@done4good
Great comments. One thing you brought out I thought I should mention.
I often read a lot of people make use of the term "cognitive dissonance," using it in reference to Jehovah's Witnesses. In reality, most people who use that term are using it wrong.
"Cognitive dissonance" first of all is a scientific hypothesis, used to describe mental stress which can cause emotional responses of survival. It actually has little to do with why people are in cults or ideological groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, and it isn't universally accepted in behavioral science.
"Cognitive dissonance" is what a good friend of mine experienced on 9/11. She is a pastor of a Protestant church, with a theology that embraces the belief that America is a "Christian" nation, under G-d. When the attacks occurred against the Pentagon and the Twin Towers, she went into a daze for several days. It isn't that she stopped doing her work as a pastor. In fact she was even more busy than normal due to many people having questions, the need to add additional services, etc.
But my pastor friend confided in me that she was running on automatic. She had to, as the experience shook her faith to the foundations. "How could G-d allow such a thing to happen?" she said, explaining the connection between the events and why she was just "going through the motions." She believed that America was part of G-d's plan, a sort of "Promised Land" in the great scheme of things. As such America was supposed to be untouchable in her mind.
What that pastor was going through is "cognitive dissonance." She had two conflicting states she was dealing with: the first, a strong Christian faith that saw the United States of America as a nation protected by Providence and second, the fact that the U.S. had undergone a horrific terrorist attack of such a grand scale never before seen on American soil.
That is "cognitive dissonance," that state of two separate conflicting "truths" that the pastor was dealing with. Because she was a pastor of a church, she had to compartmentalize the mental battle and run on "automatic."
Granted, I don't subscribe to her unique view of the U.S. in G-d's "plan," but beside that the woman was quite mainstream. She fought for equal rights for the poor, the disabled, the LGBT community, and ministered to those with HIV and AIDS. In fact she was quite sensible and logical that it surprised me to hear her tell me she had this belief and that it was causing her such a crisis of conscience. It still doesn't fit the picture of the woman I know.
Cognitive dissonance doesn't keep a person in a state of denial either. It usually makes a person choose one path or the other, true, but often "wakes" people up. My pastor friend ditched this theological view, but still remains a faithful Christian minister to this day.
If cognitive dissonance is as real as most believe it is (and I am one of those who feel the theory has merit), then Jehovah's Witnesses are not in this state. If they ever were, they chose the path of accepting the Watchtower brand of ideology. But it is more likely that they don't listen to anything that causes this state of stress in the first place. People cannot thrive under such stress. They shut down.
What people may be trying to say is that some JWs are compartmentalizing when and if they have to endure a moment of cognitive dissonance. That is not healthy either, but it is putting something "on a back burner" to deal with later, so to speak. Eventually the pot will boil over and the stress will build and they will have to make a choice.
But cognitive dissonance is not denial. It is the state that usually gets one to realize they have possibly been in denial.