Narcissistic injury and its relationship to early trauma, early resources, and adjustment to college.

This study used structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized model that the effects of early trauma are buffered by early resources and that these variables, in turn, affect psychological damage and subsequent adjustment. In addition, the utility of the Narcissistic Injury Scale (NIS; S. L. Slyter, 1991), an operationalization of A. Miller's (1981) construct of narcissistic injury, was assessed. Students (n = 250) completed questionnaires measuring past trauma, early resources, psychological damage, and adaptation to college. Results supported the reliability and validity of the NIS. Structural equation analyses resulted in a final model with a very good overall fit. The path linking early trauma to psychological damage and then subsequent adjustment accounted for the most variance. The hypothesized buffering effects of early resources were not supported. Counseling and research applications are discussed. There has been growing attention in the theoretical and applied counseling literature to psychoanalytic concepts and ideas related to "self" and "self-disturbance." The concept of self as the fundamental building block of identitypersonality and the theoretical notion that healthy selfdevelopment follows from adequate parental-environmental responses to a child's needs for respect and understanding emanate from the object relations (Fairbairn, 1952) and selfpsychology (Kohut, 1971) perspectives, which differ from orthodox psychoanalytic models that focus on instinctual drives to explain personality and development. The appeal of these alternative psychoanalytic models for counseling psychology scholars and practitioners is easily understood. First, as Gelso and Fassinger (1992) have suggested, these approaches focus on healthy development and emphasize familiar and salient constructs such as self-esteem and empathy. Second, they provide for practical, theory-based treatment to clients in emotional pain (Cashdan, 1988; Patton & Meara, 1992). Given the appeal of these constructs and their relevance to counseling psychology, attempts to define and operationalize them and to study their interrelationships seem useful and important. One construct to emerge from the just-described perspectives that has conceptual appeal and clinical utility is narcissistic injury, a term used to refer to the psychological damage that results when a child's narcissistic (i.e., self) needs for respect, understanding, and mirroring are denied (Miller, 1981). In The Drama of the Gifted Child, Miller (1981) drew heavily from object relations and self theorists