This tea is so mythic and old but it is by no means cold because myth and parable and the way they reflect our most interpersonal relationships and their darkest shadows is just SO how we get down. Ovid’s myth of Narcissus and Echo, from his fifteen-book epic poem Metamorphoses [8 AD], famously explores the dangers of unbridled vanity and the tragic loss of identity that comes from unreciprocated love. Like most myths, Narcissus and Echo is equally relevant to modern psychology and serves as a foundational allegory that elucidates the nature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder {NPD}, along with the complex and devastating consequences for the victims of such abuse—particularly in early childhood. This psychosocial work aims to explore the struggle of Ovid’s mythical Echo and her relationship to Narcissus, interlacing this classical myth with the psychology of the modern narcissist and the codependent, people-pleasing echoist.

A tale of two tragic fates: origins

This ancient Ovidian tale begins with Hera, the queen goddess of the Olympian gods. On a midsummer’s day, a loquacious mountain nymph named Echo, renowned for her charm and endless chatter, was regaling Hera with a captivating story. Yet what she didn’t know was that Echo’s tales were a clever ruse to distract her from her husband Zeus and his infidelities with the other nymphs. Enraged by Echo’s duplicity and powerless to stop her husband’s adultery, Hera cast an unbreakable curse to silence the nymph for all of time. Echo could no longer enrapt the gods with her stories and was condemned to only repeat the last words of another. Deprived of her voice, she grew cold and sad as her conversations became dull and her company deeply undesirable. Drifting lonely through the forest she encountered a vision of divine beauty—it was Narcissus—the stunningly gorgeous son of the river god Cephissus and the water nymph Liriope. From birth, prophecies had warned that he would live a long and fruitful life, but only if he remained ignorant of his own beauteous reflection. Yet heedless and proud became the youth, scorning all those who adored him, leaving shattered hearts in his wake.

Echo, infatuated and voiceless, longingly trailed after him unable to speak. Soon Narcissus heard a rustle and called out ‘who goes there, who are you?’ Echo revealed herself only to repeat the word ‘..you’. As she went to hold him Narcissus recoiled, ‘let me go, I can’t stay’. Echo could only counter with a plea for him to do so ‘...stay’. Freeing himself from her embrace, Narcissus snarled at her and said ‘I'd rather die than have you love me’, to which Echo could only cry ‘...love me ...love me’. Soon after he faded from her gaze, Echo retreated to a nearby cave. Gradually her heart hardened and turned black with grief, her body now frail wilted until all that was left of her was her voice. Her once-vibrant tone withered into a wistful whisper which the wind carried to vast empty places, for everafter she could only be heard echoing through hollow caves and reverberating across lonely clearings.

Upon witnessing Echo’s fate, Nemesis {the goddess of vengeance} set Narcissus towards a clear glassy pool, where he beheld his own hauntingly beautiful reflection. Never before had he seen himself with such clarity, and so he fell into a spellbound obsession with the phantom of his beauty who gazed straight back at him. He lingered by the water for an eternity, mesmerised by each glinting angle and glowing curl, unable to part from his engrossing vision. Forever out of reach and touch he grasped and clawed at the illusion that lay so seductively before him. Aeons passed and Narcissus grew to know the agony of unrequited love; and so, consumed by his relentless longing, his legs became rooted in the grass and his body too wasted away. When the forest nymphs finally passed by, all that was left of him was a yellow and white-petalled flower bending towards its reflection—the Narcissus.

A tale of two tragic fates: narcissism

We can clearly see how Narcissus is a precursor to our clinical understanding of the self. The Austrian psychoanalyst Dr. Heinz Kohut is a pioneering figure in the study of contemporary narcissism. During the 1950s he heavily drew upon Freud’s early musings on human infatuation with the self, which led him to explore the deep wounds that shape the narcissistic psyche. In his 1914 essay ‘On Narcissism’, Freud first identified the tension between self-love {inward focus} and object love {outward focus}, viewing self-love or ‘narcissism’ as a developmental phase that, when fixated upon, could lead to pathology. Kohut however expanded this idea, delving into the ways that ‘narcissistic personality structure’ largely reflects developmental issues in childhood.

He specifically championed the notion of how unmet needs for empathy and validation in early childhood could crystallise into a grandiose and over-inflated self-image as a trauma response to the neglected self—‘when the child’s attempts at self-assertion and grandiosity are met with empathetic mirroring by the caregiver, the child gradually internalises a healthy sense of self-esteem. Without this mirroring, the grandiose self remains rigid and defensive’ [1971]. Such was the case with our mythical Narcissus, entangled within his own reflection. Modern-day narcissism however is far more complex and paradoxical.

Kohut reveals how ‘the grandiose self is a defence against an archaic anxiety and deep-seated feeling of inadequacy’, essentially highlighting how a narcissist is driven not by true self-love, but rather by a profound sense of self-loathing and irrevocable shame that first begins in youth. Despite a charismatic, seductive and charming facade, when we look at the core of narcissistic personality styles, they are consistently characterised by a person who lacks empathy for other people, is superficial and is always seeking out external validation to feed that bottomless pit of insecurity. What differentiates a narcissist from a socio/psychopath, is that within them they hold the power of empathy, yet are maliciously selective with who they choose to withhold that empathy from, and ultimately torture. As deep-rooted insecurity is the crux of narcissism, their behaviour often manifests in projecting their internalised shame onto the world around them, especially those who they consider a threat. These perceived threats can be their own vulnerable and pure-spirited children, but are especially those who have an authentic magnetism and loving aura that casts a light so bright that it cannot help but expose the narcissist’s shamefully concealed shadow.

A tale of two tragic fates: echoism

While Narcissus reflects the grandiosity and excessive need for admiration amongst the modern narcissist, Echo contrarily embodies the diminished sense of self and the tendency to prioritise the needs and opinions of others over one’s own. This diminished sense of self is characterised by patterns of passivity, codependency and people-pleasing, known as ‘echoism’. The term was first coined by Harvard clinical psychologist Dr. Craig Malkin in his 2016 book ‘Rethinking Narcissism’. In his context, echoism refers to personality traits characterised by extreme people-pleasing, self-neglect and a loss of personal identity. This condition often originates in childhood environments dominated by narcissistic parents or caregivers, where emotional invalidation, manipulation and abuse are pronounced.

Malkin’s research highlights how such children, starved of empathy, learn to survive by becoming invisible—mirroring the needs of their caregivers while suppressing their own desires. He explains how ‘Echoists come from families where they learned to keep their needs small and voices soft, they feel safest when they are unseen and unheard and learn that expressing needs is dangerous, leading to rejection [2015]. Much like our mythical Echo whose vocal castration and yearning only led to her demise in the face of rejection by Narcissus.

Dr Ramani Durvasula, a global leading expert in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, explores how echoism and more complex ‘borderline personality structure’ develop from an early family environment that’s saturated with extreme invalidation, hostility, abuse, negation, and criticism—all in a chronic way. According to her, this then becomes a setup for assuming that all environments will be invalidating, and creates a disturbance in the ability to self-regulate {often characterised by overreaction and hypersensitivity} in the face of that. Dr. Ramani explains how ‘empathy is the antidote to narcissism, yet it is the quality most stripped away by their abuse’, and so in the same breath as Echo, such victims become masters of self-erasure, their identities absorbed into the demands and whims of those around them.

This phenomenon is further underscored by the work of American psychologist Dr. Marsha Linehan, who describes the interplay between codependency and echoism in the context of Borderline Personality Disorder {BPD}. She notes how ‘the fear of abandonment in BPD can drive intense people-pleasing behaviours, where individuals become highly attuned to the needs and emotions of others at the expense of their own identity’ [1993]. Codependency and echoism share that deep-rooted unshakeable and primordial fear of abandonment. Linehan’s explorations into BPD reveal the intense emotional volatility and fear of abandonment that mirror Echo’s tragic pursuit of Narcissus—ever repeating, ever longing, yet never fulfilled.

The tipping point

The ultimate crucible of my investigation concerns the delicate balance along the tight-rope of narcissistic abuse. Why is it that the victim may either fall tragically from the rope into the role of an echoist or, more disturbingly, end up perpetuating the cycle and become a narcissist themselves? Even though echoism is essentially the opposite of narcissism, they both exist on opposing sides of the same coin. Both narcissists and echoists are born into families where empathy and safety are overshadowed by dismissive attachment and constant invalidation. Yet their paths diverge dramatically based on how they adapt to this emotional vacuum. The tipping point for Dr. Kohut’s narcissist is the development of the grandiose self as to shield those deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and shame. We know the façade of superiority is only a house of cards designed to protect the fragile ego.

Conversely, the tipping point for Dr. Malkin’s echoist is a profound fear of abandonment and a learned belief that only by becoming invisible and compliant can one secure a semblance of love and acceptance. American psychoanalyst Dr. John K. Pollard elucidates this divergence: ‘The difference lies in how children internalise the lack of empathy—some inflate their self-worth to shield against shame, while others minimise their presence to avoid the risk of rejection’ [2010]. And there it is—the critical factor in this psychological bifurcation is indeed the child’s adaptive strategy to cope with emotional neglect. While the narcissist constructs a protective shell of grandeur, the echoist retreats into self-erasure. This nuanced response reveals how the same environment of emotional invalidation can yield dramatically different psychological outcomes, shaped by the child’s unique vulnerabilities and survival strategies.

Just as the nymph was condemned to endlessly repeat the last words spoken to her, those ensnared by echoism find themselves forever echoing the desires and expectations of others, their voices drowned in an ocean of unfulfilled needs. They are in essence living out Echo’s curse—a never-ending cycle of becoming invisible, where their identities silently dissolve into obscurity. Meanwhile Narcissus, who tragically gazes at his own reflection with obsessive vanity, serves as a visceral reminder of how a narcissist’s hunger for validation can morph into malignant and perverse behavioural patterns, leaving a trail of splintered souls in its wake. Whether through the fragmented reflection of self-admiration or the silent struggle of self-neglect, these ancient narratives remind us that the search for love and acceptance is what makes us intrinsically human. It is through the looking-glass of myth and psychology that we come to understand how our deepest vulnerabilities and unmet needs can sculpt the contours of our identities, and shape our destinies in profoundly destructive ways…

We are all Echo and we are all Narcissus, and even the damaged, people-pleasing, dysfunctional and ‘borderline’ echoist can heal and find a sense of sympathy for the narcissist that once broke them.