Denial

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defend against such impulses, it is said, by unconsciously limiting our awareness of them, or perhaps attributing them to others. A murderous rage, for example, may be repressed or obscured from our awareness, or it may be attributed to others (p. 2).
The Oxford English Dictionary defines to be “the asserting (of anything) to be untrue or invalid; also, the denying of the existence or reality of a thing” (Simpson & Weiner, 1989).
Sometimes can be constructive and adaptive, according to R. Davidhizar, V. Poole, J. N. Giger, and M. Henderson the authors of When your patient uses . For example, there have been studies of people with terminal illness that have suggested that denying the seriousness of the condition may help postpone death. It is true that overwhelming anxiety can hamper coping, and that screening out anxiety-provoking stimuli can help prevent this kind of paralysis. In general, it must be observed, the world is full of terrifying possibilities that we could ...

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bad they are forced to face their addiction. Sadly, some alcoholics never break through their denial, and continue use to the point of insanity and death (USDHHS, 1994).
The concept of denial plays a key role in the twelve-step addiction treatment model, where denial of addiction is seen to be the chief hindrance to any kind of realistic treatment of the problem. This is no easy task because addicts have developed an “elaborate network of denial” (McCracken, 1998). Not only of addictive events, but also of the meanings and consequences of those events, whose seriousness they try to minimize with rationalizations (McCracken, 1998).
The twelve step programs also recognize that ...

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