Yes, these are things that can cause pain. But I'm still wondering about the survival benefit of hurt feelings.

Yes, the pain keeps us away from people who (we perceive) don't value us, and therefore aren't likely to cooperate and collaborate with us. Of course, as children we still need our parents so the pain doesn't really move us away, we frequently develop ways of dealing with the pain instead. Sometimes not such good ways, and sometimes the pain is stuck "on" like lolagrace's husband.

But with a sprained ankle, for instance, the pain keeps me from using it a lot, or makes me pay attention and use it carefully, until it heals itself. Also, I have a chronically weak ankle, so I use a brace to add external strength so I don't "hurt" it. And I recently went to a physical therapist who taught me some exercises so that my ankle has now gotten stronger internally!

I wonder if there might be something like the physical therapy for "hurt feelings". It wouldn't stop or alleviate the pain necessarily but could help prevent re-injury? Maybe that's what psychotherapy has done for some people but it didn't do it much for me.