Rationalizing Denial

Denial:

1. the act of refusing to comply (as with a request); "it resulted in a complete denial of his privileges";
   
2. the act of asserting that something alleged is not true;
3. (psychiatry) a defense mechanism that denies painful thoughts;
4. abnegation: renunciation of your own interests in favor of the interests of others; and/or
5. defense: a defendant's answer or plea denying the truth of the charges against him; "he gave evidence for the defense."(Courtesy of wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

I'm mostly concerned with numbers 2, 3, and 4 here. Firstly, "the act of asserting that something alleged is not true" implies two people or two parts of the same person: if two people, one would allege and the other would deny; if one person, some part of the person (monads!) would allege while some other part would deny. It might also occur that denial of this sort in one person emerges from one part alleging and the same part denying. Maybe. This type of denial is inter- or innersubjective, depending. (By "innersubjective," I mean occurring between two or more parts within the person; by "subjective," I mean the subject speaking as some type of make-believe unified subject, either because the subject is too ignorant of h/h self to recognize PostMo and PostStruc at work within h/h myriad selves or else s/h has recognized it... and worked h/h self back into a unified whole. I'm really not sure the latter exists, but that's only because I haven't experienced it.)

Secondly, #3's psychiatric denotation, "a defense mechanism that denies painful thoughts," is either subjective or innersubjective, unless the painful thoughts were placed there by a second person, in which case the cause would lie outside the subject but the effects would lie within (pun intended). Interiority is the locus of denial in this sense, but what remains unclear with only this broad definition is whether the subject denies (the existence of) painful thoughts, denies (to others ever having) painful thoughts, or denies (the entry into h/h psychic interiority of) painful thoughts. What part of the body is doing this denying? The mind? The body? Some mediating force between the mind/body? And if the mind denies, doesn't the body sometimes accept, as is the case for physical conditions resulting from mental states? What or who teaches us to deny painful thoughts? Did primitive man deny painful thoughts? If pain can be experienced as pleasure, then couldn't intrusive painful thoughts be a turn on?

Lastly, #4: "abnegation: renunciation of your own interests in favor of the interests of others." This sort of self-denial for the sake of others -- being yourself-for-others, or what I call being a people-pleaser -- is insidious because, when done well, it's subtle, and it controls subject and other in interesting ways: People pleasing

• forbids others from distinguishing the core from the rind -- and from perceiving the core at all.
  
• implies that the subject knows better than the other what is best for the other; implies a sense of superiority in that the subject is making choices of what to reveal and what to hide -- what to do and what not to do -- based on h/h constructed perspective of the other (countertransference).
  
• conveys an element of underhandedness or covertness -- a subject who hides (from) h/h authentic self in order to placate another or a larger group (ie cultures, nations, nations within nations).
  
• might suggest multiple senses of "denial" operating within the subject, namely the other two senses I've mentioned here. If the subject is "asserting that something alleged is not true," she might form her identity around people-pleasing rather than the "something alleged" by her authentic self that she asserts "is not true." She's denying her authentic self, wearing the guise of whomever the other wants her to be. If the subject is experiencing denial as "a defense mechanism that denies painful thoughts," the people-pleasing personality is the defense mechanism, and the painful thoughts are those parts of herself she's deemed "not true" because too painful to accept and reveal to herself and others.
  

I'm going off on a tangent here, I know... but that's the rough sketch of my thoughts on denial. The first definition above also applies here, as in "the act of refusing to comply" with one's own core self. The subject, when in full denial, denies what is within her both to herself and to the outside world. Not only is she refusing to know what is being denied, but in that refusal, she's denying the other access to "her," sequestering her real self to her deepest interiority, a place of multifaceted denial.

Could it be said, according to my ramble, that in denying that innermost sanctum of authentic identity, she renders it inconceivable? Resigns it to it's most natural place within a cultured society: Nature as other? Might it be said, in another model, that she relegates her core self to the position of the unsignifiable? By refusing to deny it's "truth," is she looking to the other to define truth for her, relying on an other's truth to guide her life? I imagine the core self to be faceted like a diamond, each face a wall, of sorts, to keep self and other outside of it. A border, a boundary. In this conception, it's no wonder I seek to penetrate the core self (Phallic woman!), to push the boundary, to transgress that which was meant to keep me an outsider to my own authenticity. When I get there, I will love what is there, because what is there is Me, and denying that denies myself and other(s) the privilege of knowing and loving Me.