Denial in ordinary English
Language is asserting that a statement or allegation is not true. The same
word, and also abnegation is used for a psychological defense mechanism
postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is filled with a fact that is
too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not
true despite overwhelming evidence. The subject may use; Simple denial which
involves denying the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether or minimization
by admitting the fact but deny its seriousness which is a combination of denial and
rationalization or projection by admitting both and fact but deny
responsibility by blaming somebody or something else.
Although
denial is an immature defense mechanism; it may however be the initial stage of
an adaptive coping cycle. When an unwelcome change occurs, a trauma of some
sort, the first impulse to disbelieve begins the process of coping. That
denial, in a healthy mind slowly rises to greater consciousness until a
rational engagement of the problem is instituted. This occurs in association to
death, dying and sometimes rape. In this context; denial grants the person the
time to accumulate sufficient emotional resources to fully face the trauma.
Once fixed, the person deals with the trauma in a stage alternately called
acceptance or enlightenment.
After
this stage, the trauma sinks away from total conscious awareness again. Left
metaphorically upon a back burner or put away in a cupboard through sublimation
that involves a balance of neither quite forgetting nor quite remembering. It
is definitely established that when immature defense mechanisms especially denial
are overused, they can lead to psychological disorders since it does not help
to resolve the anxiety producing situation.
For
Nigerians; it is important that we realize that pathological denial can be exhibited
in a large scale – among groups, cultures or even nations. Lucy Bregman gives an example of national denial of imminent
mortality in the 1950s: the large scale denial by some that the World War II
holocaust never occurred. Any given society is marked by peculiar beliefs,
customs, practices and values energized by culture as the enabling software. The bulk of our cultural values codified as
superstitions, myths and taboos have denial as the central theme. It may be
that our fore fathers had the creative use of denial in mind to give time to
rationally engage problems but this aspect has not been very prominent in our
cultural elaboration. Authority figure, specific instructions concerning
certain issues and several prohibitions without a continuous rational engagement
of issues is the character of our culture that encourages denial. This affected
our style of governance where we parade ourselves as a wealthy nation based on
a chance discovery of oil rather than creative productivity. The civil service,
the professional group and even the academia are not engaging the real issues
confronting our nation because the culture of denial is pervasive which frustrates
real engagement of our problems. This denial mental paradigm provides the
breeding ground for delusions that invariably culminate in mental illness. When
denial believes over used in the context of an ongoing problem; reality testing
becomes impaired and mental illness ensues. The major difference between
spirituality and religiosity is that denial is very prominent with religiosity while
faith which involves the application of the power of omnipotence to deal with
problems clearly defined and accepted is the hall mark of spirituality.
Nigerians are only religious but not spiritual as our religion has failed to
interrogate our cultural values to expunge the destructive aspects. Unfortunately,
our religious leadership because of pecuniary gains has borrowed heavily from
our cultural software of denial through fear, brainwashing, manipulation and
self-attribution. I have always predicted
that new patterns of mental illnesses will emerge from our religiosity where
reality testing is largely impaired with a large-scale reliance on another
man’s faith rather than God, which invariably makes such minds vulnerable to profound
intrapsychic conflicts that survive on immature defense mechanisms leading to
mental illness. Mental capital development prescribes that we encourage mature defense
mechanisms and stimulate rational engagement of life problems, as we trust God.
Cultural
standards and expectations can encourage denial of subjective experience. Men
who belong to cultures with extreme notions of masculinity may view fear as a
sign of weakness and deny internal feelings of fear. Some patients with
personality disorder and substance abuse problems are taught to psychologically
deny the reality of the harm they do to others and to self hence the traditional
treatment program for substance abuse and other addictions take denial as a
central theme where patients are made to recognize the extent of their denial and
work towards acceptance. Stress can only be managed as issues are confronted
just as prayer cannot be beneficial in the atmosphere of denial.
Dr. Adeoye Oyewole
adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com
+234 803 490 5808 (WhatsApp Only)
Image Credits: Tea Party Tribune
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