Home

The Denial Factor
Living Truth Through Denial

using lies In order to avoid facts that they think may be potentially painful to themselves or others.

Denial of responsibility:
This form of denial involves avoiding personal responsibility by blaming, minimizing or justifying.
Someone using denial of responsibility is usually attempting to avoid potential harm or pain by shifting
attention away from themselves.

Denial of impact involves a person avoiding thinking about or understanding the harms their behavior
have caused to themselves or others. Denial of impact reduces or eliminates a sense of pain or harm from
poor decisions.

Denial of awareness:
This type of denial is best discussed by looking at the concept of state dependent learning. This type of
denial often overlaps with denial of responsibility.

Denial of cycle:
Many who use this type of denial will say things such as, "it just happened." Denial of cycle is where a
person avoids looking at their decisions leading up to an event or does not consider their pattern of
decision making and how harmful behavior is repeated. It can also serve as a way to blame or justify
behavior (see above).

Denial of denial:
This can be a difficult concept for many people to identify in themselves, but is a major barrier to
changing hurtful behaviors.