From the author: In our lives, failures often occur when our pride receives a wound, which everyone heals in their own way, recovering from the received “blow” without compromising their own integrity, emotional comfort, stability of created relationships or living space, however, for individuals who have the experience of an earlier, childhood narcissistic injury, every situation of failure, conflict or criticism is a battle, loss of oneself, on the verge of losing life.. The article continues the topic of narcissistic injury that I started earlier , characteristics of individuals with narcissistic traits and psychotherapeutic features of working with narcissistic disorders. Psychological trauma is an experience associated with damage caused to an individual, usually accompanied by a feeling of helplessness, loss, injustice of what happened, fear and a feeling of hopelessness in the current circumstances. Narcissistic injury is a problem with ego, a person with narcissistic injury is a person with a hunger for admiration and emotional intimacy. Narcissistic injury is a psychological injury to which a child was subjected at a certain stage of development when he especially desperately needed Ideal parents and their admiration. Instead of support, sympathy and acceptance of him as he is, he received contemptuous reproaches for his imperfection, ridicule for his own defenselessness, weakness, for showing emotionality, crying, anger, protest; he was cruelly punished, insulted, humiliated, even physical torture. The parents of a narcissistically injured child, as a rule, were themselves individuals with narcissistic traits and acted out their childhood traumas on the child, asserting their superiority through him, turning the process of upbringing into torture. Their style of building relationships with a child can be described as follows: “I am stronger and more powerful than you, I am allowed to humiliate you, and you are not allowed to condemn me for this, protest against my rules and requirements. You will always be bad because you are not like I want, if you are the way I want, I will love you." As a result of such relationships, the child forms a false self in order to please the parent, he becomes dependent on receiving powerful reinforcement (approval, praise) of self-esteem and now, in adulthood , every time he finds himself in a situation of rejection, lack of support from significant figures from his environment, he feels on the verge of exhaustion, a nervous breakdown, irritation appears over trifles, and anxiety intensifies. A child with narcissistic injury grows into a personality overly fixated on himself, his achievements, victories and failures; he becomes a narcissistic personality, painfully experiencing his “flawedness,” “badness,” and failure; with varying degrees of awareness, he strives to be liked, to be loved, recognized, to receive praise, attention from his Parent, which he has been waiting for from him for so long. Narcissistic injury is the injury of a “bad” child who never lives up to the demands of the “Ideal” parent. The main problem of a narcissistically injured person is a special vulnerability, vulnerability in those areas of life in which there is rejection (imaginary or real), lack of positive assessment, lack of expected interest in one’s own personality on the part of significant people, in the personal and/or professional environment. His personal and professional effectiveness becomes dependent on others’ assessment of the quality of his activities, the adequacy of his own behavior, and satisfaction with his own achievements in any endeavor, be it academic achievements, success in his personal life, or the degree of involvement in family and everyday tasks. A person does not realize that the “high” demands that others allegedly place on him are the result of psychological defense against his trauma, the so-called projective identification, when internal demands to meetto some high standard are attributed to the requirements of an external object (manager, spouse), that is, “the internal is mistakenly attributed to the external.” However, the inner child remains “bad”, imperfect, devalued, therefore the demand of the internal Ideal parent cannot be fulfilled and then depression occurs, with episodes of alcoholism, possible extreme behavior, self-mutilation and other manifestations of self-destructiveness. A client with narcissistic injury states his problem as increased self-criticism, low self-esteem, inability to enjoy life, from relationships with a partner, boredom, numerous complaints about unfair treatment, undeserved rejection from others, painful reactions to criticism, episodes of emotional “breakdowns”, depressive states in situations of social or career failure. There is little or no awareness of feelings of shame, envy, helplessness, the desire to compete, idealization of significant figures, devaluation of one’s merits, exaggerated attention to shortcomings or their complete denial. In the client’s biography, as a rule, one can find a conflict, a rejecting attitude on the part of one or both parental figures, ignoring the child’s emotional needs for support, love, labeling, constant negative evaluation, ridiculing weaknesses, comparison with certain “standards” of correctness, beauty, intelligence, lack of adequate responses in situations of success/failure of a child in play, study, communication with peers, etc. Normally, an adult, growing up and gaining experience of his own achievements, develops normal narcissism - the ability to evaluate himself, respect himself While enjoying their activities, a person with a narcissistic wound remains fixed in the developmental stage of a child dependent on the admiration of the Ideal Parent. In a situation of failure, setbacks in life, “failure,” an ordinary person is able to independently console, calm, and cheer himself up, since in his mental sphere there is an introjected (accepted into himself) normal image of an idealized (good enough) parent. In the psychic world of the narcissistic subject there is a traumatized image of the Ideal Parent, an image in which the child was disappointed. Accordingly, he is not able to console or praise himself on his own, but scolding, blaming, punishing himself, demanding great feats from himself is a common thing. So, the main source of discomfort in the inner world of a person with narcissistic injury is the “inability of the psyche to regulate self-esteem and maintain it at a normal level”*, as a result, severe anxiety and an unbearable feeling of shame are formed, which leads to conflicts and protest reactions of varying degrees of severity, from schizoid withdrawal and isolation to deviant, criminal, dependent behavior. Compensation for this discomfort is such manifestations as grandiosity, arrogance, the desire for omnipotence, superiority and self-improvement. Traits of narcissism most noticeably manifest themselves in the desire to have everything best, “to love the queen like that, lose a million like that,” “get everything at once,” to become the first, the best, the strongest, the most beautiful... It would seem that these are normal goals for a person thirsting for success , however, narcissistic injuries prevent one from achieving a real goal, since ideals are devalued, and internal conflict does not provide peace and normal energy for the implementation of ideal plans. An artistic example could be the ballerina from the film “Black Swan”, who brings herself to self-destruction in her quest to perfection. The fantasy of one’s own omnipotence and grandiosity unfolds in the psychotic image of the girl’s alter-ego – the Black Swan, whose image takes possession of her with manic, destructive force. Sensitive and vulnerable, like Odette the Swan Queen, Nina frantically fights with herself, trying to meet the demands of her mentor, Tom:», 2003.