allowing yourself to feel it.

Tips for Processing Your Emotions in a Healthy Way

So what do you do if you want to deal with your emotions in productive and meaningful ways? The goal is to process the experience and resulting emotions without distancing yourself from what happened. This also means that you should be intentional about not trying to make it go away, as this will eventually come back to bite you.

Gold recommends giving your specific feeling a name. For instance, rather than just thinking to yourself that you are not okay, try delving a little deeper to assign a more precise feeling to what is bothering you. That could be feelings of rejection, stress, sadness, disappointment, or shame. Writing your feelings down is a good way to process them without pushing them to the side.

Once you have named what you are feeling, do not try to rationalize your emotions or make excuses. Simply give yourself grace to feel whatever it is that is crowding your headspace. Remember that you always have the right to feel upset and that there is no predetermined timeline for when you should start to feel better.

Licensed couples therapist Nari Jeter, PhD, LMFT, explains that a better approach is to tell yourself, “I don’t have to figure this out. I just feel sad right now, and that’s okay." According to Jeter, you can train yourself to recognize old patterns of intellectualizing so that you can learn to process your emotions in a healthier way.

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