Being made to feel ashamed, small, foolish, embarrassed, etc. Threatening of any kind.
In Cameron's novel, pain becomes the scrollwork etched across memory, a surface decoration of the vessel that is one small, foolish, buoyant life.
I imagined it: small, fake, foolish.
He can really make someone look small and foolish.
Other wizards, like Merlin and Gandalf, tend to be wise guides to small, often foolish young heroes, some with furry feet, some not.
It is a vast and expensive institution, devoted to a system of ideas that, however fascinating, are also in some dated ways faddish, and in some small ways foolish.
Shep has resigned himself to life with Milly, "this small, rumpled, foolish woman," because at least "she was alive, wasn't she?" The Braces, a priggish pair, replace the Wheelers both in their former home and in the lives of the Campbells.
Didn't they know that they too would eventually compromise, wrinkle, suffer large and small defeats, seem foolish to their children?
The therapists in the study, all either psychiatrists or Ph.D.'s, all working from manuals guiding the technique, helped their patients correct self-defeating beliefs, like "taking even a small risk is foolish because the loss is likely to be a disaster," and "making new friends isn't worth the energy it takes".
The approach is one that businesses large and small would be foolish not to explore.
Once patients became engaged in treatment, therapists were able to help correct their self-defeating beliefs such as "Taking even a small risk is foolish because the loss will be a disaster".
