Denial in psychology - what is it, examples from life

All mental functions are involved in protective processes, but each time one of them can dominate and take on the bulk of the work of transforming traumatic information. This can be perception, attention, memory, imagination, thinking, emotions. In this publication we will try to consider the methods of psychological protection of the individual that are most significant for his positive interaction in social groups.

Being a social, conscious and independent being, a person is able to resolve internal and external conflicts, deal with anxiety and tension not only automatically (unconsciously), but also guided by a specially formulated program.

In this publication we will try to consider the methods of psychological protection of the individual that are most significant for his positive interaction in social groups. Here is a classification of the main methods of psychological defense.

Negation

This is the desire to avoid new information that is incompatible with existing ideas about oneself.
Protection manifests itself in ignoring potentially alarming information and avoiding it. It is like a barrier located right at the entrance of the perceiving system. It does not allow unwanted information into it, which is then irreversibly lost for a person and subsequently cannot be restored. Thus, denial leads to the fact that some information, either immediately or subsequently, cannot reach consciousness.

When in denial, a person becomes especially inattentive to those areas of life and facets of events that are fraught with trouble for him. For example, a manager can criticize his employee for a long time and emotionally and suddenly discover with indignation that he has long been “switched off” and does not react “in any way” to moral teachings.

Denial can allow a person to preventively (proactively) isolate himself from traumatic events. This is how, for example, fear of failure works, when a person strives not to find himself in a situation in which he could fail. For many people, this manifests itself in avoiding competition or giving up activities that one is not good at, especially in comparison to others.

The stimulus for triggering denial can be not only external, but also internal, when a person tries not to think about something, to drive away thoughts of unpleasant things. If you can’t admit something to yourself, then the best way out is, if possible, not to look into this terrible and dark corner. Often, having done something at the wrong time or in the wrong way, but nothing can be corrected, “defense” forces a person to ignore a dangerous situation and behave as if nothing special is happening.

A generalized assessment of the danger of information is made with its preliminary holistic perception and a rough emotional assessment as “the maturation of something unwanted.” Such an assessment leads to a weakening of attention when detailed information about this dangerous event is completely excluded from subsequent processing. Outwardly, a person either fences himself off from new information (“It is there, but not for me”), or does not notice, believing that it does not exist. Therefore, many people, before starting to watch a movie or read a new book, ask the question: “What is the ending, good or bad?”

The statement “I believe” denotes some special state of mind in which everything that comes into conflict with the subject of faith tends to be denied. Sincere and sufficiently strong faith organizes such an attitude towards all incoming information when a person, without knowing it, subjects it to careful preliminary sorting, selecting only what serves to preserve faith.

Faith tends to be much more universal and definitive than understanding. When you already have faith in something, there is no room for a new one. A person rejects new ideas, often without even trying to give a rational explanation for this behavior. Any attempt on an object of veneration evokes the same reaction from the individual as if it were an attempt on her life.

Negation in artificial languages

In artificial languages of symbolic logic (see Symbolic Logic), negation is a special unary propositional connective used to form one formula into another, more complex one. To indicate negation, the symbols “~”, “–” or “˥” are usually used. In classical propositional logic, a formula ˥A is true if and only if the formula A is false, otherwise the formula ˥A is false.

Based on the above correspondence between negation and the operation of taking a complement, using the formalization method, it is possible to establish certain relationships between external and internal negation. In non-classical logics, negation can have various properties from the following set:

contrapositive: (A → B) → (˥B → ˥A);
introduction of double negation: A → ˥˥A;
removing double negation: ˥˥A → A;
Anything follows from the contradiction: (A & ˥A) → B.

Minimal negation satisfies properties (1) and (2), and intuitionistic negation satisfies properties (1), (2), (4). The minimal negation that satisfies property (3) is called the de Morgan negation. Finally, a de Morgan negation with property (4) is called a Boole negation (subject to the acceptance of the distributivity axiom for conjunction and disjunction).

Suppression

Protection, manifested in forgetting, blocking unpleasant, unwanted information either when it is transferred from perception to memory, or when withdrawn from memory to consciousness.
Since in this case the information is already the content of the psyche, since it was perceived and experienced, it is, as it were, supplied with special marks, which then allow it to be retained. The peculiarity of suppression is that the content of the experienced information is forgotten, and its emotional, motor, vegetative and psychosomatic manifestations can persist, manifesting themselves in obsessive movements and states, errors, slips of the tongue, and slips of the tongue. These symptoms symbolically reflect the connection between actual behavior and suppressed information. To secure traces in long-term memory, they must be emotionally colored in a special way—labeled.

To remember something, a person needs to return to the state in which he received the information. If then he was angry or upset (for example, by a request to do something), then in order to remember this, he must return to this state again. Since he doesn't want to feel that bad again, he's unlikely to remember. When a person eliminates the thought that he does not want or cannot do something, he says to himself: “It wasn’t really necessary,” “I’m not interested in this, I don’t like it,” thereby revealing a negative emotional labeling.

Stages of experience

Psychologists identify 5 stages that a person must go through before accepting a traumatic situation, for example, receiving a certain unfavorable diagnosis:

Denial: disbelief in what happened, expectation of a miracle and refutation of the information received.
Anger: searching for answers to the question “why?”, a person begins to get annoyed by people who are faced with the same problem, searching for those to blame.
Bargaining: a peculiar desire to “buy off” the inevitable, a willingness to give away funds to correct the situation, committing uncontrolled spending, delving into religion.
Depression: a person loses hope, he has no strength left to fight the problem, appetite decreases, thoughts of suicide appear.
Acceptance: coming to terms with what happened, accepting the situation as it should be.

Psychologists have come to the conclusion that not every person goes through these 5 stages. They may be experienced in a different order, or a person may experience only some of them. In such cases, denial is part of and is an important part of the process of accepting the inevitable.

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The denial mechanism ensures that content that can cause damage to the psyche is kept from consciousness. The effect of strong traumatic factors is smoothed out, and the psyche mobilizes its resources to adapt to the current situation.

crowding out

Unlike suppression, repression is not associated with turning off information about what happened as a whole from consciousness, but only with forgetting the true, but unacceptable for a person, motive for an action.
(Motive is an incentive to perform a specific activity). Thus, it is not the event itself (action, experience, situation) that is forgotten, but only its cause, the fundamental principle. Having forgotten the true motive, a person replaces it with a false one, hiding the real one from himself and from others. Recall errors, as a consequence of repression, arise due to internal protest that changes the course of thoughts. Repression is considered the most effective defense mechanism because it can cope with such powerful instinctual impulses that other forms of defense cannot cope with. However, repression requires constant expenditure of energy, and these expenditures cause inhibition of other types of vital activity.

Repression is a universal means of avoiding internal conflict by eliminating socially undesirable aspirations and drives from consciousness. However, repressed and suppressed drives make themselves felt in neurotic and psychosomatic symptoms (for example, phobias and fears).

Repression is considered a primitive and ineffective psychological defense mechanism for the following reasons:

the repressed still breaks through into consciousness;
unresolved conflict manifests itself in a high level of anxiety and a feeling of discomfort.

Repression is activated when a desire arises that conflicts with other desires of the individual and is incompatible with the ethical views of the individual.
As a result of conflict and internal struggle, thought and idea (the carrier of incompatible desire) are repressed, eliminated from consciousness and forgotten. Increased anxiety resulting from incomplete repression, therefore, has a functional meaning, since it can force a person either to try to perceive and evaluate the traumatic situation in a new way, or to activate other defense mechanisms. However, usually the consequence of repression is neurosis - a disease of a person who is unable to resolve his internal conflict.

Impact on life

Denial in psychology is a person’s conscious attempt to hide from the reality that destroys him, aimed at maintaining his inner peace and preventing possible negative consequences (A. Freud).

Denial manifests itself in the form of psychological defense of the psyche against a serious problem that has arisen and can have both beneficial and destructive consequences for the mental and physical health of the individual.

Psychologists include the following cases as justified cases of using denial:

When losing loved ones

A person faced with a serious problem associated with the loss of people close to him, including psychological protection of consciousness and psyche, temporarily protects himself from pain, horror and negative experiences associated with loss. By doing this, he puts him into a state in which his brain is able to make informed decisions, helping to cope with organizational issues, or gives him the opportunity to direct his forces to mobilize and save human life.

Doctor of Psychological Sciences Chirkova T.I. notes that a similar phenomenon can be observed when an individual who has lost a loved one is organizing a funeral or when a person during a natural disaster directs his strength to save his life and the people around him. After a certain time, his brain will accept and realize what happened, but at that moment nothing will threaten the person’s life and will give him the opportunity to survive the situation that has arisen.

When a serious (fatal) diagnosis is made

In most cases, a serious (or fatal) diagnosis is completely unexpected for the patient, causing his brain to temporarily refuse to accept the information and turn on “denial” as a defense mechanism. While in this state, the patient continues to live a normal life and undergoes treatment without plunging into a state of horror and depression.

According to psychologists, denial in this case is activated unconsciously, preserving the personality and sanity from serious shock. Medical psychologist and co-author of the monograph, “Denial as a phenomenon of psychological defense” Stupakova I.N., notes that after a certain time, an unconscious switching off of “denial” occurs, which occurs when new treatment methods appear or the brain accepts imminent death.

Conscious

“I’ll think about it tomorrow” - the phrase uttered by the heroine of the novel “Gone with the Wind” is, according to the psychoanalyst, member of the IPA (International Psychoanalytic Association), candidate of sciences E.V. Zhalunene, a vivid example of a positive, conscious denial of reality. With its help, the heroine of the novel Scarlett O'Hara postponed the acceptance of an unpleasant situation for a certain time, allowing her brain, while remaining in the usual reality, to gradually accept and understand the current situation.

According to the psychologist, the method used by the heroine of the novel is a classic example of the manifestation of “denial” as a method of psychological defense, since by postponing the acceptance of a problem until later it is possible:

wait for the moment when life circumstances change, simultaneously changing the unpleasant situation;
Allow the brain to gradually recognize and accept problems and find ways to overcome them.

Rationalization

This is a defense mechanism associated with the awareness and use in thinking of only that part of the perceived information, thanks to which one’s own behavior appears as well controlled and does not contradict objective circumstances.
The essence of rationalization is to find a “worthy” place for an incomprehensible or unworthy impulse or action in a person’s existing system of internal guidelines and values without destroying this system. For this purpose, the unacceptable part of the situation is removed from consciousness, transformed in a special way, and only after this is realized in a changed form. With the help of rationalization, a person easily “closes his eyes” to the discrepancy between cause and effect, which is so noticeable to an external observer.

Rationalization is a pseudo-rational explanation by a person of his own aspirations, motives for actions, actions that are actually caused by reasons, the recognition of which would threaten the loss of self-esteem. Self-affirmation, protection of one’s own “I” is the main motive for updating this mechanism of psychological protection of the individual.

The most striking phenomena of rationalization were called “green (sour) grapes” and “sweet lemon”. The phenomenon of “green (sour) grapes” (known from Krylov’s fable “The Fox and the Grapes”) is a kind of depreciation of an unattainable object. If it is impossible to achieve a desired goal or take possession of a desired item, a person devalues them.

Rationalization is actualized when a person is afraid to realize the situation and seeks to hide from himself the fact that in his actions he was guided by socially undesirable motives. The motive that underlies rationalization is to explain behavior and, at the same time, to protect the self-image.

Denial is a primitive defense

Why is the negation mechanism called primitive? Psychoanalysts note that it occurs at the earliest stages of the formation of the human psyche. For example, a child got scared and cried, but suddenly they brought him candy and his attention switched to it. So, in fact, he forgot about the existence of negative experience.

The child's psyche protects itself from negativity through denial. If children remembered everything, they would be much worse off, so the denial mechanism removes disturbing and disturbing aspects of reality from consciousness.

Reactive formations

This is the replacement of undesirable tendencies with the exact opposite.
For example, a child's exaggerated love for his mother or father may be the result of preventing a socially undesirable feeling - hatred of his parents. The child who was aggressive towards his parents develops exceptional tenderness towards them and worries about their safety; jealousy and aggression are transformed into selflessness and concern for others.

Certain social and intrapersonal prohibitions on the manifestation of certain feelings (for example, a young man is afraid to show his sympathy for a girl) lead to the formation of opposite tendencies - reactive formations: sympathy turns into antipathy, love into hatred, etc.

This inadequacy, often excessiveness of feeling, its emphasis is an indicator of reactive formation. If I show the same avalanche of feelings towards my boss as I do towards my family and friends, then this is a signal that this excessive attitude towards the boss is fundamentally reactive. The appropriate question here is: “Why do I want to sympathize with the leader so much and support him, what negative feelings are hidden behind this?”

Or the opposite situation: “Why do I look so ironically and coldly at the person I love? Why am I showing distance towards him (her)?”

And the “sweet lemon” type of defense is an exaggeration of the value of what you have (according to the well-known principle - “a bird in the hand is better than a pie in the sky”).

Most often, rationalization is achieved using two typical options for reasoning: 1) “green grapes”; 2) “sweet lemon”. The first of them is based on underestimating the value of an action that could not be performed, or a result that was not achieved.

Substitution

This is a mechanism of psychological defense from an unpleasant situation, which is based on transferring a reaction from an inaccessible object to an accessible one or replacing an unacceptable action with an acceptable one.
Due to this transfer, the tension created by the unsatisfied need is discharged. Substitution is a defense that all people (both adults and children) necessarily use in everyday life. Thus, many people often do not have the opportunity not only to punish their offenders for their misdeeds or unfair behavior, but also to simply contradict them. Therefore, pets, parents, children, etc. can act as a “lightning rod” in a situation of anger.

Whims that cannot be directed at the leader (an unacceptable object for this) can perfectly well be directed at other performers as an object that is quite acceptable for this (“that’s who is to blame for everything”). In other words, substitution is the transfer of needs and desires to another, more accessible object. If it is impossible to satisfy a certain need with the help of one item, a person can find another item (more accessible) to satisfy it.

So, the essence of substitution is to redirect the reaction. If, in the presence of any need, the desired path to satisfy it is closed, human activity seeks another way out to achieve the goal. Protection is carried out through the transfer of excitation, unable to find a normal output, to another executive system. However, a person’s ability to reorient his actions from personally unacceptable to acceptable or from socially disapproved to approved is limited. The limitation is determined by the fact that the greatest satisfaction from an action that replaces what is desired occurs in a person when the motives for these actions are consistent.

Irony

In ancient Greek, “irony” means “to tell a lie,” “to mock,” or “to pretend.”
An ironist is a person who “deceives with words.” The modern understanding of the dual nature of irony is as follows:

Irony is an expressive technique that is opposite to the idea being expressed. I say the opposite of what I mean. I praise in form, but in essence I blame. And vice versa: in form I humiliate, in essence I exalt, I praise, I “stroke”. Ironically, my “yes” always means “no,” and behind the expression “no” looms a “yes.”
No matter how noble the goal of irony may be, for example, to generate a high idea, to open eyes to something, including oneself, this idea is nevertheless affirmed in irony through negative means.
Despite the generosity of irony's intentions, or even despite its selflessness, irony provides self-satisfaction.
A person who uses irony is credited with the traits of a subtle mind, observation, slowness, and the inactivity of a sage (not instant reactivity).

As a mental state, irony is a changed sign of my experience of a situation from “minus” to “plus”.
Anxiety gave way to confidence, hostility to condescension... A person is in states that are autonomous relative to a situation, another person, an object: I am already a subject rather than an object of these situations, and therefore I have the ability to control these states. Irony as a mental process transforms what is terrible, scary, intolerable, hostile, alarming for me into the opposite.

Harm

Denial in psychology is a conscious process used by an individual to maintain peace of mind and complete refusal, detachment from negative information. Helping to prevent the onset of depression and help the brain gradually become aware of the problem, denial can have both positive and negative properties.

Prolonged denial, according to psychoanalyst and psychologist T.V. Ageeva, is dangerous due to the gradual destruction of a person’s psyche and life, since a problem that is not consciously noticed by him leads to the loss of skills and abilities, destroys social communication, contributing to the gradual development of mania.

The specialist notes that the denial mechanism is inherent in people suffering from gambling addiction, drug or alcohol addiction, as well as individuals dependent on them.

In the first case, the addicted person lives in conscious denial of his problem, noting that there is nothing wrong with drinking a few glasses of wine every day. His fantasy belief is based on the fact that at any moment he can easily give up his addiction and display aggression at the slightest hint from others about a developing addiction.
Dependent people (husbands, wives, other relatives) tend to deny the patient’s addiction no less zealously than he himself, which significantly complicates the diagnosis and treatment of alcohol, gaming or drug addiction.

Psychologists note that the mechanism of denial is difficult for a person to understand and can lead to the development of chronic dependence on alcohol, gambling or drugs. The effectiveness of treatment here can only be achieved when the person himself is fully aware and accepts his addiction, which is impossible with a conscious denial of the problem.

Denial, as a mechanism for avoiding traumatic reality (as noted by psychoanalyst and psychologist T. V. Ageeva) is inherent in psychology to people suffering from love addiction and not realizing the complete indifference towards them on the part of their partner. A typical example of this form of denial, according to the specialist, is a woman who is going to marry a man who uses her for his own selfish purposes.

The woman suffering from “falling in love” here denies the very possibility of such a situation, the coldness on the part of her partner and his betrayal, preferring to believe the words of her husband and consciously choosing a “happy reality” that is “convenient for herself” without realizing the subsequent painful outcome. In psychology, such a mechanism of mature denial is usually called rationalization, in which a person clearly argues for his conscious, fantasy behavior.

Doctor of Psychological Sciences T.I. Chirkova in her monograph “Psychology of Destruction” points out that in some cases the denial mechanism can completely disconnect a person from reality. Thus, a mother experiencing the death of her only small child denies his death and cannot accept the reality that is traumatic to her.

In her fantasy attempts, she creates in her mind another reality, where her child is alive and well. Being in this state, the woman continues to communicate with her child, replacing him, for example, with a doll, and reacts aggressively to all attempts by others to explain the malted situation to her.

Medical psychologist, I. Nyu Stupakova, in her monograph “Denial as a phenomenon of psychological defense” notes that the mechanism of denial is also used by extreme teenagers who daily expose themselves to mortal danger, do not feel fear and are not aware of the danger of the consequences of their actions.

The main danger of prolonged denial, according to Doctor of Psychology T.I. Chirkova, is the possibility of its degeneration into mania and manic syndrome, accompanied by a sharp rise in mood, strong bouts of joy and the appearance of increased performance. A person in this state very rarely rests, gradually leading himself to nervous exhaustion requiring emergency medical attention.

Dream

These are unconscious actions of the “I” in a dream state, which may be accompanied by emotional experiences.
A dream can be considered as a special type of substitution, through which an inaccessible action is transferred to another plane - from the real world to the world of dreams. Suppressing the inaccessibility complex, it accumulates energy in the unconscious, threatening the conscious world with its invasion. Secret repentance, remorse, subconscious fears lead to their breakthrough in a dream.

The task of a dream is to express complex feelings in pictures and give a person the opportunity to experience them, thereby replacing real situations. However, feelings cannot be depicted directly. Only the action that reflects this feeling is visually representable. It is impossible to depict fear, but it is possible to depict such an expression of fear as flight. It is difficult to show the feeling of love, but demonstrating closeness and affection is quite achievable. Therefore, the actions unfolding in its plot have a substitutive character in a dream.

From the point of view of psychology, a dream is a message or reflection of the situations that a person faces, his history, the circumstances of his life, his inherent methods and forms of behavior, the practical results to which the choice he makes has led. In a dream, mistakes in a person’s behavior are reflected not only in relation to himself, but also towards others, including any organic failure from the point of view of physical health.

Mental activity is continuous, so the process of generating images during dreams does not stop.

Sleep can focus attention:

on a current situation or problem (a photographic snapshot of reality);
on the causes of the problem;
on ways out of the problem (its resolution).

Dreams allow you to bring out passions; in a dream, release, purification, and discharge of out-of-control emotions can occur; in a dream, you can realize the desired behavior, assert yourself and believe in yourself.
Dreaming is an alternative way to satisfy desires. In dreams, unfulfilled desires are sorted, combined and transformed in such a way that the dream sequence provides additional satisfaction or reduction of tension. It is not always important whether the satisfaction occurs in the physical and sensory reality or in the internal imaginary reality of sleep, if the accumulated energy is sufficiently discharged. Such a dream brings relief, especially when you are constantly thinking about something and worrying.

How to get rid

There is no treatment for denial, which lasts several days and, according to experts, allows the brain to gradually get used to and realize the problem that has arisen. Psychological help is required for people who are faced with prolonged denial, which gradually develops into a rational form or manic syndrome.

In this case, the patient needs the help of a psychoanalyst, carried out in the form of individual and group consultations and helping to accept the current situation and then search for ways out of it.

With the development of manic disorder, the patient is also prescribed drug therapy, which consists of using:

mood stabilizers (valproate, lithium or carbamazepine);
atypical antipsychotics (olanzapine, risperidone or aripiprazole).

Upon completion of the main treatment, the patient is prescribed preventive therapy, including the use of medications and psychotherapeutic treatment.

Denial is a method of psychological defense that consists in unconsciously disconnecting the human psyche from the negative situation that has arisen. This state, which has its pros and cons, helps prevent the development of depression by giving the brain time to accept and understand the changed situation.

In this case, denial lasts no more than 2 days. The danger of prolonged denial is accompanied by a person’s complete withdrawal from the current situation, with his gradual immersion in a fantastic reality and the development of mania, requiring psychological treatment.

Sublimation

It is one of the highest and most effective human defense mechanisms.
It implements the replacement of unattainable goals in accordance with the highest social values. Sublimation is the switching of impulses that are socially undesirable in a given situation (aggression, sexual energy) to other forms of activity that are socially desirable for the individual and society. Aggressive energy, being transformed, can be sublimated (discharged) in sports (boxing, wrestling) or in strict methods of education (for example, with too demanding parents and teachers), eroticism - in friendship, in creativity, etc. When the direct discharge of instinctive (aggressive) , sexual) desires is impossible, there is an activity in which these impulses can be discharged.

Sublimation realizes the replacement of an instinctive goal in accordance with the highest social values. The forms of substitution are varied. For adults, this is not only a retreat into a dream, but also a retreat into work, religion, and all kinds of hobbies. In children, regression reactions and immature forms of behavior are also accompanied by replacement with the help of rituals and obsessive actions, which act as complexes of involuntary reactions that allow a person to satisfy a forbidden unconscious desire.

According to S. Freud, relying on sublimation, a person is able to overcome the influence of sexual and aggressive desires seeking a way out, which cannot be suppressed or satisfied by directing them in another direction.

When a person feels weak and helpless, he identifies himself with successful or authoritative people. Thanks to subconscious protective processes, one part of the instinctive desires is repressed, the other is directed to other goals. Some external events are ignored, others are overestimated in the direction necessary for the person.

Protection allows you to reject some aspects of your “I”, attribute them to strangers, or, on the contrary, supplement your “I” at the expense of qualities “captured” from other people. This transformation of information allows us to maintain the stability of ideas about the world, about ourselves and about our place in the world, so as not to lose support, guidelines and self-esteem.

The world around us is constantly becoming more complex, so a necessary condition for life is the constant complication of defense and the expansion of its repertoire.

Forms and degrees of denial of reality

Before we begin to interact with the surrounding reality, we must first form a relatively plausible image of it. By comparing reality with our ideas about it, we make certain decisions and take actions to achieve an acceptable result.

Our life can be compared to moving around. If the area we are moving through is familiar to us, or we have a detailed and understandable map, then this will not cause any problems. We will quickly navigate the space, choose the most optimal of all possible routes and easily get to our destination.

This option is only possible if we see, understand and fully accept the world in which we live. Let me remind you that achieving this highly desirable state is our main goal.

But, unfortunately, subjective ideas about the world are extremely far from objectively existing reality. In other words, the map we previously compiled does not correspond to the area where we are located. At the same time, it is necessary to remember that the image of the universe that we create throughout our lives is at the same time our individual truth, and everything that does not correspond to it is not perceived by us.

In order to somehow determine our location on the path of life, we will have to ignore individual fragments of reality that contradict previously formed beliefs. Otherwise, we will completely lose orientation in the world around us and will not be able to exist in it.

The degree of non-acceptance of reality depends on how much its image created by us is distorted by misconceptions and illusions. Let's consider some of the stages and forms of denial of reality from the point of view of a consistent picture of the world.

Doubts and confusion are the result of disorientation in the decision-making space, the inability to make a meaningful choice. Loss of meaning and goals for further activities. The reason, as a rule, is the discrepancy between the observed reality and our ideas about it. We begin to realize that we are lost.
Dejection is a passive separation of oneself from the world in all its manifestations. Loss of motivation and interest in life. The result of the formation of a misconception about the meaninglessness of any actions to achieve a certain goal. Causes loss of strength and blocks all activity. A false idea of the hopelessness of the situation in which we find ourselves.
Resentment is an unconscious internal protest against the illusion of aggression from the outside world. Transferring the blame for what happened to us to others. An extreme case of refusal of responsibility, lack of understanding of one’s role and significance. An inactive way of protecting yourself through emotional separation of yourself from the surrounding reality. It is usually caused by a feeling of threat of destruction of one’s inner world from the outside. Everyone is to blame for everything, but not me.
Hatred is the extreme degree of denial of reality, expressed in an aggressive form and aimed at destroying its individual fragments. Contrasting oneself with a certain part of the world, moving into the active phase of confronting the perceived threat. The cause of hatred is fear generated by a lack of understanding of what is happening around us. An image of a specific enemy is formed - the cause and source of everything bad.

All of the listed states, due to their intuitive clarity, can serve as a criterion for an objective assessment of the stage of non-acceptance of reality at which we find ourselves. The fewer of them in our lives and the softer the form they appear, the simpler and more comfortable our existence. And this, in turn, means that we sufficiently understand and accept the surrounding reality.

The list of stages and forms of denial of reality can be supplemented and expanded, but in the context of the topic under consideration this does not make much sense. It is important for us to understand that there is a direct relationship between the amount of accumulated internal contradictory beliefs and the degree of conflict with the outside world. We will examine this relationship in more detail when we talk about the consequences of non-acceptance of reality, but for now we will consider the sources of origin of this phenomenon.

Identification

A type of projection associated with the unconscious identification of oneself with another person, the transference to oneself of feelings and qualities that are desired, but unavailable.
Identification is the elevation of oneself to another by expanding the boundaries of one’s own “I”. Identification is associated with a process in which a person, as if including another into his “I,” borrows his thoughts, feelings and actions. This allows him to overcome his feelings of inferiority and anxiety, to change his “I” in such a way that it is better adapted to the social environment, and this is the protective function of the identification mechanism.

Through identification, symbolic possession of a desired but unattainable object is achieved. By voluntarily identifying with the aggressor, the subject can get rid of fear. In a broad sense, identification is an unconscious desire to inherit a model, an ideal. Identification provides the opportunity to overcome one's own weakness and feelings of inferiority. With the help of this psychological defense mechanism, a person gets rid of feelings of inferiority and alienation.

An immature form of identification is imitation. This defensive reaction differs from identification in that it is holistic. Her immaturity is revealed in her expressed desire to imitate a certain person, a loved one, a hero in everything. In an adult, imitation is selective: he singles out only the trait he likes in another and is able to identify separately with this quality, without spreading his positive reaction to all other qualities of this person.

Typically, identification manifests itself in the performance of real or imagined roles. For example, children play mother-daughter, school, war, transformers, etc., consistently play different roles and perform various actions: punish child dolls, hide from enemies, protect the weak. A person identifies with those whom he loves more, whom he values more highly, thereby creating the basis for self-esteem.

Classical dialectics

The law of “negation of negation” was first formulated in philosophy by Hegel. He proved it with examples from the history of thinking. The development of any concept occurs as a movement from the abstract to the concrete. In this process, the internal contradiction of the concept is resolved. It moves to the stage of its otherness, turning into something different than it was before. Then it “returns to itself,” but in the form of a concrete concept, which contains both its former, abstract essence and the new one acquired in the process of self-alienation. In The Science of Logic, Hegel even characterized the law of negation of negation as a universal form of the unity of contradictions (their transition into each other) and the struggle between them (the bifurcation of the whole).

We can say that this is a special form of another dialectical concept. This is a type of law about the unity and struggle of opposites. But the philosopher limited the action of dialectics only to the area of concepts and their formation. After all, for him being and thinking were a single whole, while the first was a derivative of the second. Accordingly, the triad of negations were stages of the development of the world mind.

Fantasy (dream)

It is a very common reaction to disappointments and failures.
For example, an insufficiently physically developed person can get pleasure from dreaming of participating in the World Championship, and a loser athlete can get pleasure from imagining all sorts of troubles happening to his opponent, which makes his feelings easier. Fantasies serve as compensation. They help maintain weak hopes, soften feelings of inferiority, and reduce the traumatic impact of insults and insults.

Freud said that a happy person never fantasizes, only a dissatisfied person does this. Unsatisfied desires are the driving forces of fantasies; each fantasy is a phenomenon of desire, a correction of reality, which does not satisfy the individual in some way.

In ambitious fantasies, the object of a person's desire is himself. In erotically colored desires, the object can become someone from a close or distant social environment, who in reality cannot be the object of desire.

And finally, fantasy plays the role of a substitute action, since a person cannot solve the real situation or believes that he cannot. And then, instead of a real situation, an imaginary, illusory situation is imagined, which is resolved by the fantasizing person. If it is difficult to resolve a real conflict, then a substitute conflict is resolved. In defensive fantasy, inner freedom from external coercion is palliatively experienced. The result of the psychoprotective use of fantasy can be living in a world of illusions.

The meaning of development

What role does this law play in the philosophy of dialectical materialism? First of all, it demonstrates the connection between the past and the future. In the process of development, various states of an object or phenomenon fight with each other, and also mutually flow into each other. Every quality is born, plays its role, “grows old” and disappears, giving way to others. The law of negation of negation determines development trends, describing the destruction of past properties that have lost their usefulness and the acquisition of new ones, necessary for further existence, but opposite to the first. This is how the complex appears from the simple. However, this formula itself is difficult to comprehend immediately, since development in a spiral is a very long process. As a law, it is visible only in a more or less completed version, when there are already certain final results. At various stages of this forward movement it can only be identified as a tendency.

Transfer

This is a defense mechanism that ensures the satisfaction of desire on substitute objects.
The simplest and most common type of transfer is displacement - substitution of objects for the outpouring of accumulated negative energy of “thanatos” in the form of aggression and resentment.

The boss, in the presence of other colleagues, gave you a dressing down. You cannot answer him the same. You understand the situation: if I respond to my boss in the same way, stop him, besiege him, then the consequence could be even greater trouble. Therefore, your “wise self” is looking for objects on which you can take out your resentment, your aggression. Fortunately, there are many such objects “at hand”. The main property of these objects should be their silence, resignation, and inability to besiege you.

They should be as silent and obedient as you silently and obediently listened to reproaches and humiliating characteristics (“Lazy!” “Mediocr!” “Insolent!”) from your boss and, in general, anyone who is stronger. Your anger, unreacted to the true culprit, is transferred to someone who is even weaker than you, even lower on the ladder of the social hierarchy, to a subordinate, who, in turn, transfers it further down, etc. The chains of displacement can be endless. Its links can be both living beings and inanimate things (broken dishes during family scandals, broken windows of train cars, etc.)

Engels on denial

Materialist dialectics extended this Hegelian law not only to the development of spirit and thinking, but to nature and society. Its creators even claimed that they had turned the philosophy of the German classic on its head. Friedrich Engels placed the law of the negation of the negation very highly in philosophy. Briefly, we can say that he characterized it as a combination of progression, repetition and spiraling. Engels called it the third law of dialectics. First of all, it is revealed in human cognition. The development of the latter occurs in the process of replacing some theories with others, the birth of new concepts that are more suitable to the changed world and our perception of the universe. But any teaching that denies the past not only criticizes it, but partially includes some amount of its knowledge.

Projection

A psychological defense mechanism associated with the unconscious transfer of one’s own unacceptable feelings, desires and aspirations to another person.
It is based on the unconscious rejection of one’s experiences, doubts, attitudes and attributing them to other people in order to shift responsibility for what happens inside the “I” to the outside world. For example, if the subject or object with which the satisfaction of your needs and desires was associated is inaccessible to you, then you transfer all your feelings and opportunities to satisfy your needs to another person. And if your dream of becoming a writer has not come true, then you can choose the profession of a literature teacher as a substitute, partially satisfying your creative needs.

The effectiveness of substitution depends on how similar the replacement object is to the previous one, with which the satisfaction of the need was initially associated. Maximum similarity of the replacement object ensures that more of the needs that were first associated with the previous object will be satisfied.

No matter how wrong a person himself is, he is ready to blame everyone except himself. Declares that he is not loved, although in reality he does not love himself, reproaches others for his own mistakes and shortcomings and attributes to them his own vices and weaknesses. By narrowing the boundaries of the “I,” this allows the individual to treat internal problems as if they were happening outside, and to overcome displeasure as if it came from outside, and not due to internal reasons.

If the “enemy” is outside, then more radical and effective methods of punishment can be applied to him, usually used in relation to external “harmful” people, rather than gentle, more acceptable methods for oneself.

Thus, projection manifests itself in a person’s tendency to believe that other people have the same motives, feelings, desires, values, and character traits that are inherent in himself. At the same time, he is not aware of his socially undesirable motives.

Such, for example, is the mechanism of religious-mythological worldview. Primitive perception is characterized by a person’s tendency to personify animals, trees, and nature, attributing to them their own motives, desires, and feelings. The writer transfers his own needs, feelings, and character traits to the heroes of his works.

Projection is carried out easier on someone whose situation, whose personal characteristics are similar to the projector. A person using projection will always see an offensive hint in a harmless remark. He can even see evil intent and intrigue in a noble act. A person who is immensely kind, the one who is popularly called “holy simplicity,” is not capable of projection. He does not see malice or ill will in actions towards himself, because he himself is not capable of this.

Denial as a form of psychological defense

The relevance of educating parents about the genesis of the phenomenology of denial as a special form of psychological defense of young children is due to a number of reasons.

Traditionally, “negation” is studied as a philosophical, formal-logical problem. However, this aspect of the study of the phenomenology of denial remains incomplete without an ontogenetic study of the psychological patterns of its development and functioning in the process of communication and cognitive activity of a person, starting from the first years of life.
Until recently, little attention has been paid to the psychological nature of denial. There is a limited number of special monographs devoted to the study of the patterns of formation of negation in the process of ontogenesis. This greatly complicates counseling by a psychologist, although it is the child’s manifestation of denial that often prompts parents to seek help.

On the one hand, parents understand that refusal plays a big role in a person’s life (in the modern world there are many things to which you can say “No!” And this needs to be learned from an early age). On the other hand, the scope of refusal often includes what the child must accept without contradiction, because otherwise his full socialization cannot take place.

“Refusal” (vemeinimg) in the most general sense means refusal, rejection, non-recognition of a fact, context (denial). Negate is a verb meaning to destroy, destroy, eliminate, abolish or reject...”

In psychological dictionaries, denial is usually defined as a mental process that manifests itself as a refusal to admit something. The term “negativism” (from the Latin negatio - denial) is considered synonymous with denial - hostility towards other people due to a negative attitude towards their statements. “Negativism is resistance to the influence of others, which does not require rational reasons.” Negativism arises as a defensive reaction to influence that contradicts the needs of the subject.

In children, denial most often takes the form of stubbornness or pettiness. Stubbornness as a form of child behavior, caused by the motive of self-affirmation, reinforced by inconsistent upbringing, can develop into aggression. And capriciousness as a form of child behavior, expressed in confrontation and resistance to the demands, advice, and instructions of adults, can subsequently manifest itself in negative emotional states (despondency and depression).

The specific manifestation of denial in each child has pronounced individual characteristics, which are determined by many factors (an adult’s style of communication with him; the state of his neurophysiological health; situational circumstances of meeting his needs and much more). For example, melancholic and phlegmatic types of temperament are characterized by less intense and affective negative manifestations of the child, such as gloominess, tearfulness, isolation, detachment, avoidance, despondency. A child with a choleric temperament is characterized by more intense and affective negative manifestations - stubbornness, impulsive active refusal, the desire to act contrary to demands, hysterics, aggressiveness. Since such forms of child behavior are unacceptable for an adult, they are usually accompanied by prohibitions and reprimands, which in turn provokes an increase in the child’s defensive manifestations. It should be borne in mind that with age, such protective mechanisms are denied as a component and an integral part of the psychology of destruction.

Introjection

This is the tendency to appropriate the beliefs and attitudes of other people without criticism, without trying to change them and make them your own.
A person endows himself with traits and properties of other people. For example, he takes on the functions of an annoying mentor, because the manifestation of such a trait in other people annoys or traumatizes him. In order to relieve internal conflict and avoid psychological discomfort, a person appropriates the beliefs, values and attitudes of other people. The earliest introject is parental teaching, which is absorbed by a person without critically thinking about its value.

An example of introjection: an impressionable man tries to hold back his tears because he has learned from his parents that an adult should not cry in the presence of strangers. Or a person constantly criticizes himself because he has internalized (introjected) his parents’ attitude towards him.

The likelihood of this method of protection occurring is the higher, the stronger and (or) longer the influence of external or internal blockers of desires, on the one hand, and the more impossible it is to remove these blockers and more fully fulfill one’s desires and achieve one’s goals, on the other. In this case, the impossibility of eliminating the frustrator is accompanied by the displacement of negative energy on the replacement object.

The subject's turning against himself results in the formation of physical and mental symptoms, i.e., signs of illness. Physical bodily symptoms include: cold feet and hands, sweating, cardiac arrhythmia, dizziness, severe headaches, high or low blood pressure, muscle spasms, dermatitis, bronchial asthma, etc.

Depersonalization

This is the perception of other people as impersonal, devoid of individuality, representatives of a certain group.
If the subject does not allow himself to think of others as people who have feelings and personality, he protects himself from perceiving them on an emotional level. With depersonalization, other people are perceived only as the embodiment of their social role: they are patients, doctors, teachers. The act of depersonalizing other people can “protect” the subject to a certain extent. This makes it possible, for example, for doctors to treat their patients without experiencing their suffering. In addition, this allows them to hide their real feelings (like or dislike) behind a professional mask.

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Denial and controversy

Dialectical philosophy assumes that in the very object, phenomenon or cognizing subject there is an internal opposite. In the process of activity, it comes to light and begins to deny itself. Any form, result and direction of development demonstrates to us this process, which was already compared above with the image of a spiral. Moreover, it is believed that in such a movement the law of negation of negation determines not only the type, but also the time of change. “Spirality” is directly related to the acceleration of development, the periods of which proceed faster and faster with each new stage. That is, the dialectical concept of “negation” also has a positive meaning. It stores a certain moment of connection between different stages of the process.