To close the door on a problem, to pretend we don't see it, to obscure the facts, to refuse to learn about them, to selectively see, all these are expressions of "denial", the rejection that an unpleasant reality exists. As mentioned in the original version of the book, alcoholics who refuse to acknowledge their condition, people who dismiss suspicions of their partner's infidelity, the wife who fails to notice that her husband is abusing their daughter, are all supposed to be "in denial". Governments deny their responsibility for atrocities, while planning them in a way that achieves the "maximum denial" that they occurred.

Denial, according to Cohen, is not just a personal issue, it is rooted in the ideological "showcase of the state" and serves as a tool of covering up atrocities through the exploitation of bureaucratic issues.

The book Denial Situations is the first comprehensive study of both personal and political ways in which unpleasant realities are avoided and bypassed. Its pages explore a variety of phenomena, from clinical studies of depression to media images of pain, as well as explanations of how the "passive bystander" and the so-called "compassion fatigue" are formed.

In a time when crime is increasingly seen as an individual solution and when state crimes unfortunately become commonplace, this classic work brings back to the forefront the issue of responsibility for those who, by law, are obligated to protect rights. But above all, it raises the question of preventing these situations.