Narcissism

Abstract

In Metarnorphoses, Ovid relates the tragic tale of Narcissus, son of the river god Cephissus, and of Echo, the nymph, where Narcissus is doomed to an eternity of captation by his mirror image whilst Echo, having been spurned, lingers mournfully by the poolside next to her un-hearing self-absorbed love. The image has entranced a number of great artists, from the dark genius of Caravaggio to the surrealist Salvadore Dali and John William Waterhouse. The narcissist is, it seems, the personality du jour, and a rash of books has appeared that instruct us not only as to the causes of ‘normal’ or ‘subclinical’ narcissism but also how to live with the narcissists in our lives, including self-help manuals for survival.² On the other hand, at the time of writing, there were signs that its clinical counterpart, narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), was to be dropped from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association.³

A writer meets a friend and talks to him a long time about himself; he then says: ‘I have talked so long about myself. Let us now talk about you. How did you like my latest book?’¹