Echoism The Silenced Response to Narcissism

This book introduces the importance of echoism as 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 literatures on narcissism.

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 for which she uses the term echoism. She uses psychoanalytic theory and existential philosophical ideas to underpin her formulations and inform her clinical thinking.

Donnna Savery explores the question 'Am I an Echoist?' and introduces the concept of Echoism in the following YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEyjolXL7lA

List of clinical vignettes

Acknowledgements

About the author

Foreword by Alice Holzey-Kunz

Introduction

Part I: Important theories in understanding echoism

CHAPTER ONE: The myth of Echo and Narcissus: deconstructing dominant readings

CHAPTER TWO: Adam’s rib: a psychoanalytic approach to understanding echoism

CHAPTER THREE: To be or not to be: an existential approach to understanding echoism

Part II: Types of echoism

CHAPTER FOUR: Chimeras and chameleons: the defensive echoist

CHAPTER FIVE: Hosts and henchmen: the self-destructive echoist

Part III: Over-valued ideas, god-like objects, and faith

CHAPTER SIX: Mistaken identity or what you will? Internal voices, narcissistic objects and the echoist

CHAPTER SEVEN: Hera’s curse: faith and reason – a complex paradox

Part IV: A dynamic understanding of an echoistic-narcissistic complex

CHAPTER EIGHT: Characters in search of an author: echoistic-narcissistic complexes and group dynamics

CHAPTER NINE: Is there anybody in there? The therapist as echoist

Part V: Conclusions and future directions

CHAPTER TEN: Prometheus’ fire: being and becoming: an approach to treatment

Donna Christina Savery is a psychotherapist and group therapist in private practice in Buckinghamshireand Harley Street, London.At Exeter University she carried out research for her M.A. which involved working with schizophrenic patients using drama and myth, an experience which sparked a lifelong interest in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Following a career as a theatre director and academic, she retrained in 2010 as an existential therapist, beginning her career at MIND.

She is a group work practitioner, having studied at the Institute of Group Analysis, and is currently undergoing training in Daseinsanalysis, an integrated form of psychoanalysis and existentialism.

Her clinical work combines different aspects of these trainings and she is never far away from her drama roots in her understanding and approach to working with her patients.