Denial usually refers to someone who fails to recognize the significance or consequences of certain behaviors. It also implies that something believed is untrue. When someone is in denial that a relationship is bad for them, what they are denying is not so much the nature of their relationship (e.g., that person is bad for me) as the feelings that are triggered in the course of the relationship. Denial is a cognitive process that is an attempt to alter our experience of unwanted or unacceptable emotions.