Denial Fear Annihilation

Why Denial?

Denial exists because there is fear and fear exists because annihilation exists. We understand annihilation as infants when the figure who takes care of us is missing. A constant worry indicates that this fear has become a part of us and has not been comforted. And when we are adults, the same fears exist again. They do not change. But we want to believe that they are changing, so we temporarily ease the pain. We deny there that something difficult is happening. But denial is always unconscious and leads to symptoms.

Denial of feelings is the problem

Denial does not mean that I deny only the situation that occurs but mainly the emotion that accompanies it. You can see the hatred in someone and they don’t recognize it. How many couples I see every day who have developed anger but deny that they are angry. How many times I feel the jealousy of mothers towards their daughters and they not only cannot accept it but they turn it into love. So is the rivalry between sons and fathers and between older and younger siblings.

Emotions are common to all of us

The day before yesterday I was telling one of the couples I see as the associations of the session brought it because they have a large family and do not have time to collect the overflowing jealousy, that the people who today go out with a knife on the streets of Europe and spread death, have not no special gene that makes them express themselves with such hatred. They are the same people as everyone else who harbored anger towards their parents and siblings, then joined others in an ideology that is certainly pathological and ended up becoming murderers.

People just want to believe, denying the simple feelings of human nature, that murderers, criminals, etc., are something special. It’s nothing special. They hated their younger brother, they competed with their father, they were angry with their mother. One gathers anger inside if he is abandoned, if he feels neglected, if he is abused, if he is jealous.

We take the easy way out but it’s oppressive

It is easier to take the defensive direction. Instead of facing everything that should concern you, you deny it. You don’t want to see them. You’re sweeping them under the rug. You don’t care. You get into other things. Of course, you don’t let others deal with what they need to deal with either. Woe to the child whose parents deny the problems in the family. Woe to the partner who wants to talk about feelings to the partner who doesn’t even want to hear about them. You’re not just doing it for yourself. You push the other person to do it too.

The conflict is not only because you hide the reality from yourself but also because you want others to behave as you do. You are putting on a total narcissistic projection. You project your whole self to the other and expect them to be like you. So the other person suffocates and the relationship can’t go anywhere. This is what partners do to each other, couples to each other, and parents to their children.

The unconscious field

So there comes a time when anger comes out that you can’t understand where it came from. Because in this field there is no consciousness. If I was pressured as a child not to be myself, I will pressure the next person to not be himself. I will not be able to allow any truth to surface. The self will be fake but that is a big problem because yes we all use a part of ourselves as fake to not be left unprotected but we also need to be in touch with our real feelings.

The real feelings

But the real feelings become unconscious if we had problems. You don’t want to admit that you have hate and murderous feelings, nor do you want to admit your sexuality if you were taught to deprive yourself of pleasure. So you can release this impulse that you repress in a self-destructive and masochistic way respectively. You kill yourself in the case of murderous feelings and punish yourself in the case of masochistic feelings. But this is a very general example because behind it there are themes around castration, the death drive and low self-esteem that I analyze more specifically in my other articles. Things are hidden within us, they happen without conscious feeling. They are repulsed. So what form they take in particular is very particular to each. Then defenses such as disgust, shame, guilt, etc. come in and the confusion grows.

Refusal to treat

Denial is easy to see. It can be recognized by the experienced clinical eye. But what happens from there on? In the relationship with the therapist the real feeling comes to the surface. If you have turned hate into love, it will show. Patients understand this and ask to analyze it. Even if one persists, he cannot bear it emotionally when he begins to hate his therapist for no reason, when his dreams constantly show murders, when he confuses his words and substitutes good words for bad ones. But this development in therapy marks the beginning of the emergence of real feelings. Repressed feelings and experiencing them, that is, stopping denying them, is the beginning of healing.

See also: The origins of jealousy

*republication of the article is prohibited without the written permission of the author

The process of psychotherapy requires commitment, dedication and is addressed only to those who seriously see that they need to change their lives. If you are thinking of starting this journey, call me at 211 71 51 801 to make an appointment and see together how I can help you.

Mixalis Paterakis
Psychologist Psychotherapist
I accept by appointment
Karneadou 37 Kolonaki
Tel: 211 71 51 801
www.mixalispaterakis.gr
www.psychotherapy.net.gr