Sometimes in therapy when a person has difficulty accepting some feeling, I will ask if he or she is willing to accept the fact of refusing to accept the feeling. I asked this once of a client, Victor, a clergyman, who had difficulty in owning or experiencing his anger, but who was a very angry man. My question disoriented him. “Will I accept that I won’t accept my anger?” he asked me. I smiled and said, “That’s right.” He thundered, “I refuse to accept my anger and I refuse to accept my refusal!”

Nathaniel Branden, How to Raise Your Self-Esteem, New York, 1987, p. 56