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The Place of Denial in Adult Development

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Denial

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the role of denial in the process of psychological development during later adulthood. This analysis shall be undertaken within an assumptional framework that can be considered an extension of the Rapaport (1959, 1967) Hartman (1951) and Federn (1952). It is basically ego-analytical, yet emphasizes the notion of energetic transactions between the individual and the societal context in which the process of development takes place (Shanan, 1976, 1982). According to this line of thought, which represents an attempt to integrate ego psychological with system theoretical thinking, the person can be conceived as a multileveled, open system, embedded in and provided with the resources from metasystems of essentially social nature, ranging from the partner in a dyad, through family and reference groups to society or culture at large.

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© 1989 Plenum Press, New York

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Shanan, J. (1989). The Place of Denial in Adult Development. In: Edelstein, E.L., Nathanson, D.L., Stone, A.M. (eds) Denial. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0737-2_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0737-2_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8057-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-0737-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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