Why and how do people deny things that are eminently true?

And possibly even more important, how do we go from denial to acknowledgement to possible action?

We all deny. It’s a survival reaction that is very related to cognitive dissonance.

• We oppose low cost housing in our neighborhood, and we articulate very good reasons, although we know that our communities need more low cost housing.
• We criticize kids for doing things that we know are wrong and that we actually do ourselves.
• We justify actions that we take that don’t mesh with our values.

Outright denial is saying or believing that it didn’t happen or it’s not happening. That's how much of us think of denial.

In her post, Overcoming Denial, Anya Kamenetz articulates 6 other types of denial:

1. discrediting-the source is biased/manipulated/gullible
2. renaming-yes, something is happening but not rape, not genocide, not fascism. Let’s argue over semantics
3. justification-it’s happening but it’s justified
4. denial of responsibility—it’s happening but it’s unavoidable. There’s nothing to be done about it. Certainly not by me.
5. interpretive denial —it’s happening but it’s not important. Or it doesn’t mean what you say it means.
6. implicative denial—it’s happening but we ignore the implications. We don’t respond, we brush it off, we joke about it— aka minimizing.

We all look on others with scorn when we catch them doing any of these.

We all use all of these.

Whether it’s us denying or whether it’s someone else, the way one overcomes denial is to give space and give hope.

When a person is in denial, facts and reasoning only fan the flames of fear, anxiety, and anger.

We have to quiet our emotional reactions, perhaps with establishing a connection, perhaps with mindfulness, or perhaps with some other activity. This is the process of giving space.

And we have to provide hope, or a mechanism for thinking that things might change. Tapping into the innovation, critical thinking, or collaborative functions of the cerebral cortex.

These just happen to be techniques covered in the Mindshifting: From Conflict to Collaboration course that starts January 14.