Welcome to episode 1 of Series 6 A good few years ago, I started becoming aware of a term I'd hitherto not really heard much before, outside of my classics lessons: narcissism. Aside from all the s's making it hard to pronounce, I started to notice that it became a catch-all for anyone who was selfish, self centred or vain. Everyone, it seemed, was being called a narcissist. I'm not a fan of overly labelling behaviours (for one it's so lazy) and I have a natural tendency to avoid terms that everyone else is using, but eventually even I couldn't ignore it any longer. This is when I called UK registered psychotherapist Mark Vahrmeyer in. Mark is writing a book about narcissism and in this episode we talk about what it is, and what it isn't. And how just possibly everyone has some narcissistic traits occasionally, but that doesn't make them a narcissist. Someone with true narcissistic behaviours actually has a wafer-thin self esteem and is very tiring to be around. Who'd be a narcissist? But also what about poor Echo, who often gets forgotten in the tale of Narcissus, typical to air brush a woman out of history. If you'd like to learn more about Mark and his work his website is at brightonandhovepsychotherapy.com Let us know if you feel this episode has brought up any thoughts, or if you have ideas for other episodes: [email protected] If you'd like to support us you can leave a one off donation here: https://supporter.acast.com/conversations-with-annalisa-barbieri If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a patron on Patreon, from just £3 a month. You also get early access to episodes. Thanks so much for listening and please remember to share with friends and if you feel able to, leave a review, it really helps. The producer is Hester Cant, the music is Toby Dunham and our artwork is by Lo Cole. IG: @annalisabarbieri All links to pretty much everything else I do: linktr.ee/annalisabarbieri Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/conversations-with-annalisa-barbieri. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.