A New book by one of the most important names on the Polity list. Stan Cohen is one of the world s most respected criminologists, and author of many classic studies in the field. A New book by one of the most important names on the Polity list. Stan Cohen is one of the world's most respected criminologists, and author of many classic studies in the field. Preface ix Acknowledgements xv The Elementary Forms of Denial 1(20) Psychological status: conscious or unconscious? 3(4) Content: literal, interpretive or implicatory? 7(2) Organization: personal, cultural or official? 9(3) Time: historical or contemporary? 12(2) Agent: victim, perpetrator or observer? 14(4) Space and place: your own or elsewhere? 18(3) Knowing and Not-Knowing: The Psychology of Denial 21(30) Everyday denial 21(4) The psychoanalysis of denial 25(12) Lies and self-deception 37(5) Cognitive errors 42(9) Denial at Work: Mechanisms and Rhetorical Devices 51(25) Normalization 51(1) Defence mechanisms and cognitive errors 52(6) Accounts and rhetorical devices 58(6) Collusion and cover-up 64(4) Everyday bystanders 68(8) Accounting for Atrocities: Perpetrators and Officials 76(41) Perpetrators: accounts as denials 77(24) The discourse of official denial 101(16) Blocking out the Past: Personal Memories, Public Histories 117(23) Prelude: repression 118(2) Personal memories, personal past 120(4) Personal denials, public histories 124(8) Collective denials, public histories 132(8) Bystander States 140(28) Prologue: 'It can't happen to us' 140(2) Internal bystanders 142(18) External audiences 160(8) Images of Suffering 168(28) Appeasing the media beast 168(10) Representation and the starving African child 178(7) Enlightenment fatigue 185(11) Appeals: Outrage into Action 196(26) Appeal narrative 197(5) Issues 202(20) Digging up Graves, Opening up Wounds: Acknowledging the Past 222(27) Modes of acknowledgement 227(13) Acknowledgement and social control 240(4) Over-acknowledgement 244(5) Acknowledgement Now 249(29) The meanings of acknowledgement 251(4) Telling the truth 255(6) Intervention: pro-social behaviour and altruism 261(5) Creating more acknowledgement 266(12) Towards Cultures of Denial? 278(24) Intellectual denial 280(7) More or less denial? 287(9) The photo never lies 296(6) Notes 302(29) Index 331