Intellectualization and Long Term Care

The forth article in a series written by LTC Tree Advisor, Joe Houston, M.Ed., LPC, CRC  
       

Intellectualization is closely allied to rationalization, but differs in that it makes use of more sophisticated language manipulation.  For that reason it is usually a defense mechanism used by people who are well educated or who have good language and expressive skills.  We have all experienced the situation whereby the well educated scientist is discussing a process that seems to us relatively simple, but which he presents in a very academic and complicated way.  He probably does this in order to maintain an image of himself as a scientist, whereas if he spoke in more common language he might fear we would think he was not much of a scientist.  This made me think of how the wealthy-acting people often scoff at the thought of buying long term care insurance because they say: "I'll just insurance myself".  They may be able to do that if a person has 2-million plus dollars, but often people with a net worth in the hundreds of thousands gloss over long term care insurance as if they are immunized to ever needing care.  People who do this are usually experienced as “talking down” to their audience as they intellectualize their way around examining the fact that men 65+ have a 44% chance of needing care and women 65+ have a 70% chance of needing long term care before they die.           

Most intellectualizations come from childhood admonitions to use “nice” or “proper” language when describing certain things.  Intellectualizers are usually discouraged from using, coarse or vulgar language, even though that may be the most descriptive and accurate way of presenting the particular information.  One child we know had been taught by his mother to use the word “tee-tee” when describing urinating.  But one day he was around an older cousin who used the phrase “took a piss.” Our young hero thought that was cool, so that evening before going to bed, his mother asked him if he’d gone to the bathroom, he replied, “Yeah, Mom, I took a piss.”   Well, Mom promptly spanked him and told him to never use that word again, so he matured into adulthood being very careful about using certain words in select company.          

As you can see, intellectualization is used to control feelings inside that we want to protect in some way.  They are not necessarily sub-conscious; often we are quite aware of them in the situation at hand.  Some examples are:

1. she’s in a delicate condition, as opposed to being pregnant;
2. I must go powder my nose, instead of going to the bathroom to urinate;
3. he fell off the wagon, instead of he got drunk;
4. and he cheated on her, rather than committed adultery. 

 I’m sure you can think of many others, and it’s obvious that many intellectualizations arise out of our culture’s sense of propriety and good manners.  But the point is that, even so, by obeying these rules we are still protecting some complex of feelings inside our psyches, usually those that we wish to appear genteel, sophisticated or compliant with social norms.           

Of course, that implies the issue of those who purposely do the opposite by using obscenities and other shocking language. Since they do the opposite, aren’t they doing it for different reasons? The answer is that they are doing it also to protect feelings and images inside themselves.  In this case it is usually in defense of a self image that is often super macho, tough, aggressive, etc.  Such men who do this certainly do not want to be thought of as effeminate or sissies.      

Being the sophisticated consumers that our customers are, we’re sure you get the picture.  How this relates to long-term care insurance is stretching this counselor’s competence a bit, but I’ll try, if you won’t accuse me of rationalizing!             

If I sit down to make a decision as to whether I need to buy a product or not, I will consider the cost, my immediate need for it, my future need for it, what benefit I’ll get when I use it, will it help my lifestyle, what will it do to the image I have of myself, and how will it impact my loved ones?  Since I consider myself a reasonable, rational person, the answers to these questions are very important to me, as I am sure they are to you.  And the higher the cost, the more important the answers are.  I will think these questions over carefully, giving myself a reasonable amount of time to consider and answer them.  I do my own research, getting information from different pertinent sources. Once I have gathered sufficient information, I make it a point to talk to trusted experts and friends who know something about what I’m considering buying.  When  I’ve finished this process, the facts that I’ve gathered usually dictate what I should do.  That’s why my wife and I are long term care insured and have had to use our benefits in the past.  Good luck to you in your decision making and thanks for reading our blog.