Denial and the Ostrich Effect

Where are you right now? Just take a minute or two and have a little think, as I’m asking this question because I want you to think about your present reality. I want you to be honest with yourself too and really step back and take a look at your situation, because denial of this reality is one of the most common coping and protection mechanisms we use when faced with danger.

So where are you right now? It’s a straightforward question. Please take a moment to answer it, and then perhaps take another moment to think about how that makes you feel. And after you have done this, read on.

The Mechanism of Denial

Denial is a strange thing. It can make us unable to see what’s right there in front of us, and it helps us delete what we don’t want to see from the picture of the world we carry in our heads. Often I see denial used to keep a sense of normality for a person or keep the status quo for those around them when faced with something terrible or something that will be difficult to accept.

Freud’s early work on defence mechanisms, while controversial in many aspects, got this right, and it was developed further and more systematically by his daughter, Anna Freud. Denial protects the ego from realities too painful to accept. It’s not conscious lying, it’s not deliberate deception, it’s a psychological mechanism that operates automatically to protect you from overwhelming distress.

When a patient attends well over two years after first finding a breast lump, this is denial, and this is a refusal to accept the reality that they could have cancer. Whilst this denial can work in the short term, it’s almost always inevitable that the truth will catch up with you in the end. And in this case, the denial didn’t protect the patient, it dramatically reduced her treatment options and prognosis.

When something confronts us that is too painful to accept, denial causes it to be consciously rejected by the mind. In the example above, denial also meant that treatment was delayed, and in this case, subsequent treatment was palliative rather than curative. The denial felt protective, but it was actually harmful.

The Cost of Denial

Denial of a problem also generally means that you are not allowing yourself to accept the possible solutions in addition to the problem itself. This is crucial to understand. When you deny the problem exists, you also deny that solutions are needed. You can’t fix what you won’t admit is broken.

Denial stops us from learning, it stops us from moving on. Denial means there will be no real acceptance of the situation you are in, and also maybe no real acceptance that change is necessary. If you can’t see the problem, you certainly can’t see the need for action.

Denial can mean that if we fail to accept where we are now, we can also fail to accept the responsibility that we must take before we can fix that problem. Responsibility requires acknowledging reality, and denial is the active refusal of reality.

Go back to your answer to the question I asked you and take a look again at the answer. What are you missing? What are you not telling yourself? And what’s the thing that you are denying? Where are you really right now?

The Psychology of Denial

This article is about cognitive biases and problematic thinking, and we’ve just talked about denial. Anna Freud, in her own work on defence mechanisms, described denial as a mechanism of the immature mind that conflicts with the ability to learn from and cope with reality.

The point here I need to make again is that denial stops you from coping and learning. This whole article is about you, where you are now and how you see the world. So what is it you are not seeing? Or ask yourself this instead, what is it that you just don’t want to look at yet?

Kübler-Ross’s (1969) stages of grief identified denial as the first stage when confronting loss or trauma. It serves a useful function initially, providing time to gather psychological resources before facing overwhelming reality. The problem is when people get stuck there, when temporary denial becomes permanent refusal to accept reality.

There’s a well-known effect called the ostrich effect, which metaphorically refers to the condition of deciding to bury our head in the sand instead of confronting a situation. Unfortunately, ignoring a situation and hoping it will go away at times can make the situation worse and put yourself at more risk. Avoiding difficult situations rather than dealing with them can happen because you want to avoid pain.

But consider this: if you continue to ignore the facts, you are also failing to take action and make things better. Recognising when you’re doing this to yourself is the first step out of it.

This isn’t therapy. If you’re dealing with clinical depression, severe anxiety, or trauma, please see a professional. I say this as a doctor, not as a disclaimer.

Further reading

• Freud, A. (1937). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence.
• Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying.
• Galai, D., & Sade, O. (2006). The ostrich effect and the relationship between the liquidity and the yields of financial assets. Journal of Business, 79(5), 2741–2759. — origin of the “ostrich effect” in decision research.
• Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders.
• Burns, D. D. (1980). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy.