Also, we note that while it is the women in a family who are generally given the role of primary caregiver, for the sake of simplicity our articles often use either male or female pronouns, although everything we say applies equally to both men and women. To better understand the role that hope, optimism and denial play in a life-challenging disease like cancer, let's look for a moment at different types of denial. First is the denial of the diagnosis itself. The second kind of denial admits the diagnosis is correct but refuses to acknowledge the implications of the diagnosis. In the third kind of denial a person recognizes the disease is incurable but still views illness as indefinitely prolonged, denying the possibility of death.
Denial helps people adjust to illness.
There is a great deal of information to process and manage when we are given such a diagnosis. Whom we tell and how we share that information may affect not only promotions at work, but relationships with fellow employees. So it's not unusual to emphasize the most optimistic scenarios or even to use evasion and deception. The person may be quite aware that death is possible and acknowledge to selected individuals the seriousness of the situation, but at other times, with other people, seem to ignore such issues. What we hear a person say does not tell us what is going on within his or her mind.