Flavours of Denial

This year I've joined a 9 month long 12 step program called Freedom Sessions. Intense.  It identifies dysfunctional attitudes and behaviours with their sources and works toward healthy alternatives.  Might get a few blog entries.  Later some reasons for doing this will likely follow.  The first couple weeks were about denial and its faces.  I do like lists so here's the summary for you:

    1. Simple denial - pretending a problem doesn't exist

    2. Minimizing - acknowledging a problem exists not the extent or intensity of it

    3. Rationalizing - making excusing to justify dysfunctional behaviour

    4. Intellectualizing - dealing with a problem only intellectually or generally

    5. Blaming - maintaining that the problem's responsibility lies somewhere other than with me

    6. Diversion - changing the subject, joking or tuning out to avoid closely dealing with a problem

    7. Bargaining - setting conditions or making deals for when to deal with the problem

    8. Passivity - ignoring the situation or being its victim

    9. Hostility - attacking others or being irritable to scare others away from addressing my problem

(Boy this ice cream picture is really distracting.  I don't know whether or not to change it.)