“No I’m not”. The use of denial and preservation
I remember being in graduate school and being very excited to begin my practicums. My studies and skills being put to the test with REAL LIFE clients! I envisioned sitting in my chair, as the client laid down opposite to me, baring things they never thought to share with anyone. Everything was going to be great. I was going to help people discuss difficult topics, help them gain insight to their issues and tolerate their emotions, and live more productive lives, free of the oppression of denial.
My first session brought me back down to earth.
It’s not that easy. Not many people lie on a couch in therapy anymore. Not many people are ready to face their denial.
People live in denial.
ALL. THE. TIME.
Denial is defined as the action of declaring something untrue.
Denial, in the moment, provides a state of preservation for someone. In the midst of extreme turmoil and pain, it makes a certain sense that the mind would place this barrier between reality and what has been filtered and interpreted in their heads.
Early psychoanalysts believed that denial was a product of an immature person. It was the product of a person who grew up not learning to cope with their emotions. Later, it became a part of Kubler-Ross’ 5 stages of grief, often being attributed as being the first stage (We understand now that there is no order in the stages, nor do we matriculate fully from any stage, returning to them multiple times until acceptance).
Recent studies in trauma show that denial plays an important role in protecting someone in the face of some dire situations and experiences. For a lot of people, having full realization and understanding of a traumatic event would completely disable them and even worse, lead them down roads that they probably are not prepared for. It makes sense that the mind would protect someone in that sense.
But what about our daily lives?
Why do people, in the face of reality, live in denial?
Through research and my own clinical experience, I’m coming to realize that people use denial the same way that people who are experiencing trauma do. It preserves them.
I spoke about cognitive distortions in a past article. The way we interpret and filter the real world play a huge role in the way we feel and behave.
Perceived danger and pain, whether it be in a physical sense or an emotional experience, can cause acute distress.
Look back at your own life. What experiences caused you to feel sad or hopeless. How did you react? Did you fully accept the gravity of that situation? Probably not.
Your mind, as advanced as it is in understanding complex situations, interpreting people’s faces into emotions, and even the theory of relativity, still goes into preservation mode at the sight of perceived hurt. It just does.
One of the lessons I’ve learned throughout my practice and experience was to stop pursuing the why in those moments. It makes sense to me. The bigger question is, after some time, why are you still in living in that denial?
The perceived threat has now become this on-going threat. You slowly decline in your ability to tolerate life, for the good and the bad. You become more and more scared of feeling anything. You’re preserved in this cycle of denial. Not reality. It is stopping you from making progress, but yet you do continue to do it.
You’ve ultimately re-trained yourself in being incapable of handling, simply, life.
It makes sense and it doesn’t. No one wants to hurt. But I have yet to meet someone who does not want to grow. To thrive.
Are you in this state of preservation now? When ready, it’s time to grow.
The first step, is acceptance.
Read more about it here: Radical Acceptance — How to accept life as it really is and make meaning.
