I don't think that wanting to have information and researching independently is the same as the defense mechanism of intellectualizing. The latter implies an escape from dealing with emotions and the irrational elements of our nature. Wanting to understand one's emotional processes, instead of just experiencing them, is pretty much the basic goal of therapy, no? And if someone finds it useful and sees significant improvement due to it in how they handle emotions, I don't think they escape by any means. The whole of therapy is quite an intellectual process and requires that strongly, that is how it can be different from ordinary interactions for many people, I believe. For me personally, many (if not most) of my ordinary interactions also tend to be heavily analytical and involving mutual introspection on psychological factors, one reason therapy did not bring me much new and felt superficial given that therapy sessions were an hour a week (plus some emails) vs. the rest of my life and social interactions all the time. I often quickly lose interest in and move on from people who cannot or do not want to engage with me in this way so, for me, it's part of a long-term, basic lifestyle. And yes, for me dealing with emotions very often involves heavily intellectualizing - escaping into what feels much more pleasurable than actually experiencing negative feelings. That's a defense. But I find that I can work on loosening it much more effectively in everyday life, especially when I have bad days and conflicts with people and trying to resolve them or just let them be. In therapy, just sitting and talking about it... was very much intellectualizing for me instead of doing, and because intellectualizing is kinda automatic for me and can even turn addictive, therapy was just running in the same old familiar circles, which I already do by default. But if someone can use it constructively and improve as a result, that is not an escape or defense IMO.