Denial: A Clarification of Concepts and Research

ISBN-13: 9781461280576 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 344 str.

E. L. Edelstein; D. L. Nathanson; A. M. Stone

Opis

We do not think about everything at once all the time. Various mecha nisms allow us to choose from among the themes, issues, topics, feelings, ideas, and memories that might occupy consciousness. One can focus selectively on anything deemed important; yet the methods by which this is accomplished vary greatly. We clinicians assign to these various mech anisms names that fit whatever theoretical system is central to our work-the healthy suppression of "background noise" allows us to pay attention to certain matters; the repression of unconscious conflict may assist our functioning in one moment despite its later cost; whereas denial and disavowal are used as general and fairly nonspecific terms for matters that are left out of awareness in order to avoid the noxious emotions specific to the personal significance of such awareness. Despite the attitude of scientific objectivity characterizing Freud's introduction of psychoanalysis, an aura of morality clings to certain of these mecha nisms, for we tend to judge people by their use of them. We are a society of doers, people of action and accomplishment who look with disrespect at the avoidance of any responsibility or task. Thus denial has taken on a negative connotation, and those who use this avoidance system are seen as the lesser among us."

Spis treści

I. Theoretical Issues.- 1. The Evolution of Psychoanalytic Thought on Negation and Denial.- 2. Interactional Perspectives on Denial and Defense.- 3. Denial, Projection, and the Empathic Wall.- II. Basic and Applied Notions.- 4. Denial and Weltanschauung.- 5. Denial in the Use of Language as Related to the Father.- 6. Concerning Certain Vicissitudes of Denial in Personality Development.- 7. The Place of Denial in Adult Development.- 8. Anosognosia: The Neurological Correlate of Denial of Illness.- III. Child Development.- 9. The Child as a Challenge to Adult Denial.- 10. Adolescent Denial: Some Psychoanalytic Reflections on Strength and Weakness.- 11. Varieties of Denial: The Case of a Fairy Tale.- IV. Clinical Implications.- 12. Blinding the Eye of the Mind: Denial, Impulsive Action, and Split Identity.- 13. Denial in Borderlines.- 14. Denial in the Development of Homosexual Men.- 15. Denial as a Central Coping Mechanism in Counterhypochondriasis.- 16. Beyond Denial: Replacement Fantasies in Patients with Life-Threatening Illness.- 17. Denial, Coping, and Cancer.- 18. Denial in Patients with Myocardial Infarction.- V. Social and Political Implications.- 19. Cultural Paradigms for Denial.- 20. Denial in Political Process.- 21. Some Observations on Denial and Avoidance in Jewish Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Experience.- 22. Avoidance and Denial in the Life Cycle of Holocaust Survivors.