The ego deals with the demands of reality, the id,
and the superego as best as it can. But when the anxiety becomes overwhelming,
the ego must defend itself. It does so by unconsciously blocking the impulses
or distorting them into a more acceptable, less threatening form. The
techniques are called the ego defense mechanisms.
While all defense
mechanisms can be unhealthy, they can also be adaptive and allow us to function
normally. The greatest problems arise when defense mechanisms are overused in
order to avoid dealing with problems. In psychoanalytic therapy, the main goal is
to uncover these unconscious defense mechanisms and find better, healthier ways
of coping with anxiety and distress.
One of the most wide known defense mechanisms is denial.
Let’s review it in more details.
About
denial
Denial
involves blocking external events from awareness. If some situation is just too
much to handle, the person just refuses to experience it. As you might imagine,
this is a primitive and dangerous defense -- no one disregards reality and gets
away with it for long! While this may
save us from anxiety or pain, denial also requires a substantial investment of
energy. Because of this, other defenses are also used to keep these
unacceptable feelings from consciousness.
Denial is an
outright refusal to admit or recognize that something has occurred or is
currently occurring. A person who is a functioning alcoholic
will often simply deny they have a drinking problem, pointing to how well they
function in their job and relationships, while victims of traumatic events may deny that the event ever occurred. A
person may faint at a horrible real-life occurrence, such as the death of a
loved one. Or, that same person might intellectually know that a person has
died but refuses to “accept it” while she may still wait for 5 o’clock, the
usual time her husband came home from work.
On a lighter note, a student may refuse to pick up
her final grade from a difficult class because she knows it is not an acceptable
grade. She simply denies the reality of the grade.
As a defense mechanism, denial becomes more
difficult to maintain as one matures. Its use requires much energy and the mind
looks at other possibilities of defense.
Anna Freud also mentions denial in fantasy:
This is when children, in their imaginations, transform an "evil"
father into a loving teddy bear, or a helpless child into a powerful superhero.
Subject
of denial
The subject may
use:
- Simple denial: deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether
- Minimization: admit the fact but deny its seriousness (a combination of denial and rationalization)
- Projection: admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility by blaming somebody or something else.
Research
Denial (also called abnegation) is a defense mechanism
postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too
uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true
despite what may be overwhelming evidence. The theory of denial was first
researched seriously in details by Anna Freud. She classified denial as a
mechanism of the immature mind, because it conflicts with the ability to learn
from and cope with reality. Where denial occurs in mature minds, it is most
often associated with death, dying and rape. More recent research has
significantly expanded the scope and utility of the concept.
Elisabeth
Kübler-Ross used denial as the first of five stages in the psychology of a
dying patient, and the idea has been extended to include the reactions of
survivors to news of a death. Thus, when parents are informed of the death of a
child, their first reaction is often of the form, "No! You must have the
wrong house, you can't mean our child!"
Unlike some other
defense mechanisms postulated by psychoanalytic theory (for instance, repression),
the general existence of denial is fairly easy to verify, even for
non-specialists. On the other hand, denial is one of the most controversial
defense mechanisms, since it can be easily used to create unfalsifiable
theories: anything the subject says or does that appears to disprove the
interpreter's theory is explained, not as evidence that the interpreter's
theory is wrong, but as the subject's being "in denial". However,
researchers note that in some cases of corroborated child sexual abuse, the
victims sometimes make a series of partial confessions and recantations as they
struggle with their own denial and the denial of abusers or family members. Use
of denial theory in a legal setting therefore must be carefully regulated and
experts' credentials verified. "Formulaic guilt" simply by
"being a denier" has been castigated by English judges and academics.
Types
of denial
Denial of fact
In this form of
denial, someone avoids a fact by lying. This lying can take the form of an
outright falsehood (commission), leaving out certain details to tailor a story
(omission), or by falsely agreeing to something (assent, also referred to as
"yessing" behavior). Someone who is in denial of fact is typically
using lies to avoid facts they think may be painful to themselves or others.
Denial of responsibility
This form of denial
involves avoiding personal responsibility by:
- Blaming: a direct statement shifting culpability and may overlap with denial of fact.
- Minimizing: an attempt to make the effects or results of an action appear to be less harmful than they may actually be.
- Justifying: when someone takes a choice and attempts to make that choice look okay due to their perception of what is "right" in a situation.
Someone using
denial of responsibility is usually attempting to avoid potential harm or pain
by shifting attention away from themselves.
Denial of impact
Denial of impact
involves a person's avoiding thinking about or understanding the harms of his
or her behavior has caused to self or others, i.e. denial of the consequences.
Doing this enables that person to avoid feeling a sense of guilt and it can
prevent him or her from developing remorse or empathy for others. Denial of
impact reduces or eliminates a sense of pain or harm from poor decisions.
Denial of awareness
This type of denial
is best discussed by looking at the concept of state dependent learning. People
using this type of denial will avoid pain and harm by stating they were in a
different state of awareness (such as alcohol or drug intoxication or on
occasion mental health related). This type of denial often overlaps with denial
of responsibility.
Denial of cycle
Many who use this
type of denial will say things such as, "it just happened". Denial of
cycle is where a person avoids looking at their decisions leading up to an
event or does not consider their pattern of decision making and how harmful
behavior is repeated. The pain and harm being avoided by this type of denial is
more of the effort needed to change the focus from a singular event to looking
at preceding events. It can also serve as a way to blame or justify behavior
(see above).
Denial of denial
This can be a
difficult concept for many people to identify with in themselves, but is a
major barrier to changing hurtful behaviors. Denial of denial involves
thoughts, actions and behaviors which bolster confidence that nothing needs to
be changed in one's personal behavior. This form of denial typically overlaps
with all of the other forms of denial, but involves more self-delusion. Denial
at this level can have significant consequences both personally and at a
societal level
Treatment of denial
Denial is treated
differently in different types of therapy. In psychoanalytic therapy, denial is
regarded as an obstacle to progress that must eventually be confronted and
interpreted. Timing is important, however. Psychoanalytic therapists wait until
clients appear emotionally ready or have some degree of insight into their
problems before confronting them. In the humanistic and existential therapies,
denial is considered the framework by which clients understand their world. Not
directly confronting denial, therapists assist clients in exploring their world
view and considering alternative ways of being. In cognitive-behavioral
therapies, denial is not regarded as an important phenomenon. Rather, denial
would suggest that an individual has not learned the appropriate behaviors to
cope with a stressful situation. Therapists assist individuals in examining
their current thoughts and behaviors and devising strategic ways to make
changes.
Traditional
treatment programs for substance abuse and other addictions view denial as a
central theme. Such programs teach that in order to overcome addiction, one must admit to being an
alcoholic or addict. Those who are unable to accept such labels are informed
they are in denial. Even when the labels are accepted, individuals are still
considered to be in denial if they do not acknowledge the severity of their
addictions. From this perspective, progress cannot be made until individuals
recognize the extent of their denial and work toward acceptance. However, there
is much controversy in the field of addictions regarding the role of denial and
how it should be addressed. Traditional programs stress direct
confrontation. Other professionals do not insist on the acceptance of labels.
They believe that denial should be worked through more subtly, empathically
focusing on the personal reasons surrounding denial and seeking to strengthen
the desire to change. This subtle form of addressing denial is known as
motivational enhancement therapy, and can be used with other types of disorders
as well.
Sources
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