Not all soulmates are made equal
The term "intellectualizer" is used to refer to someone who uses logic and reason to explain away all of their feelings. Often, they are people who never had the space to express emotions while growing up. This can take its toll on their relationships and well-being later in life.
So, do you suspect that either you or someone close to you may be an intellectualizer? Click through this gallery to discover the key signs to look out for.
The first clear sign that someone may be an intellectualizer is if they respond with logic whenever someone asks them how they feel.
For example, explaining away emotions can be a useful defense mechanism when navigating a period of strong and temporary emotions, such as grief.
Another trait of intellectualizers is that they tend to think they already hold all the answers. They also believe they are able to recognize patterns long before their therapists.
More often than not, intellectualizers are people who did not have the space to express their emotions as children. Therefore, they learned to deal with their emotions in other ways.
They may find the process of working through their emotions during therapy repetitive or even shallow.
Another key characteristic of intellectualizers is that they tend to try and think their way through problems, rather than feel any physical responses to pain.
Of course, it is not possible to think your way through all problems. As a result, intellectualizers often feel stuck in their suffering.
Intellectualizers are often very intelligent; they tend to use patterns, labels, and misguided explanations to create a false sense of control.
It is also common for intellectualizers to try and plan their way through anxiety, coming up with supposed solutions to all the "what if" scenarios they can imagine.
In their minds, preprocessing all the trauma that they imagine could happen helps intellectualizers gain a sense of control over their lives.
Instead of being in touch with and expressing their true emotions, intellectualizers tend to operate from a place of toxic self-preservation.
Of course, health self-preservation practices, such as mindfulness, have an important role to play. However, self-preservation should never get in the way of someone's ability to connect with others.
Intellectualizers may miss the physical symptoms of stress because they immediately resort to overthinking.
Of course, it is not only our minds that respond to stress. Our bodies experience stress, too, and it shows in physical symptoms, such as increased heart rate and fatigue.
Not being in touch with your body and not noticing those symptoms is a sign that you may be in too much of a rush to explain away your stress.
Using rational thought to help yourself deal with a breakup, for example, may give you the opportunity to see things from the other person's perspective.
Another sign that someone is an intellectualizer is when they use humor to try and distract people from what they're actually thinking and feeling.
Of course, humor has an important role to play in interpersonal relationships. However, when it is used as a defense mechanism, it starts to become toxic.
Intellectualizers who use this technique are often people who experienced childhood trauma and who grew up in a space where they were unable to express emotions.
The final telltale sign that you are an intellectualizer is if you struggle with conflict. Indeed, intellectualizers tend to overthink and rationalize so much that it gives them a false sense of confidence.
You may even be overly critical of people who choose to express their emotions to you, or label them as oversensitive or too emotional.
Sources: (YourTango)
See also: The different types of emotions and their effect on human behavior
Signs you may be an intellectualizer
The tendency to overexplain and analyze things
LIFESTYLE Personality traits
The term "intellectualizer" is used to refer to someone who uses logic and reason to explain away all of their feelings. Often, they are people who never had the space to express emotions while growing up. This can take its toll on their relationships and well-being later in life.
So, do you suspect that either you or someone close to you may be an intellectualizer? Click through this gallery to discover the key signs to look out for.