People are often hurt psychologically through others' words or actions in an everyday social context. Despite of the potential problems caused by these experiences, these phenomena has remained unexplored in Japan. In this study, we have explored (1) the contents and characteristics, and (2) the psychological outcomes, of people's hurtful experiences. To achieve this, we analyzed 351 university students' free descriptions of their most hurtful experiences, which were caused by others. We found that hurtful experiences (1) are caused by the concept of "relational devaluation", which occurs when significant others attack the person either with verbal or indirect aggression. These hurtful experiences (2) yield self-distortion (low self-esteem) and interpersonal maladjustment.