Intellectualising

[Autumn5000]

I've been looking this concept up recently which is ironic really. I came to learn that I research and study why I am the way I am and why I'm feeling certain ways. Apparently it's a defence mechanism to not feel my emotions but explain away why. And this totally fits me. I guess I'm dodging sitting in my emotions as it's uncomfortable. Then I found out that having regular therapy no longer works because you're so self aware of your issues and why you've got your issues so you go around in loops in the therapy because you can never resolve the issues. I've seen that apparently somatic therapy is suppose to really help. Has anyone had this type of therapy? Did it help you? Also can anyone relate to intellectualising?

Sorry I have no advice to give, but I can totally relate to this concept. I would be interested to know more about it, and somatic therapy.

Would be great if I could have advice from anyone who's experience somatic therapy

You cannot be so self aware if you do not know where your feelings originate.

Physical and psychological reactions can be for a variety of issues. Can you not just observe them when they arise and then let them go. Why the need to analyse everything? Habit?
In your experience these feelings, emotions and thoughts come and go. Only by the continuous intellectualisation do they remain or keep repeating.

It's a form of dissociation and EMDR is highly effective for it.

Oops, I think this is me 😅

What is somatic therapy, may I ask?

I don’t know about somatic therapy but have found meditation and mindfulness really helpful for learning to ‘sit with’ and accept my emotions. It’s also enabled me to access emotions I usually shut down ie anger, as I can observe the emotion while understanding that it is not my identity, just a temporary feeling that I am experiencing.

Mind body therapy. Yoga and meditation would be the most common.

Then there's the tantric version, not the westernised and bastardised version of tantra, but the hindu version.

An example of that would be to sit on the floor and bring energy through the root chakra and up through all the chakras whilst in a meditative state.

Another would be through breathwork.

Try inhaling a deep breath........then exhale..... as you exhale tell yourself not to think of anything. Notice at the end of the breath you cannot think of anything. There is difficulty focussing on the mind.

Oh, OK, thank you! Therapies where the focus is in the body, now I see...

I think if you hit this point you need to just stop thinking about it all and busy yourself with things. If you have enough errands to run and emails to respond to you won't have emotions to contemplate.

This is also not healthy. There's only so much you can avoid things for before the lid begins to pop open.

I know where they originated. That's the problem though. I know the issues and where and why. It's just the dealing with them that I struggle with. I live in the past alot and always think about my parents and how they treated me and then in turn how I've ended up in awful abusive relationships.
I can't seem to move past it. I always feel low and I've been diagnosed witg ADHD but a part of me things have I been misdiagnosed and its trauma. See I think too deeply and I can rationally talk about it. But it's the emotions I need to deal with behind it

I was like this for a long time, OP. I also have ADHD. I was happy! But a part of me held this festering depression, and I knew all about it, the reasons, the day it began. Regular therapy didn't cut it because I'd researched myself inside out.

Then one day, I witnessed DH nearly die. I was traumatised, diagnosed with PTSD and put in EMDR Therapy. They got to the core of not only that trauma, but old ones. I can't say it changed my life, but it helped a lot and now I can drag myself up before the darkness hits. I'd really recommend it.

Body and mind. The body carries memory too.

Why are you frightened to let them go. What use are they now? The past is filled with lessons, those lessons are not supposed to be a life sentence.

I'm not frightened. And it's not just as easy as moving past it. Unless you've been in it then I don't think you'd understand.

I'm sorry you had to go through all that. What's involved in EMDR if you don't mind me asking?

Then I'll leave you to it.

Thank you.

It was a long while ago now, but it's to do with eye movement...which sounds weird. It's about processing trauma in an adaptive way, so as you're speaking you'll follow the finger of your therapist. I think they used a clock at some point, but it's not hypnotism or anything like that.

I remember being asked to hold an image of DH injured in my mind, and being asked to talk through it. It sounds fucking traumatic and the opposite to what I would need, but it wasn't. It worked.

It's quite hard to describe, so I'd recommend having a look online. But don't be put off by some of the techniques - they sound almost brutal and I've heard some people (who haven't done it) call it gaslighting, but it wasn't. It was brilliant, and my therapist was a total angel.

I can't tell if you're joking or not. But just in case you're not, that is an exceptionally unhealthy way of handling emotion and will only store up trouble for the future. Unfelt emotion does so much damage to the body. It can result in depression or anxiety. It can damage relationships because you're unaware of what you're feeling and it will end up projected onto others. It's extremely damaging.

Oh I know, believe me...
I asked because I'm familiar with Alexander Lowen "school" of therapy and wondered if it would apply to it too.

I was very like you OP, very cut off from my emotions from years of suppressing them. I knew where my problems had come from but it didn't help me resolve them.

EMDR helped, but what helped me most was magic mushrooms. Because when you're tripping all the analysing falls away, and hopefully it is cathartic and you can have clearer realisations.

Unfortunately it's illegal unless you go to Amsterdam or a couple of other places, though hopefully will become legal in the UK in coming years as a treatment for depression and other mental health issues.

Maybe I'll look into EMDR. I don't think I'll go down the illegal drug route.

Maybe in part it’s knowing and then accepting that things weren’t good in the past and have given you scars -but that life gives everyone scars, mental and physical. Then make a conscious decision that you can choose how to react from now and make plans for the future and concentrate on that instead of the past.

Easier said than done though I know. I overthink a lot and I have been focused on my past a lot since my mum passed away. I’m kind of going with it but I know I need to start looking forward again too.