echoism
ECK-oh-izz-um
noun
The opposite of narcissism, characterised by low self-esteem and people pleasing behaviour
At some point in the last fifty years or so the term ‘narcissism’ escaped from the dusty notebooks of psychoanalysts and went mainstream. These days it is probably the most chronically overused psychological buzzword - people want to know if their partner is a narcissist, if their parents were narcissists, if their boss is a narcissist, if their cat is a narcissist… one would think pathological narcissists were ten a penny but, thankfully, they are not.
While narcissists get most of the attention (which is what they would want), there is an equal and opposite phenomenon that is not much discussed but equally interesting and important: echoism.
Both of these terms come from the myth of Narcissus and Echo, the fullest account of which is recounted in Ovid’s narrative poem Metamorphoses. A brief look at the story helps shed some light on these terms and what they mean.
Narcissus was a stunningly handsome young man, the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. His beauty was so extraordinary that many people fell in love with him, but he was disdainful and cruel, and rejected any advances.
One such who fell in love with him was the nymph Echo. Echo loved nothing more than a good chat, and she had used her prodigious verbal talents to distract the goddess Hera while her husband Zeus had affairs with Echo’s nymphly friends. Hera was not fooled and, jealous and angry as she was, cursed Echo by taking her voice from her. She could only speak when spoken to, and only then could she repeat the last few words.
After some complicated Latin misunderstandings because Echo can’t actually speak properly, Narcissus eventually tells her that he would rather die than have anything to do with Echo, who, heartbroken, runs away into the woods before wasting away, leaving only her voice behind.
Narcissus, as we know, eventually stumbles upon a pool of water and falls in love with his own reflection. He leans forward to kiss his reflection, or reaches out his arms to embrace it, but every time he does it disappears. Consumed by longing Narcissus eventually dies beside the pool and a flower (a Narcissus or daffodil) grows where he died.
Narcissism, then, is characterised excessive self love and self-importance. Echoism is the other side of the coin, characterised by someone losing themselves in the process of ‘mirroring’ or being overly focussed on the needs of others, to the point they start to neglect their own sense of self. In the story Echo, robbed of her own voice and agency, simply fades away, as echoic people metaphorically ‘fade away’. Since people towards the narcissistic end of the spectrum have a strong desire for admiration and recognition, it is not uncommon for narcissistic and echoic people to seek each other out.