It's not just intellectual understanding though-it's experiential (not sure if that's the right word). I was trying to get at that with Here today in that it may be more of an implicit felt experience or believing rather than explicit understanding.

Intellectualization did keep me together when i was experiencing emotional flooding, so it wasn't merely a curiosity but it worked in a positive way. You and I are much different in those regards-I've heavily in my emotions (but use isolation), but it's not balanced. And although I'm a very analytical person, it seems to be one or the other. Therapy has helped integrate...

Having an observing ego is good and even necessary to tolerate psychoanalytic therapy, I believe. If you didn't have that, everything would be egosyntonic, where you'd have no awareness. But I think as a defense, intellectualization can have an adverse affect on one day to day in terms of being mindful. It can keep people as an observer of life rather than living in it, similar to depersonalization. So for those prone, analytic therapy can worsen that. You can talk about the transference rather than 'be in it' in terms of therapeutic space. I think this is the other side of the coin of being overly emotional.

Being an observer and not participant in the world around them is a schizoid trait that is accompanied by anhedonia, lack of motivation/procrastination, flat affect, and detachment. Loosening up defenses so one is in an emotional mindset more can help with that. A better regulated ego has balance. But I think of defense mechanisms differently than others here, so I won't go on about it. But it's something I have a deep interest in because it impacts the way your whole mind works, sense of self, and how you relate to others.