The Advantages and Price of Denial

Abstract

Before we can repair our relationships, we need to explore a concept crucial to self-awareness and eventual reconciliation with our adult children: the concept of denial. Denial is a defense mechanism we use to pretend that what is true is not really true. We create a false reality which protects us from facing things about ourselves and our pasts that we feel we cannot deal with. It also prevents us from becoming self-aware and fulfilled.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana, The Life of Reason