The Term “Narcissistic”

If you have sat through any Psychology class, whether it was Psych 101 or higher, you have likely heard the term “narcissistic.” Narcissistic is one of the six types of personality disorders. This disorder deals with the constant ME, ME, ME, and oh yes ME! way of thinking.

A narcissistic person is in love with himself and shuns the advances of others. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Many people know someone who is narcissistic. Perhaps you’re a narcissus yourself. The question is do we know where the term “narcissistic” comes from?

The Ancient Greeks, apart from having awesome gods and goddesses, had many different moral stories in their culture. As entertaining as they all are the one that I am referring to today is that of Echo and Narcissus. Does narcissus sound anything like narcissistic? It should; even the spellings are similar. For a fuller version of the tale of Echo and Narcissus, click here.

For now, I shall give you the short of it. Echo was a nymph who was punished by Hera so that she would only be able to repeat the last word(s) of what another person said. While out in the woods she came upon a man named Narcissus and being unable to talk first followed waiting for him to speak. Eventually he heard her footsteps and called out asking who was there, which Echo gladly repeated. After much calling out he finally invited Echo, not knowing her name, to meet him. The nymph was overcome with joy and threw her arms around the man. Narcissus shoved Echo away stating he would rather die then be loved by her. This caused Echo to flee into the mountains where she shrank away to the mere echo we hear when we speak in big rooms.

As for Narcissus, after leaving a trail of broken hearts, he looked into a pond one day and saw his reflection. He fell in love with it and attempted to hold the figure in his arms, believing it to be a nymph. He wasted away beside the pond starring at his own reflection, leaving only a flower in his place when he died.

Since then psychologist have referred to people who have fallen in love with themselves as being narcissistic after this Greek myth. The next time you run into that person who thinks they are the greatest thing in the world, remind them of what happened to poor Narcissus in the end and maybe they can save themselves from the exact same fate.

For a bit of fun I have included a link to a site where you can take The How Narcissistic Are You Test. Mine was a score of Echo and 32 percent Narcissist. I guess that means you might say I have learned the moral of this tale.

Danielle Patterson

(photo credit: gauri_lama)

April 16th, 2009 by admin | Posted in History | (0)