The nurse works in a small clinic with two other nurses and a nurse practitioner.Recently the nurse has been staying at work longer than usual.His neighbor,a patient at the clinic,asks one of the other employees at the clinic how the nurse is coping since his wife left him.The nurse had not shared this information with his co-workers.The nurse may be coping with his loss with which of the following?

A) Compensation
B) Conversion
C) Denial
D) Dissociation

Denial is avoiding emotional conflicts by refusing to consciously acknowledge anything that causes intolerable emotional pain.Compensation is making up for a deficiency in one aspect of self-image by strongly emphasizing a feature considered an asset.Conversion is unconsciously repressing an anxiety-producing emotional conflict and transforming it into nonorganic symptoms (e.g.,difficulty sleeping,loss of appetite).Dissociation is experiencing a subjective sense of numbing and a reduced awareness of one's surroundings.