Abstract
The first defense mechanism to be discussed in detail, denial, is also one of the earliest defenses available to the child. Along with primary repression, denial is available to serve a defensive function during the earliest months of life. While primary repression protects the child from being overwhelmed by instinctual demands, denial functions to ward off upsetting perceptions of the external world (Freud, 1940).1
Though knowing the truth, he may act as if it did not exist.
Otto Fenichel (1945), p.145
Denial functions through the disavowal of whole percepts and the substitution of a wish-fulfilling fantasy ….
Lichtenberg and Slap (1973), p.781
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© 1991 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
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Cramer, P. (1991). Denial. In: The Development of Defense Mechanisms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9025-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9025-1_3
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-9027-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-9025-1
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