There’s a hidden term for people who are direct opposites to narcissists and it could be making life extremely difficult

While you've almost certainly heard of the term 'narcissist', you might not know about the term for people who are pretty much their direct opposite.

A narcissist, someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), has stronger feelings of self-importance, a need for the attention and admiration others give them, and a lack of empathy with others.

There are plenty of ways you can spot a narcissist, even though many aspects of their behaviour won't make sense to people who don't think like them, and some diagnosed narcissists have explained what it's really like to see the world as they do.

A diagnosed narcissist told LADbible that he got jealous of his own children, got angry at his boss because he thought he should be running the company, and started spreading rumours about a colleague that annoyed him until everyone was repeating his gossip.

However, just as narcissists have a lack of empathy and think very highly of themselves, there are people who've got absolute buckets of empathy and don't think much of themselves.

A narcissist stares into the mirror, an echoist would be holding it up for them (Getty Stock Photo)

What is the opposite of a narcissist?

The term for these people is 'echoists', and while being a very empathetic person sounds like a good thing, there are serious downsides to it.

According to BBC Science Focus, Dr Craig Malkin said that these people live their lives 'by the rule that the less room I take up, the better'.

He explained that they acted out of 'a fear of seeming narcissistic in any way', and that they didn't ever want to seem 'too selfish, too greedy, too demanding, too needy, too hungry for attention or for praise'.

Dr Malkin, author of Rethinking Narcissism, explained that many echoists grew up with a narcissistic parent and that fear your loved ones might reject you was a common sign of echoism.

He added that echoists could very often be drawn to narcissists because having someone in their life who draws all of the attention away is something they could find appealing.

While having empathy is a good thing, the expert said that echoists often had low self-esteem and could leave people feeling shame or struggling to take pride in their achievements.

She can only repeat back what other people said, he's obsessed with his own reflection, it'd never work out (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Where does the name 'echoist' come from?

This name 'echoism' has its foundations in the Greek mythology that gave us the term 'narcissist' in the first place.

The quick version of this story is that Echo was a nymph who was cursed by a goddess so she could only repeat the last few words someone else said.

Echo fell in love with an incredibly handsome chap called Narcissus the moment she saw him but couldn't say anything about it, and when they came face to face he rejected her leaving her love unrequited.

Her fellow nymphs got their revenge on Narcissus for not being sufficiently enamoured with their girl and made sure he was cursed to fall in love with his own reflection, which is why everyone knows a person so in love with themselves as a narcissist.