Are You an “Echoist?”

When Emma Davey looks back, she can see that her abuser was “molding” her very quickly. “It went from 0 to 100, he told me he loved me within the first week [and] wanted to marry me within the first fortnight. But then it went from that to questioning why I had so many male friends on social media, commenting on what I was wearing. He actually bought me a whole new wardrobe because he didn’t like that I’d worn clothes with other people…”

The words for what Davey went through, during her six-years with a man who controlled every detail of her life, are discussed widely now: there was the love bombing (when an individual showers another person with excessive affection and attention, in the early stages of a relationship, to gain control) followed by gaslighting (a form of psychological manipulation where someone makes a person doubt their own reality). Having strong, clear language for abuse is vital in helping to identify and acknowledge what is happening to you. It can also help others look for the signs in their own relationships and seek help when needed.

Now, when discussing narcissistic abuse, a (fairly) new term is cropping up: that of an ‘echoist.’ First coined by Craig Malkin Ph.D., in 2015, in his book, Rethinking Narcissism, an echoist is “the opposite of a narcissist” – narcissists crave attention, and echoists dread it, and are adept at echoing the feelings and needs of others – often at their own expense.

While it’s not a diagnosable condition like narcissistic personality disorder, it is a measurable trait – something Davey knows well. In 2022, she successfully got her abuser convicted of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 19 months. She is now a trauma-informed MBACP counsellor and survivor-advocate specialising in domestic abuse and coercive control, who has created the MyNARA (My Narcissistic Abuse Recovery) app. Here she discusses how to recognise if you’re an echoist and how to move forward.

“An echoist is someone who never puts themselves first; they have a lot of empathy and they don’t feel safe in having their voice heard,” explains Davey. “Which is why they’re a prime target to narcissists because they are very easily moldable to do exactly what a narcissist wants them to do. They will give, give, give and a narcissist will take, take, take until they don’t have anything left for themselves.”

The terms narcissist and echoist both come from ancient Greek mythology – Narcissist was the hunter who was cursed to fall in love with his own image, and Echo was the once-talkative nymph who fell in love with Narcissus and was cursed to only echo his voice, losing her own.

This plays out in relationships today, as echoists struggle to have a voice of their own, with the most telltale signs of echoism being (according to the Newport Institute):

• People-pleasing behavior
• Poor boundaries
• Low self-esteem
• Great listener, but shares little about themselves
• Fear of praise or appearing narcissistic to any degree
• Highly empathetic and overly sensitive to people’s moods
• Overseeing others while underserving themselves
• Prone to self-blame and self-criticism
• Repeated relationships with narcissists
• Echoing what narcissists want to hear ("You're so talented! You're so funny!")
• Never asking for help
• Doing what is needed at their own expense, for everyone to get along

Like all traits, echoism exists in everyone, to a greater or lesser degree, and Malkin and his colleagues have begun to measure echoism. They found, of the people they measured, that echoists were the most “warm-hearted,” and they were also afraid of becoming a burden, are unsettled by attention, and struggle to know what their own preferences and likes are.

“A narcissist will see ‘I can get a lot from this person.' [Echoists] are not just vulnerable to abuse in romantic relationships, but friendships and in the workplace too,” Davey explains. “Someone will identify ‘Oh, she’ll do my work’ or ‘She’ll work late and we won’t have to pay her.’ If you are that person, you’re constantly sacrificing things to make other people happy. You have to change that because otherwise you are just going to constantly feel stressed, tired, exhausted - and you’re going to miss out on so much.”

Through his research, Malkin has discovered that echoists appear to be born with more emotional sensitivity than others, and they feel incredibly deeply. However, that doesn’t necessarily become a problem unless they are exposed to a toxic environment growing up.

“Generally, you will find that a child with a narcissistic parent [will become an echoist] as the parent will make them do what they want them to do, to get the parent's love,” explains Davey. “When the main priority is pleasing the parent, that pattern of behaviour becomes normal.”

Echoism is best to be thought of as a survival strategy. Echoists tend to learn, growing up, that demanding little is the key to love. They’ve become used to not getting affection from their caregivers from a young age, or being punished when asking for it, and therefore learn to shrink themselves as a form of self-protection. “People who have had this form of love as a child tend to go on to narcissistic abuse relationships, because they don’t understand what normal love is,” explains Davey. “They feel that they’ve got to constantly give something to be rewarded with some form of love: being themselves is not enough.”

She says that narcissists will seek out someone with echoism traits, and will start by love bombing them, before encouraging them to talk about past relationships. “They’re gauging who you are, and testing your boundaries at the same time,” she notes.

“Say someone says ‘Are you going to wear that?’ and comments that it doesn’t look right, so you change it. They begin to see that you’re easily mouldable. If you’re someone who gives lots, they will exploit that."

This is something that played out in her own relationship. “He began by wanting to know everything about me: Who my friends were, who I saw, but then it became ‘Do you really need to see your mom that much? You’re an adult now, you don’t need to be seeing your parents as much as you are.’”

It’s why love bombing is a key red-flag behaviour to watch out for. “It’s about putting you on a pedestal and then knocking you off it. They will want to know everything about you, only to use it against you later. So they're not actually really interested,” she says.

“Often the narcissist tends to have a bit of a pity party themselves as well. [So the echoists thinks] this person's really vulnerable as well, I'm going to give out the whole storybook of my life, because this person is sharing too.”

Domestic abuse comes in many forms, and there does not need to be physical violence involved for it to be abusive. Abuse at the hands of a narcissist tends to follow a pattern of controlling, coercive behaviour. Coercive control is a crime – and it is always the fault of the abuser, never the abused.

Examples of coercive and controlling behaviour (from SafeLives) include:

• Constantly criticizing or humiliating, including challenging the victim’s role as a partner
• Extreme dominance, demanding obedience, and having a sense of ‘entitlement’ to the victim
• Extreme or pathological jealousy
• Controlling or monitoring daily activities, including being made to account for time
• Limiting access to money/salary, controlling spending
• Restricting freedom of movement (for example by keeping a victim in the home), denying independence and autonomy
• Isolating the victim from family and friends, including intercepting messages or phone calls
• Threatening suicide/homicide/familicide (for example, making the threat: “If I can’t have you, no one can” – giving the victim cause to believe they will act on this)

First things first, abuse is 100% the fault of the abuser. It is not up to the victims to shoulder any blame or fault for what has happened to them, or is happening to them. Unfortunately, echoists often do this, and when narcissists become abusive, they can blame themselves and this is reinforced by the abuser (“You made me do this”, “You’re being too sensitive.")

It's also vital that, if you think you’re in a relationship with an abuser and want to leave, you seek external support, as leaving an abusive partner can be dangerous. “[These] relationships are built on fear, threat and intimidation, so leaving has to be done carefully, reaching out for support, speaking to friends or family.”

• The National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233
• If you identify as LGBT+, you can call The Network/La Red’s 24-hour hotline at 617-742-4911 for emotional and practical support
• In an emergency, call 911
• You can also reach out for support even if you don’t know if you want to, or are ready to leave.

It’s important to know that coercive control is a pattern of behavior, and its impact can be wide-ranging. It can be difficult to describe what is happening or what you are afraid of. If it’s safe to do so, you could keep a diary of events to help gather evidence of the abuse – either to help validate to yourself that what you’re going through is real, or to show to the authorities if you feel that’s a route you want to take. “Just store anything you can, text messages, voice notes, emails, anything. Remember if a relationship revolves around just one person’s needs and not yours at all, then it’s not an equal one. You absolutely matter.”

MyNARA (My Narcissistic Abuse Recovery App) is a safe, discreet mobile app designed for victims of narcissistic abuse in romantic relationships, offering tools to document abuse (audio, video, text), journal experiences, track red flags, and follow a structured 12-phase recovery program called NarcArmor, all while disguising itself as another app for user safety, with encrypted data storage for evidence.