The Greek myth of Narcissus is frequently used as a metaphor for our current culture. In the myth Narcissus was an externally beautiful and charismatic youth. He glorified in the attention reflected back at him and cared little for others, trifling with their hearts. The nymph Echo had fallen in love with him. When Echo’s love was unrequited, she cried incessantly: until at last she withered away until all that remained was a lonely, disembodied voice. One day Narcissus stooped at a lake to drink and caught his own reflection. He became so absorbed by his own beauty he could not pull himself away from this mirror. Eventually he starved to death; fell into his reflection, never to be seen again.
To me, this story is about relationship, or rather, the potential for transformative relationships that has been thwarted by a lack of meaningful and mutual connection. Therein lays a valid metaphor for our culture. The relationship between Narcissus and Echo is reflected in humankind’s central problems of stunted human development, our inability to co-exist harmoniously, even in our enormous disparity in resource distribution, and by the seemingly arbitrariness of power. This is seen as Narcissus’s self-centered and selfish nature spins out exponentially into atrocities and injustices against a multitude of victimized Echoes, and in Echo’s desire for rather than resistance to Narcissus. These acts of oppression are sanctioned by our dominant cultural values, norms, beliefs and even laws. I would like to explore what potential meaning this myth may offer us in understanding our dilemma.
Navigating life feels so much easier if we can categorize humans along dualistic lines of good and evil, yet one psychological principle of Jung’s is that every psychological extreme secretly contains its own opposite or stands in some sort of intimate and essential relation to it. This calls to mind Freire’s (1979) work in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He tells us that mankind searches to be free of oppression, not to become oppressors, and yet “this is their model of humanity. This phenomenon derives from the fact that the oppressed, at a certain moment of their existential experience adopt an attitude of ‘adhesion’ to the oppressor”. The story of Narcissus and that of Echo constitute one drama. There can be no fuel to feed Narcissus’s insatiable ego if there is no Echo desiring him. Even without what we might consider a visible and thereby seemingly legitimate connection, they are tied together.
Our attachment to our primary caregiver (usually our mother) represents our first human connection. The quality of this connection sets our relational attachment patterns, which may remain in effect throughout our lives. As infants or young children, we sought closeness, especially when experiencing anxiety rising from our explorations away from our mothers. When separating and then returning, we hoped to find safety; instead, we may have been neglected, our needs mis-understood, or our needs were met in unpredictable manners giving rise to insecurity. In the best scenarios we had a secure attachment, and some form of insecure or avoidant attachment in the worst.
Our real self, [Frager & Fadiman (1998)] is made of a set of intrinsic potentialities which includes temperament, talents, capacities, and predispositions actualized through interactions with the external world. As children we require an enabling supportive atmosphere where we express our thoughts and feelings and experience a healthy friction with the wishes and will of others. When denied this we form an idealized image or a false self. Our false self is initially self-generated to avoid anxiety, and to meet our basic needs, safety, connection to others, autonomy, and competence. This specific emotional learning is added to this throughout our life.
What false self does Narcissus offer the world? Mastery, not love, appeals to the Narcissist who abhors helplessness, and needs to achieve success, prestige, or recognition. He masters life through self-admiration and exercising charm. Whether he has talent or not he has an unquestioned belief in his abilities. It is imperative to him that others admire and devote their own energies to confirming this grandiosity in the narcissist. While confidence and self-care are desirable traits, the narcissist twists these traits to toxic and pathological levels. He has lost the ability to empathize with others. No needs matter beyond his (or her) own. There is no such thing as a reciprocal relationship for the narcissist.
A real self can realistically assess moments of questioning and self-doubt, coping with difficulties and disappointments without resorting to self-destructive behavior to avoid feeling depressed or worthless. When one’s personality is dominated by a false self, he or she employs rigid and limiting mechanisms when faced with challenges. Life is constructed to ward off having to honestly look at the self and experiencing the fear and depression at seeing the discrepancy between the idealized and the real. And yet, the intrapsychic world of the narcissist, so thinly populated by the grandiose self and the devalued self and others, frequently experiences intense feelings of emptiness and inauthenticity.
Because the primary concern of the narcissist is self-gratification, he manipulates rather than meets the needs of others, believing that he does not need to follow life’s ordinary rules. He becomes like a vampire, seductive, and siphoning off the vital life-force of others, moving on after he has drained the other. Calling this personality selfish seems almost too diplomatic. And yet, there is a small remaining kernel of self within that is not self-absorbed, not self-centered. Activating this kernel requires that the narcissist see the needs and interests of others; but what an insurmountable task this must be.
Humans by their nature possess consciousness. If we think of our consciousness as the combination of a world which is full of things, or objects, plus our subjective experience with those objects, then we can see that Narcissus views others not as subjects in their own right, but as objects. Self requires an other, and since the world in which Narcissus lives has no other, there is no suitable boundaries for the Narcissist’s self. Without connection to others Narcissus may at time feels expansive, but generally feels empty. There is no context for the self. In this world Narcissus plays at being a self rather than being a self
And what about Echo; that disembodied voice that cannot get enough of Narcissus? On the surface it would seem that she embraces losing her self; if not as a choice, then at least a resignation to its inevitability. Intimacy is a dangerous venture for the vulnerable and wounded self; and wounds are the inevitable consequence of our unhealthy relational patterns. Being able to have successfully navigated separation and connection with our primary attachment figure, being able to express and self-validate, to employ relational patterns that are not based in fear, these are the necessary components which enable us to form close associations and to safely reveal what is truest, deepest, and most profound about our self. In Echo’s relationship with Narcissus, she either acts as his mirroring object, as an attacking object, or she means nothing to him at all. None of these represent healthy relations, nor indicate healthy selves.
Connection with others is our most basic drive. It is Daimonic; we cannot suppress, repress, or otherwise kill it. When out of relationship we are driven toward the next one. Assuming we have reflective abilities, this provides us the opportunity to experiment with alternative behaviors and find better ways of relating in our successive relationship. Just as often, though, we become set in what feels futile and a permanent repeating experience—the same relationship, different partners. What a paradox this creates; only in experiencing genuine intimacy are we to find a partner who will reinforce a healthy relationship, and our patterns dictate partnering with the narcissistically wounded which destroys any chance for genuine intimacy.
For Echo it seems she must try, and failing, move on and move on. Out of lonely desperation she stays, hoping for the miraculous; that her partner will change, that their patterns won’t always be so poisonous. Perhaps we are misinformed about Echo’s motivations. Perhaps Echo simply does not want to experience intimacy; an experience Narcissus will never offer her. More likely though, she may not know either, where to place the boundaries of self. There is a possibility that Echo finds mirroring Narcissus easier than self-definition and development. Echo has inferred in Narcissus’s expanding personality that her own self will expand alongside his. Is Echo then naive or shrewd? If her salvation would not come from an actual connection with Narcissus, would it if she were able to turn the table—to become the selfish dominant in the next relationship, taking what she wishes were offered her? Or can she eventually transform the paradox?
Echo, like Narcissus, projects a false self. We have all seen the sad girl, the castrating bitch (the misogynist in the male counterpoint) and the martyr. While their external expression differs, they hold similar world views. Echo is powerless to effect change for her own benefit through direct methods. She may utilize passive-aggressive methods such as resistance, sabotage or subterfuge in order to have some of her needs for autonomy or power met. Echo does not set goals or challenges. She does not even need to articulate any desires, as she is sure she will never be perceived as successful. The act of articulating our desires is a way of setting the self’s boundaries.
Whether Echo is male or female—the victim rarely acts and is frequently acted upon. She is the perpetual underdog whose incessant whining becomes seen as pathetic even by those who would advocate for her. Eventually even the advocate will kick this broken dog if only to try to spur her to take some action for our own benefit. She believes she will be mistreated and indeed, she is. Echo is trapped, but at least it feels familiar and, in that familiarity, she can achieve some sort of security. Narcissus and Echo are unable to form more egalitarian attachments, and Echo is doomed to feel like she is living and loving the enemy.
Both Echo and Narcissus operate out of selfishness. This selfishness is driven by fears which form schemas, or operating filters for how we engage with others. There is the fear we will be abandoned. Nothing is more terrifying than being alone; than being unable to see our inter-connections with others. We do not want to confront our vulnerability and mortality; we seek external validation, being unable to provide internal validation. We will submit to almost any form of humiliation, self-degradation, and abuse rather than to feel our a-part-ness. To lose the other would be the death of our existing psyche.
Underlying fears may include the fear of deprivation, that is, we will not have enough—enough of whatever it is we desire in the moment. We may have schemas of mistrust and of entitlement. In these schemas we believe that others will fail us miserably. We have no one to trust but ourselves, and not infrequently, we are the least trustworthy of all. We are alone, but we are alone out of our own design and desire. If we wish to have our needs met, then we are our own last hope. Interactions are based upon getting what we want as often as they are based on keeping what we have from the consumption of others.
Narcissus rationalizes away his agency in the suffering he inflicts on others. Some amount of suffering is inevitable; humans are perishable. For Echo who cannot find escape from the unchallenging and mundane daily life of tax accounting and mindless commuting back and forth to the suburbs, victimhood can be a way to embody suffering. Suffering is a noble modeling to the oppressor that the victim in suffering is alive. It models that we live in a reality of primitive vulnerability and are strong enough to absorb the harsh forces opposing us; that we taste the bitter side of human experience and live to tell it. As victims we are the only ones capable of stopping our oppressor. First, however, we must find the transformative spark to change our self-perception as the victimized.
Narcissus and Echo are fused. They are connected in meaning. There is an adhesion of the one to the other. If they were to separate, they would lose their moorings. They have formed each other’s reference point. Echo’s identification with Narcissus is deep enough it becomes reinforced through her own negative self-assessments, wherein she colludes with her oppressor, opening herself to further abuse and in turn, often abusing others. Over time, and through countless denials of their feelings and insights, Narcissus and Echo lose the ability to trust their own senses. They have betrayed their own emotions.
I propose that we are oppressed because at some point we wanted to escape our personal agency; we wanted to allow others to make our decisions, to provide safety and security similar to that we may have received in childhood—or at least wished we had received in childhood. Giving up our responsibility initially seems such a good bargain. Unfortunately, the consequences are that those who crave the prestige of dominance take it beyond our unspoken agreement. Eventually the dominance and submission acts form structures and systems, growing exponentially beyond our control and desires.
Where is the happy ending for those of us who see our own relationship patterns in the story Narcissus and Echo? We cannot return to our childhood and receive the types of good-enough parenting to enable healthier movement through attachment and separation which would reduce, though not remove our ambivalence surrounding self. The self develops in relation to the other, and yet the self has no direct experience of the other. We experience the actions of others and our interpretations of those acts as our knowledge of the other. The self infers the meaning of the other’s experience. Our inferences may not be accurate; nonetheless, we build elaborate belief and behavioral systems from these inferences. This implies to me that in order to transform our relationships we must develop our innate curiosity of the other. This involves building empathetic connections, not barriers, through our language and specifically through the types of dialogue necessary to uncover the assumptions contributing to our oppressive patterns.
To move outside the polarities, we are engaged in requires more than uncovering the facts of our behavioral patterns. It takes an acknowledgement of our specific role in perpetuating the patterns. By allowing the psychological space to integrate truths into our identity, we may then accept our accountability and behave accordingly with new insight. By nurturing and trusting our intuition and our experience the self can become its own personal authority. This would mean making reflection a normal and natural discipline of our daily life. Additionally, when we come up against the projections of others it is wise to listen, discover for ourselves if there is truth in their statements, refusing of course, to take on false projections. Self-awareness does not occur once. It is on-going and shifts as we engage in events and new relationships.
We are social creatures and our natural instinct, denied or otherwise, is to belong to groups. When we culturally celebrate independence over interdependence, we create environments for vulnerability and dependence by limiting our reliance on each other. There is an inherent danger when one holds shame and feels betrayed; the shame often turns to humiliation and then to destructive rage. We must accept that until there is a major paradigm shift, some form of betrayal is inevitable. We can question our value system and make more beautiful choices. For instance, we can value cooperation and collaboration rather than competition; forgiveness rather than revenge; and compassion rather than apathy. We can create more appropriate boundaries for our self, and this will change our relationship patterns.
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