Is Social Media Helping You Heal – or Just Reinforcing Your Defences?
- Ben Jones
- May 11
- 3 min read
If you’ve spent any time on Instagram or TikTok lately, you’ve probably seen posts about trauma, emotional regulation, attachment styles, or boundaries. These ideas are no longer niche — they’re mainstream. And while that visibility has helped reduce stigma, it’s also given rise to something more complicated: emotional language that looks like healing, but often stops short of real emotional change.
In therapy — and particularly in ISTDP — we often meet people who know all the right terms. They can describe their attachment patterns, outline their coping strategies, and even explain how their nervous system reacts under stress. But they still feel stuck. Why?
Because emotional insight without emotional experience doesn’t lead to lasting change.
From Awareness to Avoidance: How Defences Hide in Plain Sight
In ISTDP, we work from the premise that symptoms and suffering are often driven by unconscious emotional conflict. At the heart of this conflict are three main components:
Emotions that were once overwhelming or forbidden
Anxiety that arises when those feelings get close to the surface
Defences that automatically activate to keep those feelings out of awareness
These defences aren’t deliberate. They’re automatic habits of the mind and body — like muscle memory — that were once useful, but now cause problems. And one of the most common defences we see, especially in well-informed clients, is intellectualisation.
What Is Intellectualisation?
Intellectualisation is when you think about your emotions instead of feeling them. It’s the mind’s way of keeping a safe distance. For example:
“I know I struggle with abandonment issues” – but you don’t feel the grief underneath
“I just need to set better boundaries” – but you don’t feel the guilt or fear that makes saying no so hard
“It’s just my anxious attachment style” – but you don’t feel the panic or longing beneath the label
On social media, this defence can be unintentionally reinforced. The constant stream of short-form content gives people labels and frameworks without providing any way to process what those labels actually mean in their emotional world.
This is why someone can spend hours a week learning about trauma and still feel like nothing’s changing.
Social Media and the Illusion of Insight
It’s easy to confuse language with healing. Seeing a post that describes your internal experience can feel like a breakthrough — and it is, to a point. It can help you feel less alone, less ashamed, more “seen.” But it doesn’t resolve the underlying emotional material.
What’s more, social media can subtly reward certain defence patterns:
Scrolling as avoidance: using emotional content as a way to numb out, rather than reflect
Comparison as self-attack: feeling inadequate because others seem more “healed” or “aware”
Over-identification: clinging to a diagnosis or label as a fixed identity, which can block emotional growth
These are defence mechanisms too — just dressed up in modern, therapeutic language.
What Real Change Looks Like
In ISTDP, we work to bring unconscious emotional patterns into conscious awareness — not just intellectually, but experientially. That means:
Slowing down enough to feel the anxiety that comes up when emotions start to surface
Noticing how your mind might deflect, minimise, explain away, or distract from those emotions
Building your capacity to experience feelings like anger, sadness, guilt, or longing — not just talk about them
This is uncomfortable work. It’s also where the healing happens. Because when you face and feel what you’ve been avoiding — in the presence of someone who isn’t overwhelmed by it — your system begins to reorganise. That’s when lasting change becomes possible.
Social Media Can Start the Conversation — But It Can’t Finish It
There’s nothing wrong with getting curious about yourself through social media. It can be a valuable first step. But if you find yourself endlessly consuming content without feeling any better, it might be time to ask:
Am I using information to avoid something deeper?
Insight is important — but it’s not the same as transformation. That requires courage, support, and space to feel what’s really there. Therapy, especially ISTDP, offers that space.
Because healing isn’t something you scroll your way into. It’s something you feel your way through.
Want to Go Deeper?
If this resonates, I’ve put together a free ebook that explains how emotional defences can keep us stuck — and how to begin recognising them in your own life. It’s designed to help you slow down, look inward, and start connecting with what’s really going on beneath the surface.
It’s free, and you’ll also receive a short email series exploring how therapy helps create real, lasting change.
