Narcissism and Echoism

Trauma bonding and co-dependency

By John William Waterhouse — at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain,

You probably heard of Narcissus, from Greek-Roman mythology, who has given his name to the personality trait Narcissism. But have you heard of Echo? The wood nymph that fell in love with him, but got rejected and withered away of a broken heart? She represents the other side of the Narcissistic spectrum — where you find Echoism.

The original story goes like this (there are different versions, but with the same main content):

Narcissus, a young and very beautiful demigod, is out hunting in the woods. He is very aware of his beauty and has rejected everyone who has fallen in love with him so far; they are not as beautiful as he is; how could he possibly fall in love with any one of them?

Echo, a wood nymph, sees Narcissus in the woods and instantly falls in love with him. Echo has her own tragic background. She has helped Zeus to distract his wife from finding out that he was entertaining himself with wood nymphs. Echo used to chat away with Hera, Zeus’ wife, so the other wood nymphs and Zeus could sneak away from her. When Hera found out, she put a spell on Echo saying that in the future you will never get the first word anymore, only the last. After this, Echo could not speak, only echo the last words someone…