Denial

For other uses, see Denial (disambiguation).

A woodcut from 1860, depicting the Denial of Peter, a story told in the four Gospels in the New Testament. In it, Peter denies having associated with Jesus, who is being sought by authorities.

Denial, in ordinary English usage, is asserting that a statement or allegation is not true (which might be accurate or inaccurate). It may also mean the refusal of a request, but this article covers denial of true factual claims.

In psychology, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth.

In psychoanalytic theory (which has been criticized as unscientific and factually unfounded), denial is a defense mechanism 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 concept of denial is important in twelve-step programs where the abandonment or reversal of denial that substance dependence is problematic forms the basis of the first, fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth steps.

People who are exhibiting symptoms of a serious medical condition sometimes deny or ignore those symptoms because the idea of having a serious health problem is uncomfortable or disturbing. The American Heart Association cites denial as a principal reason that treatment of a heart attack is delayed. Because the symptoms are so varied, and often have other potential explanations, the opportunity exists for the patient to deny the emergency, often with fatal consequences. It is common for patients to delay recommended mammograms or other tests because of a fear of cancer, even on average this worsens the long-term medical outcome.

Psychology

Initial short-term denial can be a good thing, giving you time to adjust to a painful or stressful issue. It might also be a precursor to making some sort of change in your life. But denial can also be harmful; if denial persists and prevents you from taking appropriate action, it's a harmful response.

In political and economic context

Some people who are known as denialists or true believers have known to be in denial of historical or scientific facts accepted by the mainstream of society or by experts, for political or economic reasons. It includes:

• Climate change denial
• Denial of evolution
• Historical negationism (such as Holocaust denial)
• HIV/AIDS denialism
• Modern flat Earth societies

See also

• Closed circle
• Closeted
• Cognitive dissonance
• Confirmation bias
• Cover-up
• Deniable encryption
• Foreclosure
• Lie
• Moral blindness
• Narcissistic defence sequences
• Non-apology apology
• Non-denial denial
• Plausible deniability
• Polite fiction
• Psychological manipulation
• Scotomization
• Self-deception
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• Skepticism
• The Politics of Denial
• Willful blindness

Further reading

Articles

• Sharot, T.; Korn, C. W.; Dolan, R. J. (2011). "How unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality". Nature Neuroscience. 14 (11): 1475–9. doi:10.1038/nn.2949. PMC 3204264. PMID 21983684.
• Izuma, K.; Adolphs, R. (2011). "The brain's rose-colored glasses". Nature Neuroscience. 14 (11): 1355–6. doi:10.1038/nn.2960. PMID 22030541. S2CID 22368367.
• Travis, A. C.; Pawa, S.; LeBlanc, J. K.; Rogers, A. I. (2011). "Denial: What is it, how do we recognize it, and what should we do about it?". The American Journal of Gastroenterology. 106 (6): 1028–30. doi:10.1038/ajg.2010.466. PMID 21637266. S2CID 37719358.
• Vos, M. S.; de Haes, H. J. C. M. (2011). "Denial indeed is a process". Lung Cancer. 72 (1): 138. doi:10.1016/j.lungcan.2011.01.026. PMID 21377573.