Should you mirror the narcissist or confront them?

Find out in today's podcast.

Welcome to the Carlyte Psychiatry Podcast, keeping psychiatry honest since 2003.

I'm Chris Sagan, the editor-in-chief of the Carlat Psychiatry Report.

And I'm Kelly Newsom, a psychiatric MP and a dedicated reader of every

issue. In 2017, the Italian government issued a long overdue, not guilty verdict to one of their

most famous poets. The crime he was accused of had taken place over 2,000 years earlier.

The poet was Ovid.

The Roman Emperor Augustus had him exiled to the remote regions of what is now Romania,

where he languished in isolation.

Ovid had done something that challenged the emperor.

Exactly what, we don't know, but the year of his

banishment, eight years after the birth of Christ, coincides with the publication of his most

important work of verse, the metamorphosis. And it's in that piece that Ovid brings to life

the myth of Narcissus, the young man who fell in love with his own reflection, and whose name became enshrined as narcissistic personality disorder in 1980s, DSM-3.

But Ovid's version took the myth one step further. He introduced another character that concerns us today, Echo.

Echo was a mountain nymph who had the gift of Gab,

but she used that gift to trick people.

And so the gods cursed her.

From now on, Echo could only repeat what other people say.

Her tongue now limited.

Echo met and fell in love with Narcissus.

...