The surprising case for denial as a path toward resilience

You may think that denial can be harmful when encountering a challenge. But let me tell you about Richard Cohen.

When I was struggling with my eyesight, I read a book called Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness, by Richard Cohen. Cohen, who called the book a “reluctant memoir,” was diagnosed with MS at 25, survived two bouts of colon cancer, was legally blind for much of his life, and yet had an incredible, award-winning career as a war correspondent and journalist. He was married to journalist Meredith Viera for almost 40 years and was the father of three children. Sadly, he passed away in late 2024 after a struggle with pneumonia.

I had the chance to speak with Richard 20 years after I first read his book. He was a third-generation MS patient: Both his grandmother and his father had MS. What he learned by their example, especially his father, was not to allow himself to be victimized by the illness — to accept it and live with it rather than in spite of it. Indeed, his father, a physician, practiced medicine for nearly four decades and lived into his nineties. He taught Richard, by example, that he could live a rich and meaningful life with MS. Richard had seen others close to him do it, and he told himself that meant he could, too. Though the diagnosis was devastating, maintaining a flexible mindset helped him see that he could nonetheless continue to pursue his dreams — living with, not despite, his illness.

Richard was not in any position to stop or give up. When he learned he had MS, he had just landed a plum position as a producer with ABC News. A neurologist he had only seen once called and blurted out that Richard had MS, and that there was no treatment and no cure. And then hung up.

“Diagnosed and adios. Nothing much we can do,” Richard recalled. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow. This sucks. But I don’t have enough information about this to freak out, so I won’t.’ And I didn’t. But I also didn’t talk about it. There was, and remains, way too much stigma put on people who have to go through life with a chronic illness, so I decided that I would just go ahead and live my life.”

I asked Richard if he thought of this as stoicism, and he laughed. “I’d actually use the word denial. Look — I wasn’t in denial about having MS. What I mean by denial is I wasn’t about to let this disease dictate the terms of my life, you know? I wasn’t going to let it keep me from getting the jobs I wanted, which eventually included reporting from war zones and having to run my ass off so I wouldn’t get shot.”

Cohen certainly piqued my interest in adding the concept of denial to my understanding of resilience. It was completely at odds with the pillars of [Steven] Hayes’s definition, and yet, Cohen arrived at a similar destination: He knew what really mattered to him.

“Of course, I told the people I’m close to about my illness. I told Meredith, my wife, on our second date because I wanted her to know what she might be getting herself into. But she decided she was interested in me anyway, and we’ve been together ever since.” 

Richard had a strong marriage and a close bond with his children — which are absolutely relationship goals for me. But he wasn’t an open book, either. 

“Aside from only those closest to me knowing, my father encouraged me, from early on, not to share my illness with anyone else. He knew the stigma that would get attached to me, and he wanted me to define my life on my own terms and not become my diagnosis.” And so, in a sense, his keeping this private became a kind of denial, too — he only shared his full self with a chosen few, but with the rest of the world, he refused to accept their preconceived notions that would come along with their knowledge of his MS.

Cohen didn’t make his diagnosis public until deep into his career, when he was a well-established producer for the Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Only after he’d proven himself on the job did he share with his bosses that he had MS. “I wanted them to already know how capable I was; I didn’t want someone else to decide what I could or couldn’t do.”

As a point of illustration, when he was interviewed by Barbara Walters on the publication of Blindsided in 2004, Walters asked him, incredulously, why he still took the subway. “Because I can” was his answer.

My conversation with Cohen opened up a whole new way of thinking about denial for me. I asked him to elaborate on this, and he said, “If you’re standing on a train track and there’s a train coming toward you and you deny it’s going to hit you, then you’re making a big mistake. But if denial means denying the certainty of possible future outcomes, that’s a totally different story. And that kind of denial, for me, is a formula for living. For going on with my life.”

I was beginning to understand; if being in denial meant not letting anyone else dictate how well or how long he’d function while having MS, I could get on board with that. Cohen consciously shied away from listening to others, who, he told me, often want to make us feel that we’re victims — even when we don’t see ourselves that way.

“Look. It’s not like I don’t get frustrated or angry or have a down day. But I believe now, and I’ve always believed, that to see yourself as the victim is a terrible mistake. You’ve just got to play the cards you’ve been dealt, and you’ve just got to keep going.”

Richard Cohen used what he called denial to keep limitation settings at bay. He met life’s challenges head-on and course-corrected as needed to continue to fulfill his purpose of doing tough, meaningful work, being a great role model for his children, and walking through life with humor and devotion beside his wife.

I asked him if he had any final thoughts on resilience and he shared this: “I believe people are stronger than they think they are. They sell themselves short. But most of us don’t find out how strong we are until we’re tested. And when you’re tested, if you don’t psych yourself out or let other people psych you out, you’ll find out just how strong you are.” 

When he passed away, I felt a deep sadness for the man whose ideas and life had helped me so much at a time when I was struggling desperately to find my way through my own health challenge.

This article The surprising case for denial as a path toward resilience is featured on Big Think.