What do they say about denial

While in a state of denial the individual should be tolerated, not berated for his or her apparent unresponsiveness. No attempt should be made to change or modify the behavior of the griever. We certainly must never attempt to destroy someone's hold on denial It is important that this response run its course, since it is serving a purpose.

All that may be needed is our supportive presence. Words may be nonessential and unimportant. As supporters and observers, perhaps our greatest responsibility is to be prepared to "catch" the individual when he or she collapses into the second stage of the grieving process. Denial is a common tactic that substitutes deliberate ignorance for thoughtful planning. Denial does not solve the problem. Denial does not make the problem go away. Denial does not give us peace of mind, which is what we are really seeking when we engage in it.

Denial is a liar. It compounds the problem, because it keeps us from seeing a solution, and taking action to resolve it. What they have managed to do is provide subtle and not-so-subtle support for those opposed to taking radical action to address this urgent problem.

Achieving a global agreement that could underpin a transition to a post-carbon economy, and that would be capable of slowing the temperature increase, was always going to be an enormous challenge. Climate change denialism has helped to make the challenge even harder. Denialism can also create an environment of hate and suspicion. Forms of genocide denialism are not just attempts to overthrow irrefutable historical facts; they are an assault on those who survive genocide, and their descendants.

The dangers that other forms of denialism pose may be less concrete, but they are no less serious. Denial of evolution, for example, does not have an immediately hateful payoff; rather it works to foster a distrust in science and research that feeds into other denialisms and undermines evidence-based policymaking. Even lunatic-fringe denialisms, such as flat Earth theories , while hard to take seriously, help to create an environment in which real scholarship and political attempts to engage with reality, break down in favour of an all-encompassing suspicion that nothing is what it seems.

Denialism has moved from the fringes to the centre of public discourse, helped in part by new technology. No one can be entirely ostracised, marginalised and dismissed as a crank anymore.

The sheer profusion of voices, the plurality of opinions, the cacophony of the controversy, are enough to make anyone doubt what they should believe. S o how do you fight denialism?

Denialism offers a dystopian vision of a world unmoored, in which nothing can be taken for granted and no one can be trusted. If you believe that you are being constantly lied to, paradoxically you may be in danger of accepting the untruths of others. Denialism is a mix of corrosive doubt and corrosive credulity. Such people do fight back. Denialists are routinely excluded from scholarly journals and academic conferences.

The most common response to denialism, though, is debunking. Just as denialists produce a large and ever-growing body of books, articles, websites, lectures and videos, so their detractors respond with a literature of their own. Denialist claims are refuted point by point, in a spiralling contest in which no argument — however ludicrous — is ever left unchallenged.

Some debunkings are endlessly patient and civil, treating denialists and their claims seriously and even respectfully; others are angry and contemptuous. Yet none of these strategies work, at least not completely. The judgment bankrupted him, he was repudiated by the few remaining mainstream historians who had supported him, and in he was imprisoned in Austria for Holocaust denial.

But Irving today? He is still writing and lecturing, albeit in a more covert fashion. He still makes similar claims and his defenders see him as a heroic figure who survived the attempts of the Jewish-led establishment to silence him.

Nothing really changed. Holocaust denial is still around, and its proponents find new followers. There is a salutary lesson here: in democratic societies at least, denialism cannot be beaten legally, or through debunking, or through attempts to discredit its proponents. To continue to exist is a heroic act, a victory for the forces of truth.

Of course, denialists might yearn for a more complete victory — when theories of anthropogenic climate change will be marginalised in academia and politics, when the story of how the Jews hoaxed the world will be in every history book — but, for now, every day that denialism persists is a good day.

In fact, denialism can achieve more modest triumphs even without total victory. A better approach to denialism is one of self-criticism. The starting point is a frank question: why did we fail? Why have those of us who abhor denialism not succeeded in halting its onward march?

And why have we as a species managed to turn our everyday capacity to deny into an organised attempt to undermine our collective ability to understand the world and change it for the better? These questions are beginning to be asked in some circles. They are often the result of a kind of despair. It appears that nothing works in the campaign to make humanity aware of the threat it faces.

The obstinacy with which people can stick to disproved notions is attested to in the social sciences and in neuroscientific research. Humans are not only reasoning beings who disinterestedly weigh evidence and arguments. But there is a difference between the pre-conscious search for confirmation of existing views — we all engage in that to some extent — and the deliberate attempt to dress this search up as a quest for truth, as denialists do.

Denialism adds extra layers of reinforcement and defence around widely shared psychological practices with the never articulated aim of preventing their exposure. This certainly makes changing the minds of denialists even more difficult than changing the minds of the rest of stubborn humanity.

There are multiple kinds of denialists: from those who are sceptical of all established knowledge, to those who challenge one type of knowledge; from those who actively contribute to the creation of denialist scholarship, to those who quietly consume it; from those who burn with certainty, to those who are privately sceptical about their scepticism.

What they all have in common, I would argue, is a particular type of desire. This desire — for something not to be true — is the driver of denialism. E mpathy with denialists is not easy, but it is essential.

Denialism is not stupidity, or ignorance, or mendacity, or psychological pathology. Nor is it the same as lying. Of course, denialists can be stupid, ignorant liars, but so can any of us.

But denialists are people in a desperate predicament. It is a very modern predicament. The discovery of evolution, for example, is inconvenient to those committed to a literalist biblical account of creation. Denialism is also a reaction to the inconvenience of the moral consensus that emerged in the post-enlightenment world. In the ancient world, you could erect a monument proudly proclaiming the genocide you committed to the world.

In the modern world, mass killing, mass starvation, mass environmental catastrophe can no longer be publicly legitimated. This gave the person an opportunity to accept the situation, begin to seek help, and move forward. However, we now know that we can intervene earlier before the person reaches this state of despair.

Denial is a powerful coping mechanism that people can use to justify or rationalize their addiction. This is a state that can vary in duration; for some, it may be just a few weeks. For others, it can be months or even years. As long as this state persists, treatment cannot begin in earnest and will often end in relapse.

With therapy and support, the person with an addiction can begin to accept reality and take the first important steps towards a full recovery. Learn the best ways to manage stress and negativity in your life.

Lancer, D. Substance Abuse: The Power of Acceptance. Updated October 8, Melemis SM. Relapse Prevention and the Five Rules of Recovery. Yale J Biol Med. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellMind. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.

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