Echoists are basically the opposite of narcissists
It's worth noting that echoism, unlike narcissism, is not an officially recognized condition or disorder. While the term has been used informally—mostly among psychologists—for the better part of a decade, it was popularized most recently in the 2016 book Rethinking Narcissism by Craig Malkin, a clinical psychologist and lecturer at Harvard Medical School. As Malkin put it, “Echoism is a fear of feeling special or standing out in any way, even positively. It’s a fear of seeming narcissistic in any way."
It’s thought by most experts, including Dr. Craig Malkin, author of Rethinking Narcissism, and Dr. Joseph Burgo, author of The Narcissist You Know, that for all the outward braggadocio, swagger, and projected confidence, people high in narcissistic traits are deeply wounded emotionally and on the run from a deep sense of shame and inadequacy. While he won’t articulate his needs directly—that’s one of his hallmarks—his real motivations are always self-directed and have nothing to do with you. But that may only be obvious in retrospect.
Echoism isn’t a diagnosis, but a trait, and knowing about it can be valuable on the journey to reclaiming yourself from the effects of a toxic childhood or one in which your emotional needs weren’t met.
Every play, practically, has characters who show some of the “warning signs” of narcissism that psychologist Craig Malkin has outlined—emotion phobia, emotional hot potato, exerting stealth control, placing people on pedestals, and pretending to have found a “twin.”
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Echo, the once-talkative nymph cursed to repeat back the last words she hears, whose love for Narcissus is callously spurned until she fades and dies. Echo is the silent partner to Narcissus’s cruel vanity.
As Dr. Craig Malkin points out in his fascinating book, Rethinking Narcissism, having too little narcissism can also be harmful: “The less people feel special, the more self-effacing they become until, at last, they have so little sense of self they feel worthless and impotent.”
Dr. Craig Malkin