When intelligence becomes a trap: on the perils of overthinking

One of the great lessons of literature is that our strengths can also become our weaknesses. Consider how Hamlet’s reflectiveness allows him to see nuances others overlook, but it also contributes to his tragic inability to act. For Hedda Gabler, her passionate desire for experience shows her zest for life, yet in confining circumstances it becomes destructive.

Many of us experience this paradox in our everyday lives. For example, some of us know how our conscientiousness may become perfectionistic. Others can appreciate how their finely honed empathy can lead to a hypervigilance regarding others’ moods, whilst a reflective person may ponder so much over a decision that they end up not making it.

The problem in these cases is not the strength itself. The problem is when we lose sight of the limitations of our strengths and of the circumstances in which they can thrive.

This is particularly the case with analytical intelligence. For our purposes here, analytical intelligence does not mean having a high IQ or possessing academic ability. Instead, what I mean by analytical intelligence is a way of engaging with life that involves noticing nuances, imaginatively contemplating possibilities and reflecting deeply on our motives, feelings and decisions.

These strengths are, without question, enormously valuable, as they can help us creatively solve problems, understand ourselves deeply, and appreciate the complexities of other people’s lives. However, when analytical thinking is made to serve our fears and perfectionistic tendencies, it can morph into its unhelpful form: overthinking.

When we start to overthink, our capacity for noticing nuance can get us lost in irrelevant details, our ability to imagine various futures can lead us to catastrophize about unlikely possibilities, and what was originally honest self-exploration can descend into unwarranted self-doubt.

The question becomes this: How are we to benefit from reflective thinking without becoming trapped inside it?

When detail becomes distraction

Imagine you are trying to decide whether to apply for a new job. To begin with, you reflect on the salary, the opportunities to advance your career, and the extent to which the role aligns with your current values. As you proceed, though, you start to ponder more intangible and unresolvable matters, such as whether this new role will still interest you in five years’ time, or whether it is closing off some unknown opportunity. Helpful analytical thinking has become overthinking, as you have lost sight of what is relevant and capable of being known.

The English literary critic, I.A. Richards, made a deceptively simple point; the meaning we give to things is connected to our purposes. A psychoanalytic and a Marxist reader may notice and emphasise different aspects of the novel Dracula, not because one has read it ‘wrongly’, but rather they have different interests and are asking different questions of it.

In a similar way, each of us is reading the world according to our own interests and purposes. For example, an estate agent will notice different things about your house than a friend coming along for a meal for the first time at the new abode. Although it is the same house that is being viewed, what counts as relevant, interesting or unimportant will be defined largely by the perspective and the purposes we have. 

Thus, we can say that overthinking is when we lose sight of our purposes and get lost in detail, as we have not got any criteria for what is significant or unimportant and so every detail becomes potentially significant. In such cases, we can get immersed in endless analysis, as we have lost touch with what is significant and when we will have fulfilled our purpose.

Here are some helpful questions to address overthinking:

• What am I actually trying to understand here?
• Which details are merely interesting or purely speculative?
• What would count as enough thinking for the purpose that I have?

These questions are not intended to unnecessarily reduce complexity but to define what counts as relevant complexity.

When possibility becomes probability

One of the common anxiety-inducing scenarios in the modern world is when you’ve texted a friend, and they haven’t replied in their usual time frame. In such cases, your analytical mind can go into overdrive as you consider a variety of possibilities: Are they secretly annoyed with me? Has the friendship changed without me knowing it? Have they been in an accident?

Being able to think of alternatives is usually a strength, as it allows us to work out the best course of action rather than deciding impulsively. However, when we start to overthink, our minds become these possibility-generating machines, and some frightening scenarios may trouble us before we are able to calmly evaluate them.

It is important to remember that when we start to overthink in this way, the feared scenarios seem compelling not because they are necessarily aligned with the facts, but because they resonate with our fears. We must stress to ourselves that generating scary scenarios is not engaging with the evidence, but rather it is a symptom of our imagination partnering with our anxiety. Indeed, what feels compelling may nevertheless not be true, as the extent to which we feel something says nothing on its own about how likely it is to happen.

Thus, overthinking can lead us into what I call the certainty trap, as we promise to ourselves that we will stop thinking once we have completely ruled out the feared possibility. But we continue to think and think because unlikely possibilities by definition cannot be ruled out; otherwise, they wouldn’t be possibilities.

To get out of the certainty trap, then, we have to acknowledge that objective thinking cannot demand that we conclusively rule out unlikely possibilities. Instead, we should try to work out, as accurately as we can, the probabilities of certain things happening, so that we can act on what we believe the evidence most likely suggests will happen.

Here are some helpful questions:

• Given what I do know just now, what is the most reasonable thing to think and do?
• What evidence supports the feared scenario?
• Am I treating something as likely because it is actually probable or because I fear it?

We will never achieve omniscience, so we should never expect ourselves to completely rule out a possibility in advance or to foresee all possible outcomes. An Icarus-like attempt to surpass the limitations of our limited knowledge at any given time is not where our responsibility lies. Rather, what is expected of us is to form a judgement about what to do based on what could reasonably be known to us at the time.

When self-examination becomes self-suspicion

It is one of the occupational hazards of the reflective life that self-examination can lead to self-doubt, as you can become suspicious and critical of your own motives.

For example, suppose you gave a close friend a very expensive gift at their birthday party in front of 50 guests. Later, as you reflect on your motives, you wonder whether you gave that gift solely to make your friend happy and to honour the friendship, or whether you also wanted to impress your friend and upstage the other guests? In other words, did you do it out of generosity or for recognition and the desire to impress?

It must be admitted that the discovery of mixed motives can be unsettling if we hold onto the belief that a good person acts from pure, unalloyed motives. Yet, in reality, human motivations rarely work in this way, as we may want to make our friend happy and also want to be recognised and appreciated. We may want to help someone out of generosity and also take satisfaction in being helpful. It is important for our mental health to realise that self-interest does not automatically cancel out our kindness.

To avoid self-examination becoming self-suspicion, it is helpful for us to engage our curiosity about our motives rather than coldly prosecute them. Healthy self-examination operates in an atmosphere of moral realism, where the aim is not to prove that we are flawless or secretly fraudulent. Rather, we want to uncover the variety of our motives so that we can more consciously decide which ones to encourage and cultivate. Therefore, what I am saying here is a less technical version of Freud’s quote: “Wherever id is, there ego shall be”. Ego in this case refers to the conscious self, rather than the ego in the case of egotism.

Here are some helpful questions to ask:

• What were the variety of my motives?
• Did I nevertheless act on the basis of my values?
• What motives had the most influence on what I did?
• What motives do I want to encourage when I’m in a similar situation in the future?

Honest answers to these questions are not signs of moral failure but of honouring moral complexity. Healthy self-examination does not simplify such complexity by reducing it to a harsh moral verdict.

Learning to wisely reflect

Overall, then, the purpose of avoiding overthinking is not to encourage you to reflect less or to ignore your capacity for recognising nuances and complexities. Instead, I want to encourage you to reflect more wisely by avoiding the dangers of getting lost in irrelevant detail, getting fixated on unlikely, catastrophic possibilities or demanding an impossible purity of motive from yourself. Wise reflection asks itself, “What am I trying to achieve through my reflecting and is my thinking still serving that aim?”

If you recognise these patterns and wish to seek out therapy, choose a therapist who can help you distinguish between healthy reflection and unproductive analysis, who can help you existentially accept uncertainty and who can help you respect and humanise your moral complexity.