What is Echoism?

We hear a lot about narcissism these days—about self-obsession, entitlement, emotional manipulation. And yet, some of the most toxic figures in our culture—the ones who harm with charm—are still placed on pedestals. They are praised, followed, even elected into positions of power. Somehow, in all the noise, we’ve come to equate vulnerability with weakness, and empathy with emotional excess. Especially in the wake of cultural reckonings like Me Too, where generations of pain have begun to surface, I’ve noticed how quickly we shut down the feminine—within all of us—the part that feels, longs, echoes.

And somewhere along the way, we started calling that part “playing the victim.”

It’s always felt confusing to me—how grief, tenderness, or pain expressed by someone who’s been hurt can be twisted into manipulation. But what about where those emotions aren’t weakness or strategy? What if they’re simply the expression of someone who has loved too much, given too much, in a world shaped by trauma and power imbalance?

When I was studying at the Jung Institute last year, I was given a new lens for understanding this dynamic—one that finally gave language to something I’ve felt for a long time: the other half of the myth. Not Narcissus, but Echo.

Echo, whose voice was taken from her. Echo, who could only repeat what others said. Echo, who disappeared—not because she was weak, but because her story was never truly heard.

We talk so much about narcissism. But if a narcissist was raised by other beings in a forrest where he never met another human being, is he still a narcissist? Or do character traits depend upon being in relation? We need to talk about Echo.

How many of us carry her energy? How many of us have felt silenced, ghosted, reduced to an echo in someone else’s narrative? How many of us learned that being sensitive, responsive, emotionally attuned was something to be ashamed of?

It's rare to meet a therapist who did not grow up echoing somebody in their life.

I have a painting of Narcissus and Echo that I inherited from my grandfather—long before I ever consciously understood the myth. And now, it feels like a thread that’s always been there, waiting for me to notice. A quiet reminder that the antidote to narcissism isn’t cynicism or shutdown. It’s not hardness. It’s the reclamation of Echo’s voice.

Not the echo that merely repeats, but the one that remembers how to speak her own truth again.

Narcissus and Echo, a painting I inherited from my grandfather before I really consciously know about Echo.

Even though Narcissus takes center stage in the myth, this myth is just as much the story of Echo. Echo's often cast as a side character—reduced to her longing, her disappearance, her voice fading into the background. But there’s a deeper truth here. The myth of Narcissus and Echo isn’t just about unrequited love—it’s about the pain of self-abandonment. About what happens when we lose ourselves in someone else’s reflection.

In the original myth, Echo is a mountain nymph, radiant and expressive—until she’s cursed to only repeat the last words of others. Her own voice is taken from her. She can no longer speak from her truth—only reflect the words, the needs, the energies of those around her.

And when she falls in love with Narcissus, she disappears even more. She cannot reach him. He is too enamored with his own image to see or love anything else. And Echo, unable to be received, slowly fades into nothingness… leaving only her voice behind.

For those of us who work with others—therapists, healers, space-holders—Echo’s story is more than symbolic. It speaks to a very real and tender pattern: the quiet, gradual erosion of self that can happen when we orient too much around others’ needs, emotions, or identities.

Echoism—the psychological imprint of Echo—often starts in childhood. When a child is raised by a parent whose emotional needs are overwhelming, or whose love feels conditional. The child learns that having needs is dangerous. They learn to be quiet, to be good, to be pleasing. To reflect back what others want to see. Their sense of self becomes organized around others. And slowly, their own voice begins to fade.

This isn’t about blame—it’s about awareness. Many of us were raised by caregivers who genuinely did the best they could, but still passed down a legacy of emotional suppression and invisibility. Often, it came dressed as sacrifice or “selflessness.” And so we learned to mirror that, believing that to take up space, to have our own needs, was selfish.

But Echo’s story holds a deeper lesson: loving deeply doesn’t mean disappearing. That empathy isn’t the same as erasure. And that healing begins when we stop echoing what others want and start listening to our own voice again.

In therapy, this reclamation can be powerful. It's a shift from being the one who always adapts, always responds, always reflects—into someone who is allowed to speak, feel, and exist for themselves, and at times, be at odds with "the other". It's difficult to trust someone who does not stand up for themselves because you never know where they stand so you don't know what territory you are in. The work is a return to the body, to sensation, to self-trust. To learn that you don't have to earn love by vanishing.

The myth of Echo reminds us that our voice matters—not the echo of someone else's, but the one that rises from our own truth. The one we may have lost touch with, but that never truly left.