Denial Defense Mechanism Quotes & Sayings

Denial of one's need for others is the most common type of defense against bonding. If people come from a situation, whether growing up or later in life, where good, safe relationships were not available to them, they learn to deny that they even want them. Why want what you can't have? They slowly get rid of their awareness of the need. — Henry Cloud

Denial is a useful defense mechanism until it's not. — Rosalind Kaplan

The human mind has a primitive ego defense mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It's called Denial. — Dan Brown

The central mechanism of the avoidance mechanism of PTSD is the ego defense of denial — Frank M. Ochberg

Denial is a defense mechanism, all about self-preservation. — Eric Jerome Dickey

DENIAL
Defense mechanism in which the existence of unpleasant realities is disavowed; refers to keeping out of conscious awareness any aspects of external reality that, if acknowledged, would produce anxiety. — Benjamin James Sadock

The most common emotional defense is avoidance (an ineffective coping skill for any stressor) as expressed through denial (e.g., "That wasn't really bad, I barely remember it"). — Brian Luke Seaward

They feel guilty for having survived so they pretend the bad things never happened
Exodus (1960) screenplay — Dalton Trumbo