Narcissistic Injury

The concept of narcissistic injury does not appear as such in Freud. Since Freud, the theoretical elaboration of narcissism and the development of new entities of psychopathology (narcissistic personalities, borderline states) has led to the creation of this concept to describe the consequences, on the narcissistic level, of a trauma to the psychic apparatus arising from internal or external factors. It should be remarked, however, that the introduction of the concept of narcissism (Freud, 1914c) prepared the way in metapsychology for the