Denial (n.) is a refusal to recognize, for whatever reason, something unacceptable about oneself, a drive, an idea, a conflict, the fact of internal complexity.
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Denial (n.) is a way of taking cognizance of what is repressed... indeed it is already a lifting of repression, though not, of course, an acceptance of what is repressed.
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Denial (n.) is the intellectual substitute for repression.
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Denial (n.) is the intellectual substitute for repression', and is as such a conscious process.
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Denial (n.) is verneinung' , translated by strachey as 'negation'.