Denial

Common card · No. 382997

Denial, in colloquial English usage, has at least three meanings: the assertion that any particular statement or allegation, whose truth is uncertain, is not true; the refusal of a request; and the assertion that a true statement is false. In psychology, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. In psychoanalytic theory, 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...

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