Concepts
Health psychology/Defence mechanisms · Narcissistic / psychotic
Denial
What it means
Refusing to accept an external reality because it is too threatening, behaving as though it is not true.
Worked example
A man with crushing chest pain insists it is "just indigestion" and refuses to seek help.
In the exam
Despite an obvious breast lump growing over months, a woman insists nothing is wrong and declines to see her GP.
What settles it
Denial rejects the reality itself. Repression excludes an internal feeling/memory from awareness; the external fact is not disputed.
Classically confused with
Repression
Source: AMBOSS