Echoism: The Silenced Response to Narcissism

This book introduces the importance of Echoism as both a clinical entity and a theoretical concept. In Ovid's version of the myth of Echo and Narcissus, the character Echo receives equal attention to her counterpart, Narcissus, yet she has been completely marginalised in the pervasive psychoanalytic literatures on narcissism.

In the myth, Echo is subjected to a curse: she must remain silent except for her right to repeat the words of another; so in order to have a voice she must seek out an ‘other’. Relying upon Narcissus for her very existence she has, ironically, in the psychoanalytical literature, also become both the literal and symbolic embodiment of the marginalised female voice. This book introduces her as a subject in her own right, countering her current status as the co-dependent object of the narcissist, in an attempt to restore her existence and have her voice heard.

The author draws upon her work with patients who have experienced relationships with narcissistic partners or parents, and have developed a particular configuration of object relations and ways of relating to which she gives the term Echoism. She uses psychoanalytic theory and existential philosophical ideas to underpin her formulations and inform her clinical thinking.