A Relational Psychoanalytic Analysis of Ovid’s “Narcissus and Echo”: Toward the Obstinate Persistence of the Relational

Abstract

This article draws on relational psychoanalysis to reinterpret Ovid’s version of Narcissus and Echo as a means to reflect on the dynamics of how subjects connect to others and themselves through listening. Attuning to a long tradition of scholarship, we understand Ovid’s tale as a rich template for contemplating the difficulties of becoming social. We underline how both protagonists take on essential roles in each other’s transformations. While acknowledging how each actor’s unique biography creates an intrapsychic vector, we highlight the effect of their encounters in their mutual becoming. We illustrate how the relational space between them plays an essential role in their development as they overcome their unique difficulties in connecting to each other. Our relational-psychoanalytic analysis offers a surprising interpretation, namely, that Narcissus and Echo can ultimately overcome their isolation and connect through their transformation. This illustrates the potential of relational psychoanalysis as an interpretative tool that allows us to understand social dynamics as a product of a relational space in which intra-psychic representations encounter and transform each other, thus contributing to ongoing discussions on the concept of relational subjectivity.

Keywords

• narcissism
• relational psychoanalysis
• relational unconscious
• social philosophy
• social ontology
• philosophy of subjectivity
• collectivity