Today I wanted to talk about depression again. The question indicated in the title is a basic question that lies at the very basis of our existence. Usually, when everything is good, we don’t even ask ourselves about it. But for a depressed person, his main life conflict is formed around the answer to this question. The fact is that he has the deepest doubts about this answer. The depressive character is formed in the very early preverbal period of life, when we are extremely fragile and dependent on other people. When we are born, the attention and care of our mother is extremely important to us. With her goodwill and love for us, her joy in what we are, she invites us to life in this world. And this invitation is extremely important for each of us. After all, if we are welcomed and expected, we gradually gain confidence that we have the right to live. But if this invitation from an important Other is colored by doubt, fear, anxiety, or it is simply not enough due to depression in the mother herself or lack of love for the child, a small, extremely dependent person develops deep uncertainty about whether he has the right to live or not. In my opinion, it is this deep doubt that ultimately leads to what we in Gestalt therapy call retroflection - this way of dealing with the environment In reality, when an impulse directed outward turns inward against the person himself (which is very typical for depression). The little man is not sure that he has the right to live, and therefore to express himself, to reach out to the object of his affection in order to get something from him. This object is everything for a child, and therefore the lack of sufficient acceptance on his part is felt as rejection by the whole world. As adults, we can cope quite successfully with some people's rejection of us, because we know that there are others, but often in adult life, rejection of us by our partner can be perceived as the end of the world, and often we see rejection where it would seem No. The reason for this is that same childhood experience when we lacked acceptance from a significant person. And if it is difficult for an adult to cope in such situations, although he can calm himself down at least rationally, what can we say about a child who does not have this ability. The child does not have the resources to resist this, so he turns all the arrows against himself, becoming like the world in his perception. I believe the retroflexive mechanism is formed before the introjective one - another mechanism characteristic of a depressive character, when a person swallows everything that the environment gives him without chewing - food, ideas, judgments, beliefs. It is the initial lack of invitation to life from the Other that leads to a basic turn of aggression inward (retroflection), and this, in turn, leads to the fact that a person, due to the non-manifestation of this aggression, becomes forced to excessively succumb to the influence of others (introjection). This basic conflict can be experienced as a feeling of one’s own badness, a deep sense of guilt for one’s presence in life, and can subsequently acquire various shades. For example, schizoid: do I have the right to reach out for protection, tenderness, affection and care? Borderline: Do I have the right to take what I want from the environment? Narcissistic: Do I have the right to reach out for support in my various manifestations? Neurotic: Do I have the right to show love to the Other? It is because of this basic conflict that the indiscriminate deployment of retroflexed aggression can acquire a destructive character and retraumatize a person. It will only strengthen the splitting, because the deeply rooted attitude regarding one’s own badness and the lack of the right to life and manifestation of aggression does not go away. It is important to approach the core of the conflict slowly and carefully, and only then gradually deploy the nuclear energy contained in it. This may require years of therapy. At the very core of the conflict there is a huge, world-sized.