Translator: itachikinnie#5512

Introduction:

Beyond the Christian description of gluttony as a disproportionate fondness for food, it can be described as a passion for more and better that manifests itself especially as a fascination with novelty, the unknown and the exotic, an excessive dependence on pleasure, an automatic tendency to avoid pain and frustration, and a desire to be liked, popular, and admired. The strong energization of a mental nature is accompanied by a difficulty in integrating the intellectual with the emotions and desires. This overinvestment in the rational aspect is expressed with a strategic vision of life (something that has been called planning), accompanied by a strong self-indulgence (fixation of this character) and a more or less tacit self-perception of superiority. In the background, there is the belief that the intelligent can be used to escape in all circumstances, but there is also an ambivalent experience in which this character puts on a mask of being intelligent and superior to hide a nucleus that is effectively lacking and has low self-esteem.

The E7 uses his undeniable intelligence to explain, manipulate and arouse admiration. In addition, their gluttony also manifests itself as intellectual gluttony, which makes it the most curious of characters, so that it not only constantly launches itself in search of new horizons and the mysterious, but also towards abstract or extravagant ideas that seduce him.

His intelligence, along with his self-concept of enjoyer or ben vint and his positive vision of life, which he projects strongly on others to seduce them, as well as his own capacity for intellectual seduction, are typical traits closely related to the strong narcissism of E7: an internal sense of feeling valuable (albeit ambivalently colored by a diffuse rumor of self-invalidation) that is usually accompanied by the exhibitionism of his talents, based on which he grants himself rights (entitlement), and a loquacious compulsion to explain things or to narrate life.

And is that the E7 is usually a charlatan. He talks a lot, both to seduce and to persuade, so that his loquacity serves gluttony as a way of getting his desires through good explanations, and it is also a way of eating the other through the word. It is also a fundamental part of his ability to charm: E7 is a fresh character, who acts humble even if he is not and who is happy to help and be useful (always with a strategic component behind). On this he bases his success; only that to achieve such a state of apparent satisfaction (a kind of cosmic well-being) the first thing you need is to deceive yourself by denying any hint of discomfort. Even more important than the desire for pleasure is, for this character, the avoidance of pain.

His apparent satisfaction and enthusiasm keep any hint of frustration far from his consciousness. He is also often unaware of his insatiability, a blindness reinforced by his sense of entitlement to gratification. Therefore, we say that they have the energy of a child in an adult body that allows everything, with an expected sense that everything is fine, which works not as a protection against pain and frustration. Your self-indulgence is, after all, a form of optimism that makes life go more smoothly and you can forgive yourself for any failures.

At the same time, the E7 is a rebellious character; he despises and goes against authority (although he usually does it from behind, avoiding direct confrontation), he lacks discipline, he is excessively fanciful, optimistic and self-confident, and everything this, together with his superficiality, allows him to show himself as brilliant and interesting, especially when displaying his verbal capacity.  As a result, he frequently procrastinates and experiences his ideas and projects more on the plane of fantasy than putting them into practice. He always has new ideas with which to go until he gets tired and replaces them with others, concretizing them on rare occasions. This lack of commitment hides the magical illusion of staying in an ideal world that does not destroy the mask of a good place and a special person.

His seduction and manipulation ends up sometimes leading to the exploitation of those who fall under the influence of his bewitching personality since, definitely, he usually has the ability to get others to work at the service of his ideas or needs.

His rebelliousness is most visibly manifested in a bitter criticism towards the prejudices of established morality, through humor and inony. In reality, he opposes everything that curtails his gluttony, and for this it is necessary to be unconventional and contrary to hierarchies. He is, therefore, an apparent egalitarian. Rebellion is also related to the search for utopias, alternatives to the ordinary.

His unconscious rebellion prevents him from actually enjoying the little flavors of life-those things we call ordinary and makes him a slave to his freedom,

This is but a small sample of its contradictions. In the E7 imagination and reality are confused. Their worth and time are miscalculated, upwards, and efforts and sacrifices downwards. Anxiety hides behind complacency, aggression behind a soft and affable demeanor, and exploitation behind an appearance of generosity. His lack of commitment to the truth is crushing, and makes him a very disengaged and fraudulent character.

Between the different subtypes of E7 there are, basically, oppositions in various aspects, which we can broadly summarize as a polarity between idealism and lack of it, between credulity and cynical distrust, between blowing up the dreamer and excessive materialism. In this polarity, the conservation E7 embodies the distrustful, cynical and materialistic extreme. It could be said that, among the E7, it is about the pseudo-idealistic subtype or, more exactly, an anti-idealist taken by a visceral distrust and a clear love for the concrete, showing himself as an oral-aggressive character and, of course, as the most rebellious of them all. It is adrenaline because of the intensity that brings him closer to the lustful instinct of E8. He is both the most masochistic and psychopathic of the E7s, to the point where he is able, on occasion, to distance himself from his gluttony and behave in a sober, self-punitive manner.

At the same time, his radical disbelief leads him to compensate by putting material aspects and survival above all else. In the erotic field, the lack of empathic capacity leads to a radical hedonism. He substitutes quality in the love bond for quantity in the sexual encounter, showing himself insatiable in the erotic conquest, unlike the social and sexual subtypes, who find it much more difficult to specify erotic situations, beyond deployment of seductive arts from the intellectual. In this sense, the conservation subtype is often drawn as a sensuous being with being described as playboy hedonistic charlatans.

Unlike the social and sexual E7 idealists, the conservative E7 can be ruthless if his safety is compromised, and is generally more prone to confrontation and violence than the other E7 subtypes, an enneatype that, itself, is little given to physical aggression. In contrast to other E7s, the conservation 7 tends to be very territorial and, within the common gluttony of novelty and new horizons of the three subtypes, it is much more costumbrist than someone who is typically an explorer of new worlds and a seeker of exciting experiences. This is shown by the fact that he always occupies the same place at the table, or the same side of the bed, or that he buys several identical shirts, etc.

The conservation subtype is less disciplined than the social E7, but more than the sexual one, and tends to show a great capacity for work. Likewise, its self-indulgence finds a clear limit with the protection of those it considers part of its clan, showing more indulgences than self-indulgence. It presents a higher degree of hedonistic permissiveness than the social subtype, but less than the sexual one. There is also a greater practicality, linked to the possession of money or goods, both material and intangible, in which there is an opportunistic and advantageous aspect.

He shows greater adherence to his own desires and, being conservative, to concrete basic needs, which he tends to carry out with a spontaneity that brings him closer to his instinctive part. In this sense, he tends less to the imaginary satisfaction of desire, being rather proactive in his self-satisfaction.

His penchant for realism and his lack of idealism makes him more cynical and more openly critical and self-critical than other E7s. According to the psychic instances described by Karen Horney (would, against and away), the E7 of conservation goes against it, often showing himself to be a seasoned debater. He is often the leader of the pack and becomes the protector of his family, clan or affinity group, which represents his passion: a passion for involvement, for complicity beyond norms and morals. In this case, it shows great generosity and is very affectionate, defending the members within it. Naturally, these are all forms of manipulation to gain one's own recognition in return.

On the other hand, we could define the sexual E7 as an idealist who changes his ideals as the wind of his whims blows, without much awareness of his contradictions, generally credulous and who fits perfectly with the description of a high-flying dreamer, with a very high hedonistic permissiveness , a great lack of discipline and a greater tendency to the imaginary satisfaction of their desires.

Much more fanciful, ethereal, poetic and dreamy than the other greedy subtypes, the sexual one is more emotional, tender and excitable, and tends to live in a virtual reality in which everything is fine and everyone is good. He is the most oral-dependent among the E7, the one who gives himself over to gluttony with greater earnestness and without dissimulation, and the most self-indulgent and uncritical with himself.

According to Horney's psychic prompts, the sexual E7 goes towards others. He is an integrator, a seducer whose wound (intimacy) compulsively drives him to an intimate encounter that he later cannot sustain, showing himself to be an escapist or experiencing fits of childish rage at the slightest frustration of his expectations.

Among the various subtypes of E7, the sexual tends to inhabit and persevere in no other place than in a childish dimension, as a defense against the difficulties and frustrations of life. It is not in vain that he is said to be a Peter Pan; he does not take responsibility, he does not fulfill his obligations, he does not want to be an adult.

He is invaded by a kind of joy, he tends to idealize himself and his particular gifts. In a narcissistic sense, he is the most self-focused and, therefore, the most disconnected from reality. To such an extent that, when it's not funny, it tends to be irritating and tiresome and, above all, very invasive.

The social E7 is the most idealistic. In Horney's instances, he is a character who seems far away, he isolates himself and usually locks himself in an intellectual ivory tower from which he observes others with pretense of superiority, behaving like the most schizoid of the E7.

They tend to have a more active and demanding superego, more disciplined, and a greater contact with guilt. He also believes more strongly in ideas and theoretical abstractions that he produces with a flowery charlatanism and intellectual sophistication. He tends to be helpful and even self-sacrificing (up to a certain point, because deep down he's still, like a good E7, uncommitted and an escapist).

He perceives himself as a candidate for sainthood; a good and well-intentioned being, careful with everyone and deserving of the respect and admiration of the community for his lofty actions and sense of the common good. In this sense, he usually behaves like a real Rasputin, like a counselor or ideologue capable of whitewashing the execrable.

Putting himself at the service of everyone, as a kind of community builder, he exchanges such services for admiration and indulgence.

Unlike the social subtype, the conservation subtype places himself at the service of his own clan, while seeming unmoved by the fate of the rest of the world. And the sexual subtype, in its lack of contact with reality, seems oblivious to matters such as service, despite its good intentions. The social one is also the E7 that represses gluttony the most, to the point that it has been defined as the “anti-seven”. The same goes for their leniency. As an «old» subtype, the social E7 tends to be less (self) indulgent (at least, apparently) and manifests less hedonistic permissiveness, which in his case appears denied

Love 

Beyond being the enneatype with the greatest development of erotic love among the mental characters, the E7 is, in the second instance, an admiring character, which takes the forms of idealization (in the case of the social subtype), self-idealization (sexual subtype) and pseudo or anti-idealism (in the conservation subtype, which tends to go against it). Establishing a characteristic type of tertiary love, Claudio Naranjo divides the three subtypes of the E7 into compassionate (conservation), erotic (sexual) and admirative (social), being true that the E7 conservation usually acts with a certain maternal orientation, protecting theirs, while the sexual E7 has a celebratory attitude towards life that is more compatible with the free will of their inner child or eros, and the social E7 is the most admiring or idealizing.

Physical aspects

As phenomenological observations, not to take as absolute truths, the conservationist usually appears more sober when dressing. It's more understated, it's usually elegant in a classic sense, and it doesn't take on as many colors; Rather, its practicality can lead you to buy several identical shirts or suits. The sexual E7, on the other hand, tends to exaggerate by combining bright colors with rather exotic accessories (feathers, unorthodox aesthetic. The social E7 tends, more than to sobriety, to becoming uninterested in aspects such as fashion or dressing well. At a morphological level, sexual E7s are usually characterized by large mouths and teeth, boyish features, large and very lively eyes and the permanent smiling expression of someone very young. On the other hand, in the E7 conservation, prominent and bulky jaws are common, with generous cheeks and wide faces. And a less angelic face, more markedly earthly than the social or sexual ones (they have more of a “bad face”). Protruding snouts and large, fat, fleshy noses are common in the E7 conservation.

The look is perhaps the most characteristic: withdrawn, observant, distrustful, with generally sunken eyes and a prominent eyebrow.

 As for the social E7, they tend to have less prominent or exaggerated features, as if the greater sobriety in their actions and thoughts, or their ancient orientation, had a concordant effect on the sweetness of their faces.

CONSERVATION 7

CHAPTER 1; THE CONSERVATION 7

Iconoclastic, rebellious, provocateur, intellectual challenger, seeker of novelties... as well as easygoing, opportunists, lover of privileges and central heating, the Seven Conservation character moves in life crossing from one side to another one basic polarity: that of someone who is, at the same time, revolutionarily heterodox and secretly conservative. Here is the quintessence of the Flaubertian bourgeois: a great moderate capable of punishing himself with sober regimens after a binge or with large doses of work after a period of laziness.

He is also a playboy (or playgirl) and a cheat, both in business and in emotions. A clever trickster, a satyr in need of constantly proving his seductiveness. A planner and sagacious bon vivant, whose definition is, by the way, that of one who is dedicated to enjoying the pleasures of life, especially food and drink, as well as leisure and social activities.

In the game of polarities typical of each enneagram, we can observe among the E7, on the one hand, the helpful and social idealists and the sexual fantasists and charmers, and on the other, the cynical, practical and earthly E7 conservation, not at all idealists. With this starting point, gluttony taken to the field of conservation becomes a very materialistic gluttony of concrete sensory pleasure, making this subtype a cheerful, easy-going hedonist, light-hearted and enjoying himself, interested in sex, money, food, and the good life. But with a schizoid background, disconnected from feeling and emotionally stingy, which usually appears in a more resounding way in private, while publicly maintaining its pseudo-social facade intended to satisfy its gluttony. In someone whose most acute instinct is the always reptilian conservation, all this yearning for pleasure is very uninterested in theoretical abstractions.

The E7 conservation is clear about what it wants: always more and better, and as soon as possible. To implement his gluttony in the world, he deploys networks of influence and mutual favors based on common greedy interests or on ties of empathy or blood (hence the specific use of the word family, which generates so much confusion, to define him), and that lead others to describe him with more or less grandiose terms such as “mafioso” or “gangster”. (Terms that, after all, end up generating a certain mythomania around this character, which we will review over the next few pages.)

 It is a mental character, which occurs more in men. And the E7 conservation women present very specific traits. They tend to be somewhat "masculinized" women, who put strength and cunning ahead of what is topically understood as "femininity." As befits this trait, they stand out for their practical mentality, often also for their sexual gluttony and their few prejudices in the erotic field, as well as for their enormous capacity to support the clan or the intimate circle where, as is usual in all Seven conservation, usually occupy the place of the head of the family.

Family stories of survival

The world was made to the conservative E7 preservation too dry in its infancy; especially emotionally, but often also in the material. It is about a person who saw or felt very unprotected at a tender age. Stories of broken families, patriarchal violence, parental alcoholism, having to take care of siblings, large families where there is not enough care, or a general sense of feeling threatened that is transmitted from parents to children are common. The person of this character continues to stay, even now, in a constant state of alert, with a strong initiative and even aggressiveness at the service of his needs, which translates into a great capacity to improvise in order to nurture himself: the Seven conservation is a hustler.

And so he doesn't tolerate deprivation without being able to get what he thinks he needs in order to achieve his neurotic goal that “I'm fine and everything is fine.”

Either through the effort to satisfy himself or, more commonly, through his more or less disguised aptitude for robbery, which does not call his honor into question, but in which his aggressiveness and possessive tendencies shine. It is common to find in this character stories of family survival, of absent parents or direct abandoners. Humble and suffering children who are not very compatible with the usual idea that the E7 lived in a children's paradise. (In this case, if there was, it ended early and abruptly.)

“I have not been an adventurer, an insatiable explorer or a compulsive liar. Nor would my humble family economy have allowed it. I felt that I had to make a living, that I had to be smart, that I was better equipped for it than the rest, but everything at a very homely level, without large companies, or expeditions, or scams (some minor theft from time to time from time to time), all much more of the neighborhood... It is also true that my desire for exploration was directed more to knowledge than to real life. That way of moving in the world made me feel superior, certainly smarter than the rest. Our stories are more about home-grown rogues, who justify their excesses and nonsense with verbiage and self-indulgence.” (ORI)

The Conservation Seven can be described as a survivor of its own family atmosphere. Traps, fraudulence, opportunism... everything is put at the service of covering up the anguish of the threat to the conservation of the childhood stage. That lacerating wound is still so alive that he runs towards hedonistic pleasures to try to leave his psychic footprint behind, forgetting that pain is a tireless long-distance runner that always ends up catching those who shun it: depression or alcohol can become the last subterfuges of the ego E7 conservation so that life does not hurt.

“I think I first got depressed when I was five years old, when my mother left home without telling me because my father had threatened her with a gun. Then, at fourteen, I had a car accident that left my face covered in scars. I became depressed again. I had manic and depressive cycles for the next few years. The last moment of depression I remember ended the day Claudio Naranjo asked me: How are you doing with your depression? I replied: I already feel less pain. He looked at me and said: Pain? You mean fear of pain. The answer made me open my eyes. Depression was but one more evasion not to touch the wound.” (DAVID)

Added to the stories of abandonment are childhood deprivations; sometimes, having to improvise to survive in a suffocating environment that does not allow the physical or intellectual expansion of children. There is suffering, therefore, related to material scarcity, and another that comes from a lack of love and parental attention, which is displaced towards that experience of hardship. It is not surprising, then, that the E7 conservationist is someone who develops the biting instinct early on, as if he soon came to the conclusion that if he does not personally take care of himself, no one will do it for him.

 The picaresque novel seems to be a genre dedicated to the celebration of this character, his cheekiness and cunning. The bigardo, picaro or buscón, like Lazarillo de Tormes, Don Pablos, the Guzmán de Alfarache or the mischievous Justina, is usually a wandering anti-knight, in an “epic of hunger through a miserable world, where one only survives thanks to fraud and deception. La Celestina is another example; cunning and greedy old woman who with her tempting words, manipulation and greed, ends up breaking Melibea's virtue. Underneath a clear satirical intention, underlies a moralizing and pessimistic ideology, a determinism with which their own mistakes are justified and a praise of failure.

“At home, we used to go to bed grounded without dinner. The reasons could not be more absurd. What was happening? That there was nothing for dinner and my mother invented punishments to make the lack become something else. We lived nine people in 60 square meters. Faced with such a scenario, I developed a skill to get them to share the sandwich with me. From my older brother I learned to make a fool of myself in front of the gate of a school for middle-class children. What a good heart they had! When we drooled pretending to be disabled, food rained down on us.” (DAVID)

“I have the powerful experience, in a care workshop with Albert Rams, of feeling how I could kill to get food, the experience of touching a regressive deficiency state that I have been fleeing from all my life because of its power, virulence and the violence that I felt in my. It was six hours in silence through the streets of Barcelona. I made up my mind not to eat. in that time and walk through the ugliest places: dumpsters, garages and gloomy streets. My own proposal not to eat triggered the fear in me and, at the beginning of the trip, I bought a sandwich in case something happened to me. In the final stretch I was so taken by discomfort that I was stumbling and folding in on myself. I ended up devouring the sandwich I had in my backpack with animal voracity. Seeing myself in that state made me feel very ashamed.” (MEKA)

Family histories of violence are not uncommon, with a father or mother who is the perpetrator and a generalized situation of chaos and disorder that the E7 conservation tries to solve by taking on responsibilities that do not correspond to it and sharpening its skepticism before any form of authority, with an emotional retreat. bordering on the schizoid in the face of intimacy.

 “My father was a traditional family head. really, it was impulsive and practical, very visceral and obsessed with his own conservation. My mother is a torrent of emotions. And my older sister, too; Despite being the second, I feel like the head of the family. For me, conflicts began with emotional explosions, more than with my father's absences or nonsense. My house had two rooms and forty-five square meters. There were six of us in the family! I lived in fear of these discussions, but my task was to reassure and appease the sisters. Even today I am paralyzed in conflicts. I always think it's not that bad. And I only find out hours or days later what was really happening to me. Also, once I grew up a little more, my mother hid behind me to reproach my father and pour out all her dissatisfaction on him. On one occasion I had to stop an attack with a knife, moved by rage, fear and the need to protect my mother. It was very hard for me as a girl to stand in front of her dad in the middle of a violent act.” (ORI)

“My father, a joker type, when he sprouted he could be the most violent man in the world; that's how I lived it. I have witnessed the mistreatment of my mother, psychologically and physically. I used to get in the way so he wouldn't hit my mom. One of the most horrible scenes was at Christmas. They argued and my father hit my mother. She also stood up to him and didn't keep quiet, which made the violence even more dramatic. He stayed in bed lying down. I went into her room, I call her repeatedly and she doesn't answer, I begin to despair. I lay down on my bed and I remember that I was paralyzed. After a while I heard voices in the hallway and I heard her tearful voice. I felt such immense relief that my soul returned to my body.” (NESTOR)

The family environment often prepares or contributes to generate the state of moral laxity in which the E7 conservation lives. His character can also be understood as a self-protective reaction to a family environment where catastrophe reigns or in which, not to exaggerate, there is a certain atmosphere of selfishness, atomization or «Get out whoever you can, a bit like in the chapter «Education sentimentals>>, from the film “I mostri” (Monsters of today, 1963), by Dino Risi, where a father (Ugo Tognazzi) deals with the education and social initiation of his son (Ricky Tognazzi), using a series of examples and teachings inspired by absolute dishonesty and a total lack of respect for others.

 As a very believable caricature of a conservative E7, the character is laughable for his absolute immorality and hypocrisy, especially when he tells his son that politicians, “instead of thinking of others, they only think of themselves.” Because, on top of that, there is this tendency to dishonesty. “So, if you want to do well, don't trust anyone. Never! From no one! Do you understand? Not even your father!” And, before the stunned look of the little one, he adds: “It's a joke! Give daddy a kiss."

A materialism that obscures existence

The belief that the world is a dangerous place, the feeling of being constantly in danger of extinction, of perpetual threat, more or less unconscious, to conservation, leads him to think, as a self-protective reaction, that through his intelligence and his planning capacity can solve things to his advantage, to take advantage, order the world around him to put the wind in his favor and alter the unfavorable starting conditions.

He will not easily allow anxiety and fear to show through, but he will struggle between his fright at the intense experiences and the feelings that move too much, on the one hand, and his aggressiveness, his lack of control and his maniacal need to feel without restraint, to live at the same time. limit of enjoying the great tit of life squeezing it as if there were no tomorrow. His desires are gargantuan and he will surround himself with luxuries, favors and graces, hours of paradise, beauty and nectars. And in the same way, you will imagine yourself elevated to the category of aristocrat, trusted adviser, advisor to the kingdom or unexpected heir to a fortune.

In the Conservation Seven, the confusion between love and pleasure is typical of all E7s, it not only prevents a deeper meaning from emerging than what is immediately available, but tends to make them value only what is immediately available, the bird in the hand. so that everything else becomes "flying hundred", as the saying goes. As in Aesop's fable, the Conservation Seven often behaves like a fox who, realizing that the bunch of grapes is out of her reach, scorns it, saying, "They're green!" The gesture betrays him as a self-indulgent and interested person who often shies away from great efforts or sacrifices if they do not give clear results.

His alienation from experiential depth (which underpins the feeling of scarcity) is heightened by his search for concreteness. Like the proud character, gluttony also hides insufficiency with false abundance. Although this concealment is orchestrated from the intellectual, and not from the emotional as happens in the case of E2. And in the case of the Seven conservation, it is a false abundance based on the concrete, the good gourmet dinners, the women or the men, the vintage wine...

His need to experience only what is pleasurable is exacerbated by restricting it very often, closing a vicious circle, to the sensory or aesthetic realm.

So the E7 conservation even comes to despise abstract pleasure; let alone the vague flavor of poetry or the novel. It is a trait so focused on what is immediately available that, inevitably, the person is obscured because he tends to discard everything that belongs to the world of the subtle, the intangible. And though he may be fanciful, a good storyteller or even oriented towards a certain mysticism, the E7 conservation does not usually love or value anything that does not offer him pleasure and, above all, that does not give him immediate pleasure.

 A tremendous handicap, because it limits the depth of the experience to what is strictly related to the skin, to the senses, and distracts from a deeper experimentation of the loving bond, as well as from the more elaborate feeling of love for God or for that which is felt. notices as greater than oneself.

It is not uncommon for this to happen, since he often suffers from existential disillusionment in the face of the supposed neurotic realization that he cannot count on anyone, that he must fend for himself, that everyone else is as selfish as he is. And this makes him not only a recalcitrant skeptic at convenience but, generally speaking, he does not believe in anything.

Bipolar tendency

The weakness for pleasure draws the enneatype Seven to a general susceptibility to "falling into temptation", which eventually gives off an orientation towards corruption. He who is addicted to the sin of gluttony cannot resist the temptation to any other sin, says Chaucer, and nothing is truer for this earthy glutton, for this unrepentant materialist, whose conception of life is, more than for any another E7, that of a gigantic (and often literal) tit waiting to be dolled. If we understand "sin" as a diversion of the person's potential for self-actualization, with the "sin" of gluttony, the individual renounces self-realization by staying stuck to exaggerated expectations of reward, around some more than debatable merits. accrued from their condition of being special, an idea often forged in the relationship with the mother during early childhood. Since such expectations are going to be repeatedly disappointed - such is life - the enneagram Seven, in general, has developed a kind of neurotic floater at all risks against depression:

Enneatype VII individuals are more than simple explorers of open-minds: their search for experiences characteristically takes them from an insufficient present to a promising future. The glutton's insatiability, however, is veiled by apparent satisfaction. To put it more precisely, behind the enthusiasm lies the frustration. The mentioned enthusiasm seems to compensate for the dissatisfaction and, at the same time, keep the experience of frustration out of the individual's consciousness.

The many misfortunes of Ulysses (an E7 conservation character) during his return to Ithaca in The Odyssey suggest another fundamental characteristic of this subtype, which often lacks the kind of vaccine against depression that other sweet tooths enjoy. Well, his condition is usually, rather, that of a bipolar for which the manic phases are usually not longer than the depressive ones.

This tendency is well identified in the story of Odysseus, nicknamed "he of many cunnings", who goes from behaving like an arrogant smartass in his phase of conquering Troy (similar to the period of mystical inflation in the myth of the Journey of the Hero) to lose everything in his ten years wandering at sea, to the point of returning as a castaway to Ithaca, only then, after many tests and a cure of humility, to be king again.

The depressive cycle can also be interpreted, as we have already pointed out, as an extreme way of avoiding pain when it inexorably reaches the person. In this case, depression is a way of "playing dead" so as not to come into contact with the pain. Both the manic activation of gluttony and the depressive deactivation of contact with the painful experience are very present avoidance strategies. However, the resulting experience is not nice at all.

Both the up (manic) and down (depressive) phases take the person out of their center and subject them to strong existential outbursts, a difficult price to pay for denying that they face pain (and love) directly. The manic-depressive cycle therefore involves surrendering to fear getting in touch with the great emotions of life. It's better, neurotically speaking, to die while you're alive, fall asleep, drug yourself. And it is not uncommon to find in some E7 conservation tendencies towards drug use or, directly, alcoholism (while others are Spartanly sober, with moments of punctual excess).

“I remember that I had no desire to socialize, go to parties or any kind of gathering, family or friends. These environments caused me a lot of stress. I felt extremely inadequate and insecure. It was as if all the people were watching me. suitability and isolation. That made me feel inferior and ridiculous. At the age of twelve, however, I found a faithful and competent ally in alcohol. It made me more confident, indifferent to the possible judgments of people, more talkative, expansive, brave. I felt more willing and impetuous in seeking out women to relate to. Various women! Thus, thanks to drinking, I managed to attend all the parties, make many trips, have hundreds of relationships. At the age of thirty, I decided to stop drinking, since I came to the conclusion that I could not start a family. The price I paid for abstinence was very high. A huge insecurity came in the form sexual relationships, depression, isolation…” (ALEXANDRE)

If gluttony is the passion for more and better, in self-preservation it is the passion for much more and much better. Given its earthiness, its ruthless realism, conservation tends to be more in contact with the feeling of frustration, of emptiness, which is why it needs a greater intensity to cover it up and extremes its search with zeal. That is also why he shows himself to be an opportunist or profiteer, who does not miss an opportunity. So much gluttony demands the minimum waste of opportunities, thereby feeling minimized-numbed rather, it gives the threat to conservation. To complement this description of the pain avoidance mechanism, we reproduce below an excerpt from an interview with psychotherapist Albert Rams on this particular issue:

DAVID: The manic and the depressive have been a very strong constant all my life. Over time these phases have softened. Now I speak of internalization phases. When I go to the expansive, it is very strong, and when I go to the confinement, too; but I can no longer speak of mania or depression: the compulsion is much less.

 ALBERT: I live a similar life to you. The phases have moderated a lot. An important element was toxic. I have increased the manic phases with alcohol, joints, coffee... Eliminating alcohol, joints-the latest being coffee- has been a help. It has helped me better understand the dynamics, how the down phase and the up phase are related. How much of what hasn't been well resolved in the down phase favors the up phase. For example, in the down phase there is a tendency for everything to cost; discipline is difficult. My last expansive period, which has lasted three years (it had never lasted so long and had never been so clean of toxins and other things) has been very productive. I was making a blog that I have now closed, I wrote a lot, I have made myself available to many people... I did an article for the AETG magazine that talked about bipolarity, and one of the pieces of advice I gave was that, whatever you are, do what you have to do. Don't let what you have to do depend on your mood.

To the extent that the down is generating a kind of deposit, an enormous desire to burst is created. And vice versa. I have dedicated myself to cleaning up the phases, especially the up ones: See what was false, what needs to be corrected, who to apologize to, what appeared to be radiant and what was not so... To the extent that the phase up throws you out of control, generates guilt and the foundations of the phase down are laid.

DAVID: How do you live in this phase being more in contact with the emptiness and loneliness? Do you live with an inner restlessness?

ALBERT: At the moment, yes, with anguish, on the dark side, and at times with a kind of calm that doesn't exist in the manic phase. It is a feeling that there is nothing to do, life is already taking me. In my specific case, there is a very important matter. You know that a daughter of mine died in 1994, and thus it became very clear to me, among other things, that what I wanted in life was time, and I didn't have it as I had before. Lately, in these three years, a movement was to reduce the query. I used to come to work three days a week, and I reduced it to two days, and this has given me the opportunity of living an adventure, a story of experiencing solitude in the countryside. But that same thing now comes back to me: when one is manic, time is joyful... But what I have been gaining is moderation, cutting the limits above and below. Something that helps me in the depressive phases, that it is the metaphor of winter. In winter it seems that nothing moves, that everything is still, unless you look at the roots... There is a whole movement that is not visible, that goes below. All that movement of digestion, contemplation, anguish, emptiness, I know that the next high phase is nourished by what was experienced in that low phase.

The need for gratification

In conservational E7s, insatiability leads to a dual, ambiguous, and even painful relationship with sources of pleasure. With food (tendency to suffer from digestive problems), with sex (tendency to infidelity and to change partners), with money (tendency to waste/speculate/accumulate), etc.

 Here's a guy from E7 who won't settle for a promise of pleasure. It is not enough to turn the insufficient present into a promising future. There is less cathexis in the satisfaction of gluttony: There is more going for what one wants, less contemplation. There will be anxiety with money, with sex, with the attention that is not obtained, with the desire for recognition... At the same time, such anxiety will be intertwined in an exhausting game of polarities with the already mentioned and typical tendencies to (self)indulgence and procrastination of all Sevens.

Surely it can also be said that the E7 conservation is more self-indulgent. He always has his feet on the ground, he doesn't evade so much towards fantasy. The result is that he often feels entitled to gratification. Without God, neither karma nor law, without so much tendency to idealizing fantasies, who is going to be able to stop it? His gluttony dominates him, in the sense that he lives in a compulsive search for refuge in pleasure, as an antidote to a greater contact with anxiety.

Full pantry versus empty

Like all head types, the Conservation Seven lives gripped by fear as a background noise that contaminates his entire life experience. In this character, fear is usually denied. The E7 conservation could be defined as a second «counterphobic» character, after the sexual E6, since it also «goes against fear», tends to despise it and is often capable of risky and even quarrelsome behaviors: there is in this character a constant aggressive attitude.

Attachment to material pleasures denotes, in itself, a maneuver against fear: The basic neurotic strategy of survival consists of a kind of filling the pantry" abundantly as an antidote to the lack-not only affective, but often also material, food, etc.- that was experienced in childhood, and in the face of the fear of experiencing again the painful emotions that this produced.

His lack of involvement, altruism, empathy is often expressed superficially as a lack of seriousness and lightheartedness, and with a great sense of humor, which disconnects him from uncomfortable feelings and serves as an antidote to pain. And as an analgesic, the bank account is also filled with money, and the bed, with sex -without getting emotionally involved, in relationships rather thought of as a supply than as a link, or the agenda, of appointments.

If the E6 conservation lives traumatized by the conviction that he lacks the resources to master unforeseen events, with the consequent paralysis in action, the E7 conservation, on the other hand, lives accommodated in the narcissistic idea that he is a born generator of resources and wellness. Something that hides, in fact and opportunely, the other extreme of the polarity: the intimate and ancient feeling of emptiness, misery or vital scarcity, from which he flees like the plague.

 It is worth remembering (as we will see in chapter 6) that in the infantile relationship with the mother, the conservation enneatype Seven took good note of the mother's projections: a woman usually distant and at the same time invasive; sometimes a victim, sometimes empowered in front of the father; sometimes overwhelming, sometimes cold, but always emotionally ambiguous; a mother, finally, who projects her fears of survival onto her son and turns him, in one way or another, into her "savior" at all costs, often putting him in competition with the father, or in a situation of ambivalence towards him. The mother, in this way, enlarges the ego of the boy or girl E7 conservation.

Confusion between want and need

When gluttony acts on the conservative, passion takes the form of a constant concern for the satisfaction, and not of basic needs (which it will generally take care of covering very well), but of those desires and pleasures that, from the point of view of this character, they are considered "basic: the earthly pleasures of the good life. His is a half-understood Epicureanism, since not as much attention is paid to the virtuous philosophy of living well as to the material practice of living well.

There is thus a real confusion between desire and need. “We had counted ourselves and others our own desires as needs”, continues Albert Rams. And, in reality, we really need little, although much can be desired. Here, the primary needs are confused by gluttony: it is not about eating, but about eating delicatessen (ready-to-eat food); it is not about drinking, but about tasting; It is not about resting, but about being cared for. And yes: it is about sex, in quantity and quality, also delighting in the narcissistic pleasure of seduction and conquest, and if possible always experiencing novelty and challenges.

Moderation and sobriety are experienced as dearth and deprivation, especially in people with less ego awareness. The non-satisfaction of desire produces anxiety and rage, even envy and suffering. Perhaps, faced with this trend, we could oppose an Epicurus, a philosopher who suffered from this character and who, without denying pleasure as the maximum desideratum of existence, made serenity a way of life, coming to understand that not all pleasure brings a good nor all pain an evil, and emphasizing the virtue of temperance and frugality. "Send me-write to a friend a little jar of cheese, so that he can give me a luxurious feast whenever he wants." Did Epicurus practice hedonism? Yes of course; but a hedonism of small daily pleasures, like talking with friends, eating only milk and bread.

CHAPTER 2; THE CHARACTERISTIC OF NEUROTIC NEED:

The word that describes the predominant neurotic need in a E7 conservation is family. A term that refers to how this character creates links based on relationships of mutual interest, in a double unconscious strategy of:

a) try to favor their greedy interests (in order to mitigate their in satiation or chronic dissatisfaction)

b) repress their diffuse feeling of lack, which has to do with an old feeling of threat to conservation.

Family describes, therefore, the creation of ties driven by a neurosis of you help me and I will help you, a type of human association that this character is often criticized for his uncritical fidelity to his family. and because of the implicit contempt that such an attitude leads to those who do not belong to their circle of trust.

However, family is an imprecise descriptor. Other descriptions, such as complicity, collusion or, especially, involvement, would be more appropriate, since the E7 conservation is not necessarily a family person, or one who spends more time with his family than others. Quite the contrary, in intimacy it is someone who usually shows great difficulties in maintaining the bond, with problems of lack of transparency, communication, affection and trust, as well as a tendency to emotional isolation, radical autonomy, individualism and independence at all costs- Oscar Ichazo referred to this character as the “guardian of the castle", thus denouncing his schizoid origin. Therefore, the term family should be understood in a pseudo-social sense: the family is one that is chosen, not (necessarily) by blood ties, but is agreed upon according to the aforementioned ties of mutual interest.

The E7 conservation is that person who makes alliances. Family could be an alternative word. But not in the true sense of the term, which is full of positive connotations. The word "families" describes an aspect of life. But, in the specialized vocabulary of the ego, there is a kind of family game that can be played. In it, the Seven conservation builds relationships with people, which are based on ideas such as: «I will be family to you and I demand that you be family to me», «let's get together, I will serve you and you will serve me, together, we can create a good mob...

They are people in solidarity with their family, and it would seem that there was nothing wrong with being a lover of their own. But, after all, being too partial or loyal to those of one's own clan or group, isn't that a form of corruption? What is the point of loving your loved ones a lot and behaving like an antisocial towards the rest of the world? The E7 conservationists are often called “mobsters” precisely because of their extreme loyalty to their own. We are talking about people involved in affective ties within their environment, but who behave like freeloaders with the rest of the world.

They are funny, warm and strategically friendly, but they do not fall into their own charm like the rest of the Seven subtypes, but tend to be more distant, a little psychopathic and cynical. And sometimes even psychopaths. Like Monsieur Lan drú, an E7 conservationist famous for seducing and murdering widows to rob them, back in the First World War, who in court defended himself saying that he did everything for his children. (And, indeed, he was a doting family man after all.) Another apt word for this character's neurotic need is smuggling

I drop the word “smuggling” because this type of behavior can lead to mafioso. This is clear partisanship. There is an element of corruption very present in it. Interest itself, selfishness, is behind this alliance, although it appears denied.

Also, obviously, behind this partisanship we can find the ancient and primordial fear of abandonment and the aforementioned threat to conservation. The survival of the family structure is intended as a kind of life insurance, as a spring that allows one to survive when things go wrong. Character conservation has a lot to do with going around the world “taking out alleged life insurance”, especially in relationships with others and without necessarily informing the other of the conditions of the contract.

Passion for inclusion

In conservation, gluttony "wants the good things that life offers, starting with maternal love and, by extension, the warmth of the family -as well as money and sex-, but all this in the context of a passion for the inclution". The term «family» (or involvement) does not have so much to do, as we pointed out, with a special experience of family ties, but rather with the difficulty of including strangers, or simply third parties, in a closed environment of relationships of trust that the conservation Seven converts into utilitarian relationships.

In the childhood of many E7 conservationists there was a broken family; or they are illegitimate children; or one of the parents dies or disappears early; or there is a situation of abandonment, etc. That is to say, there is a lack of family, an experience of not having been able to feel that one belongs, or of having felt excluded, or not recognized. He has felt like a “freak within his own family system. It is from there that he later builds his own «family, his I help you, you help me, as a way of guaranteeing the conservation and continuity of the bonds. In this way, it exalts the implication in pursuit of the inclusion that, precisely, it lacked. At the same time, it will be difficult for him to accept others who are not from the "clan", from girlfriends or boyfriends of the children to relatives, politicians, etc.

“I experienced a deep feeling of not belonging to my family. Since I was little, I felt very different from all of them on several levels: My parents and siblings are big, fat, strong, they speak loud, they are very passionate... I was small, skinny, fragile, still, with suppressed emotions... Until today, I eat a different meal than what they like, I don't listen to the same music, I don't have the same habits, nor the same social, economic or political position. Many times I felt like the ugly duckling who, in the midst of a gang of ungainly ducks, turns into a swan (I am not proud of my arrogance in feeling this). That feeling of not belonging to the family is the core self point of my entire functioning system. The search for belonging. The mafia, the bonds of protection and complicity that I learned to create are attempts to recreate a safe and welcoming environment, surrounded by those who "speak my own languages, and thus give me a sense of belonging.”

“As a child I felt very different from my family. I played the role of independent, I learned to do things alone and not to bother much at home, with how busy they were with their own needs. HowI met new people, I didn't want to be related to my family, I was ashamed; my mother had no studies, neither did my brothers, nor did they leave the town. My sister was almost always involved in small drug deals, and I felt so different... It seemed that I didn't belong to that family. I felt superior; They also told me that I was special, smart, intelligent, independent, nice, that I knew how to do everything. It was as if he had been born to improve the family; That's how I thought it was important.”

Families is a term that must be understood, therefore, as a passion for inclusiveness that also implies the exclusion of those who are not family. The border he draws between his loved ones and the rest of humanity is very precise. For those inside, everything; those outside, on the other hand, do not even exist for him. In this closed world, there is only one whose "fidelity" has previously been verified. It is for this very reason that it is said that the E7 conservation is a mobster, someone who does not trust the laws (the father) but rather the blood ties (the mother); although, as of Come on, such ties are not necessarily biological.

According to psychiatrist Alejandro Napolitano, submission to blood ties has made families, and more precisely, mafias, the emblem word for the enneagram Seven conservation, as a way of alluding to the most degraded and destructive forms of the family bond matrix. But it is obvious that behind the apparent masculine power of the mafia organization, and behind the relegated place that the wife occupies, there appears an omnipotent and indisputable power, symbolized in the use of blood to seal alliances and centered in the abysmal depth of the lap: the mamma, the Great Mother, Gaea, Demeter, Stella Maris, the center of gravity of devotion and power.

The conservation E7 was someone whose mother looked at her special way, perhaps with a wild admiration, with an inappropriate voracity. If Saturn or Cronos, father of Time, devoured his children so that they would not dethrone him as king of Heaven, the slow Hindu goddess Kali is known to be the devourer of Time (a property related, archetypally, to the Father). This Oedipus son who has been encouraged to unseat the father thus grows up with a strong confusion about his place.

His passion for inclusion is a passion for being recognized even if he doesn't deserve it. Not in vain, the conservation Seven is a narcissist with a strong, more or less strategic will to be noticed: at all parties, at all dances, in all clubs. And naturally, as a special guest. Well, we are talking about a passion to be taken into account not as one more, but as an important person, based on rights granted by his condition as an intelligent person. Therefore, he usually suffers from a strong entitlement: a feeling of having talent rights, of superiority, and he doesn't just want to be listened to, recognized as someone who knows”, but expects admiration.

It should be added that behaviors of the «family» or involvement type, or passion for inclusion, also have as a hidden or unconscious motivation the surrogate experience of an emotionality that replaces the emptiness or the loss of the primordial sense of unity. Here is the main stumbling block or metaphysical-spiritual distortion of the «family» passion: An ancient horror of intimacy that, finally, is compensated with a substitute of intimacy around the group, the clan, the partners; and not as much as it might seem, although sometimes also from the biological family.

“I talk a lot about living in a community, but I really don't know how estuary it is. It is more to share resources, share a common goal, commit myself more to the spiritual life, not feel as alone asI sometimes feel I work less on the tasks of daily life, which for me are not very pleasant. But surely it would measure a lot what I do and what others do; I doubt my love for others, at least I doubt my ability to put the other person's needs before my own in some situations. I am still too hungry a spirit.”

The passion of involvement has, as we pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, its polar opposite. This wanting to belong is experienced with a certain schizoid ambiguity: the need to be in a relationship (in a pseudo social way) is polarized by a strong neurotic need to withdraw. And the more intimacy, the more strongly the sullen, elusive, stingy part will be activated... The guardian of the castle (who guards an empty and cold fortress) has a great capacity for relational sabotage. At the same time, there is also in this character a core experience of low self-esteem. While the figure is dominated by narcissistic feelings, the background-denied-is characterized by diffuse discomfort related to a feeling of inadequacy, disadvantage, inferiority and even envy, with a certain tendency to feel "bad".

“At first, as a young man, I felt incapable of being loved by a woman. I imagined that if one day I found a woman who wanted to marry me, that would be enough to make me happy. With the passage of time, a woman was not enough, but a pretty one. Afterwards, I was no longer content with one. Later, my need for conquest spread in such a way that it was only enough for me if everyone admired and recognized me. Although I had obtained many conquests, the certainty that I did not deserve them bothered me. I knew that my charms had no consistency and, therefore, I did not show myself completely, assuming an enigmatic posture so that they would not discover my absence of attractions and true values.”

Complicity, permissiveness and seductive complacency

Regarding permissiveness, it can be said that this not only describes a trait of the individual in relation to himself, but also a characteristic laissez faire attitude towards others. When gluttons seductively indulge in the vices of others, this permissiveness even turns into complicity. It is curious how this lone wolf, schizoid, easily goes on to organize himself into a pack when it suits him, so that he can satisfy himself with greater skill. All of this, of course, has a clear origin in a family unit that is not given to promoting rules of conduct.

“Within the family home there were no rigid rules, mainly for small transgressions. On the contrary, I received support from my mother to buy cigarettes (at only thirteen years old) and the support of my father to buy and consume alcoholic beverages (within only twelve years of age).” (ALEXANDRE)

In this sense, the role played by the typical seductive complacency of the E7 is not negligible. As in all the characters of the Seven, there is not only an inclination to satisfy their own greed for pleasure, but also that of those they want to seduce. Only that the conservationist can be as indulgent and solicitous with those who interest him as cold and distant with those who do not; that is, the vast majority of the population. Characteristic of conservationists is this polarity between warmth and coldness, between helpfulness and a complete lack of empathy, between generosity and ignoring others, as if they thought or felt that “who is not a part of my world, does not exist". Although the following description applies to all E7s, it is especially for the conservational,

Gluttons are very good hosts and can be big spenders. To the extent that generosity is part of seduction and a way of buying love (rather than actual giving), it is offset in the glutton's psyche by its corresponding opposite: a hidden but effective exploitation It can manifest as a parasitic tendency and, perhaps, in feelings of being worthy of affection and care.

As ultimate motivation we again find the typical insatiability of character. The network serves to procure positions in profiteers, and, beyond that, we finally find again the childhood fear of abandonment, the basic threat to conservation.

That is why an E7 conservation has to be very careful with the typical praise of friendship, so typical of the character, almost at absolute value.

Not all Seven conservation is an Epicurus, a philosopher who knew how to navigate the difficult meanders and sinuosities on the border between friendship and mafia association.

 In the content of ethics [Epicurus] says: of all the goods that we offer wisdom, the most precious is friendship: and when he spoke of friendship, we can say that he was talking about love. For him, it was very. The community is important, but not a pyramidal, hierarchical society. but a type of family, corporate, cultural group: a clan.

Thus, through an epicurean approach we find a third way between the clan-based community and the law-based society: the construction of social bonds based on a genuine love of neighbor, something that an E7 conservation in the process of self-knowledge has a lot, a lot to learn-and the experience of altruism as the maximum conscious end for an egoist too accustomed to using a balance of benefits and losses with each of his links.

Creation of networks of influence

Although it is a substitute solution to the fear of abandonment, the ability of the Seven conservation to create plots of involvement is not negligible. Again, that today for you, tomorrow for me, or I help you so that you can help me, often turns into an I partner with you so that together we look for shortcuts and violate the rules with a greater guarantee of success.

“I have a network of rich and influential friends. I try never to annoy them by asking for favors. It's like an emergency net, a last frontier that, in my fantasy, will defend me from homelessness in case everything goes wrong. I usually give them my advice, my good humor, and my thoughtful analysis of everyday problems. In exchange, at most, I let myself be invited to eat and little else; so, in the end, I come out cheap as a counselor. This reminds me of Elias Canetti's character, the designer, he never earns anything, he does everything for free. He implies that he hardly does anything for himself and does not allow himself to be invited even to a coffee.” (ANONYMOUS)

Opportunism 

So the E7 conservation is the opportunist, the person who has to find advantages, to take advantage. It is as if a conservation threat hangs over it that has to be compensated for. So gluttony, in this case, expresses itself as an excessive concern to get out of this conservation threat by making good deals and deals at every opportunity. It seems that with the Seven conservation there is no conversation that does not lead to a business. He does instant business because his mind is so alert to opportunity that he never lets it pass. Their position is that of one who thinks that if you are not alert, if you do not keep in contact with the wind to catch opportunities, you will be a loser.

Opportunism also has, of course, a childish root. From Albert Rams:

Paradise, the false paradise, seems to be truncated, broken (separation, abandonment, trauma...), and we are left with the idea that it was a lie... Then everything is a lie... Ergo I can do whatever I want because there is no law: anything goes. So life is going to be dedicated to the search and restoration of that primi-genius paradisiacal state, that family-mafia in which the seven conservation occupy a place of tacit privilege.

According to Claudio Naranjo, E7 is often generous and hospitable, the kind of person I said “I'm at your service”, “Call me whenever you want”, “Have my phone number”. This can be both an unconscious seduction and a conscious idea of ​​exchange: the opportunistic expectation that by leaving the other in debt, reciprocity can be expected. Here again we find the basic structure of the 'families, or implication, its characteristic neurotic need. The other side of this generosity and self-interested hospitality is distinctly criminal. When we refer to the word mafias, we cannot fail to mention the very Italian mafia: a special type of organized crime whose name probably comes from the Arabic word mahya, 'bravado, boasting, bravado', or from the also Arabic mu'afah , 'protection of the weak', ruled by family and blood ties, and that could be said to be a product of exacerbation of the "bad" of involvement or passion for the inclusion of conservation E7s.

In a recent analysis of the social dimension of the characters described by the psychology of enneagram, it is stated:

It is interesting to consider how a Seven responds to the conditioning of patriarchal society, because, in a way, an E7 - like an E8 - is a rebel who has turned against authority. And it was surely in order to escape from a bad authority that this character, like the fox of the fables, has become a trickster who achieves his purposes through his charm. Furthermore, it is very easy for us to understand how an unjust world becomes a nest of criminals. It even seems justifiable to us that in an unjust world the underprivileged get by by stealing a little here or there, in view of their own need to survive and to favor their relatives or friends. They are allowed to be smart enough to realize that the supposedly good authority that governs us is only apparently so; and perhaps we come to implicitly approve of their cynicism, which somehow empowers them to allow themselves certain liberties. Isn't it implicitly expressed in the saying that whoever steals from a thief, a hundred years of forgiveness?

“A typical phrase of my mother was: "You have to have friends even in hell." And yes, I believed it, and it is a phrase and an attitude that accompanies me, and guides me in many of my social relationships. Being an accomplice of the mafia, or of small mafia or criminal acts, justifying them and downplaying them: making personal photocopies working in the public administration, using the telephone, using work hours for personal matters, taking office supplies home, knowing that the painter has overcharged the owner of my rented house and taken advantage of it to charge me less, etc. I am an accomplice in case I need your favors, in case I can take advantage of it at some point that I need it, you never know, because you have to have friends even in hell.” (CONCHA)

An egoist with his own agenda

The tendency to manipulate, sometimes disguised as friendliness or the paternalism of those who believe they know what is best for the other, as well as tricks to persuade him, causes not only authenticity in relationships to suffer, but also the divorce between the individual and the sense of community reaches the proportion of a radical individualism, sometimes disguised as idiosyncrasy, idealization of the personal mummy or the bittersweet sensation of being lonely wolves precisely because their relational networks are not based so much on affections as on counterparts).

In this subtype, not even the usual pseudo-social communal appearance of the E7 helps to mask their emptiness.

The Conservation Seven is often perceived as an independent egoist with an agenda of his own, regardless of the needs of the group. Here, the child who permanently carries enneagram Seven has become a mercantilist child who values ​​affection according to the goods or services or care that others are able to lavish on him.

This requires modulating the intensity of emotions: here is a perfect compartmentalizer of reality. The E7 conservation is adept at staying away from any emotion or situation that disturbs him emotionally: He goes in parts, breaks down problems to deactivate them, confuses to convince the other that he is not right or, at least, knows how to earn his appreciation through despite it, avoiding commitments and responsibilities with a very low capacity to feel guilty; a bit like in that famous joke of the Brazilian whose wife approaches him: “The maid is pregnant.” To which he replies: "That's her problem.” The wife yells at him, “What am I supposed to do?”. The husband replies: “That’s your problem.” “But the maid says the child is yours," the woman protests. “That’s my own problem.”

CHAPTER 3; INTRAPERSONAL STRATEGY AND ASSOCIATED IRRATIONAL IDEAS:

The following describes how the Conservation Seven builds their philosophy of life. The wrong interpretation of reality sustains passion (in this case, gluttony). It is the fixation: a subjective cognitive vision that neurotically appears to the individual as objective and serves as a support and justification for gluttony. It is the distorted cognitive core from which subjective beliefs, or irrational ideas, derive. Here we will define the most typical of the E7 conservation. Oscar Ichazo defined that cognitive world and relationship style with himself and with the world of E7 as charlatanism.

The first time Ichazo spoke of protoanalysis, he used the word charlatan to refer to the individual of enneatype VII and the word charlatanism to refer to fixation. This word should not be understood literally: the glutton is someone who approaches the world through the strategy of words and good reasons, someone who manipulates through the intellect. The word Ichazo later uses for this personality, ego-plan, refers to the fact that the charlatan is also a dreamer. Actually, his quackery can be interpreted as taking (and offering) dreams as realities

For Naranjo, the term planning to define the fixation of the E7 is not so appropriate, since it is also a prominent feature of enneatypes I and III, while quackery carries additional meanings, such as expressive ability and the role of persuader and manipulator of words, with which it deviously exceeds the limits of its knowledge. More than a mere planner, encatype VII is an intriguer, with that strategic character that La Fontaine (who had this disposition of character) symbolized in the fox.

Planning evokes the Seven enneatype's tendency to live by projects and fantasies and to substitute action for imagination. That is why terms such as "quackery and even" fraudulence to describe this character are more evocative, and the whole of such a description points to an insatiability that gluttons share with the lustful "; especially, we might say, the gluttons of the conservation subtype, so much like the social E8s, with their cultivation of complicity. Finally, the word that best defines the   fixation of the enneatype Seven is self-indulgence, closely linked to permissiveness with fraud and cheating, especially typical of conservation Seven:

A fundamental trait of E7 is permissiveness or indulgence, which I take to be the essence of gluttony. And since this self-indulgence would be impossible with the imposition of the superego or by submitting to authority, this character is rebellious, though sometimes in a soft or diplomatic way." It is curious that self-indulgence is described by some sources as a feeling of pity towards oneself in the face of situations that are perceived as adverse.

“I wanted to be, deep down, a victim of the situation and overcompensated by seeing myself as deserving of condolences. Psychoanalysis understands self-indulgence as a hyper-cathartic reaction that causes pleasure and pain and is related to the search for personal comfort. Also, not surprisingly, the Sufi master Hastat Inayat Khan says that self-indulgence is the cause of all life's complaints.”

Self-indulgence in the conservative instinct

The key to self-indulgence as a fixation on the E7 conservation is in the attitude towards life that what I need-actually, rather than "what I want" is “I take it because I deserve it, since I am leaving a situation of handicap that I must compensate for, even if it is by cheating", or "that I will be able to compensate thanks precisely to the cheats that I have learned, since I am intelligent. This implies not taking things head-on, but usually with subterfuges or tricks. And it implies associations with accomplices, whom he will in turn treat with indulgence. In this way, in this subtype the mixture of self-indulgence, permissiveness, fraudulence, implication and materialism makes the typical hedonism of the Seven stronger here than in any other character.

Self-indulgence gives E7s the necessary reinforcement in feeling entitled to gratification. Something very much in relation to the playboy/playgirl orientation towards life, especially the Seven's own conservation, as well as the exaggerated sense that all is well, that the individual develops as a protection of hedonism against pain and frustration: an optimistic attitude that not only makes him and others okay, but it makes the world a good place to live.

All this, mixed with the typical vision of a Seven of a world where there is no good and evil, no guilt, no obligations, no duties, no need to make any effort, and where just enjoying is enough, generates a predatory attitude that borders on in lust If the conservation E7 does not allow everything, absolutely everything, as the E8 does, it may be because his narcissism stops him (it is important for him to "look good"), his unconscious fear of being punished and their "family" ties. The permissiveness and self-indulgence of gluttons are inseparable from the avoidance of suffering and the hedonist orientation is typical of this character.

 For the self-indulgent nothing is totally forbidden, because there is in him the belief that authority is bad and that whoever is smart does what he wants. He also feels entitled to how talented he is [entitlement] and a deep conviction that personal charm is the best way to succeed." In direct relation to self-indulgence, descriptors such as manipulation, fraudulence and lying in the context of scheming behavior, greed (in good guise), cunning, eloquence (charlatanism) disguised as good reasons or justifications, warmth in treatment and expression, seduction through intellect, cynicism and sense of humor, and rebellion and lack of discipline.

Manipulative, fraudulent liar

Lying is an attitude at the service of self-indulgence. Lying and believing one's own lies (or pretending to believe them, depending on the degree of cynicism) finds its justification in lofty goals, helping others, saving their own, achieving social rights to satisfy unavoidable needs. Being an interesting storyteller, a rogue, a storyteller in the most political sense of the term, serves to convince others, to obtain allies and supporters, whom he persuades that if they support him, he will achieve the best for them. Thus, the E7 conservation achieves the benefits it seeks, not in terms of its needs or desires, but also by graffing its narcissism. The following joke illustrates this well:

-Good evening. I'm here because I read in the paper that you want to sell a talking dog, and since I own a circus, I'm very interested in it. Can I check if the dog speaks?

- Sure, ask him.

- Let's see, dog, can you talk?

-Well of course! And also throwing knives blindfolded while pedaling a tricycle on a tightrope.

- But this is amazing! This dog is mine! With him, my circus will become famous. Tell me, how come you want to sell it?

-Oops, he's a bit of a liar...

The conservation one is, more than any other Seven, a fox who doesn't bother too much to hide his tail behind his sheep costume. That foxy passion for hiding is more present in the sibylline social E7, according to Naranjo, who describes the conservation E7 more like a bear in the way that the Disney studios interpret the bear Baloo from The Jungle Book, that is, like a cheater. Another way of looking at it is to remember that a mythomaniac lurks in every Seven, and especially in the conservation one, due to its usual lack of moral restraints and its defiance of established morality. (In other words: he usually cares little about the opinion of those who don't care about him at all, that is, the majority of the population.) Mythomania or fantastic pseudology is described by psychiatrists as a compulsive behavior in which:

1) the lies are not entirely improbable or delusional,

2) the tendency to lie is consistent, a personality trait,

3) the ultimate motive for lying is internal, clinically discernible,

4) stories told tend to present the liar favorably.

All this, very compatible with the character described here. The tendency to manipulate and greed, especially pronounced in E7 conservation, widen the gap between private interests and those of the community. The aspect that this opportunist usually takes as a social disguise is that of the connaisseur, the wise adviser: talented, intuitive, ingenious, creative, tolerant, scathingly critical, friendly... but often hypocritical. He has the conviction that his interlocutor is going to believe him, he is going to let himself be deceived. He believes that his intellectual seduction is of a superior quality and that the other will be happy with his proposals, even hiding from himself the fraudulence of acting above all for his own benefit. While he fascinates with his flowery words, his plan is to end up charging him, just as the Pied Piper of Hamelin managed to seduce first the rats and then the children, whom he only freed when the town paid him for his services.

Evidence of fraudulence

With its tendency to merge into the blood ties of the Mother universe, the E7 conservation becomes prey to moral relativism that induces fraudulence. Does not respect the limits of the Law (the father), neither in personal relationships nor, often, in social and professional ones. The fraudulent uses of the Seven Conservation cover a wide range of cases and things: from the great scams and pyramid schemes (Bernie Madoff, the greatest swindler in history, is a firm candidate to belong to this character) or the journalistic falsehoods of the 19th century French journalist Léo Taxil (who unleashed panic on the Côte d'Azur by inventing a massive sighting of white donkeys), to scam on a small scale or even, and more common, emotional fraud to the couple or the family. Here are some testimonies of it.

 “I recognize in myself a special vision to take advantage of any situation, along with a very large internal penalty for doing so. Between that and the fact that for me it is something natural, it has not been easy for me to qualify these acts of opportunism, much less see them as something fraudulent. A scene. I remember an occasion, when I was twelve or thirteen years old, a very important football match in my city.

It occurred to me to buy a ticket well in advance and then resell it on game day, when there were no more left, and make a profit. I had no money for the investment, so I convinced my sisters to borrow an amount that my parents had given them to buy some clothes. I bought it according to my plan and on the day of the game I left about two hours before to the area surrounding the stadium in order to complete my business.

My surprise was that there were no people buying tickets and that they were still at the box office.

I offered it to some who came but there was no way. A guy, in his sixties to seventies, at least, came up to me and started talking to me and asking me what I wanted. I told him a story that I had to sell the ticket, that I needed the money and I don't know what else... The man had a lot of fun with me, and although he already had his ticket, he offered to buy it for me if I stayed with him and instead of watching the match, he invited me for a drink. I knew immediately what he was up to, of course.

He was convincing me for a while and I was playing hard to get, even though I was clear from the beginning what I was going to do.

When I was finally sure that he was convinced that he had persuaded and deceived me, I agreed. I gave him the ticket, he gave me the money and I ran like hell. I didn't stop until I got home. At least I had recovered the loan my sisters gave me. I would like to boast of having outwitted this damned pedophile, to say that I took advantage of the situation, that I was smarter, but now I only think about the terrible risk I took, how I exposed myself, the fear that remained in me. the body for a long time and in the obsession to get out of this set, almost at any price. .” (ORI)

“Opportunism was so well seen, taught and applauded at home, so mixed with business, that it is almost impossible to see it as negative, but as "ready", "savvy", "alive... and whoever does not do it is that belongs to the subgroup of the fools of this world. Life is to see the opportunities that exist and take advantage of them; you also have to get there first and brag about it. I used to be involved with auto shops and insurance companies. If a window on my car broke, instead of putting it back on, I took it to a well-known workshop, where the mechanic, another opportunistic friend of the family, used it for me.

With the money that the company assigned me for the new glass, they fixed a blow that I had accidentally given in the parking lot. Even sometimes, if the expert was a friend of the mechanic, they would pay me for a glass without having broken it, and with that money I had for other repairs that the car needed, and that way we all won... These scams required me to put a lot of energy and time into calls, visits, manipulation, seduction and forced smiles in a world of men.

 It has not been easy to make myself aware of what I was losing by being in constant alertness and tension to take advantage and not look like a fool. Now I see how this behavior is also covering up a feeling of lack, misery, of not deserving.” (CONCHA)

“When I was fifteen, during the summer, I worked on the terrace of a bar. The work was hard and poorly paid, and the owner was the typical cheapskate and exploitative merchant with double chins. Once, a friend of my sister, who was also a bartender in another bar, asked me how much money I earned during the weekend, including tips.

 I answered a figure much higher than the one that he used to collect. "I don't believe it," he said. You can't possibly win so much." "Yes, I can," I replied. "And how do you do it?" “Very easy”, I proudly put "I stop checking the box one out of ten orders. Neither the waiter nor my sister could believe what they had just heard. "Are you stealing?" "Well, I wouldn't call it that," I replied. What I am doing is charging me the surplus value.

They looked at each other and gave me a speech that managed to embarrass me: «If you are not happy with what you charge, dare to tell Mr. X. [the owner of the bar] to increase your floor. But don't steal!" We all knew that Mr. X. would never raise my salary, so the recommendation was not - let's say it with the cynicism of character - very practical. However, what I took away from there was not a moral lesson or a sudden regret at the realization of an immoral action, but the double feeling that: a) it had been stupid to show off stealing, and b) I began to consider Strange that it was cowardice not to dare, not to tell Mr. X. that his conditions seemed unfair to me, but to set fire to the bar with Mr. X. and all his customers inside.”  (ANONYMOUS)

“When I was nine years old, I was at a friend's house and I saw a coin on the ground. I took it, hid it and took it with me. It was a lot of money for me. I hid that coin in a safe place, outside my house, and I bought sweets little by little, so that no one would notice my first theft. I was not bothered by any feeling of guilt, because that companion of mine was violent and deserved to be robbed. Although I am an opportunist, I achieve my goals in a predominantly stealthy and covert manner. That way, I don't expose my needs and interests (which I see as a disgusting display of lack) and I don't end up owing people favors.” (ALEXANDRE)

Second-rate narcissist

Whether with hoaxes, exaggerations or inventions, their frauds have a goal that is not only exploitative, but also narcissistic. Whoever goes to dinner with a conservative Seven at a trendy restaurant is liable to hear things like: «Pierre was telling me the other day... Or Ferran, or Gastón.

But, beyond his megalomaniacal exaggerations, his illusions of success and greatness corresponding to the manic phases, this character certainly shows a special ability to rub shoulders with important people, with VIPs, whom he intellectually seduces, placing himself in a comfortable background next to them, thanks to which he shines through others and usually achieves fortune and influence without exposing himself and thus freeing himself from the sevices and responsibilities that fame or power entails, or from the inconveniences of being in first line. When he boasts of his contacts at the highest level, he also does so with feigned humility, making clear his ability to influence with the subtlety with which a lady would drop a handkerchief.

His style is generous, generous. He presents himself as a refined being that he had never broken a plate: «When describing a character from this type among his characters, Elías Canetti observes that "he doesn't even let them offer him a cup of coffee".

“When it comes to business, I try to avoid it. To negotiate, I would have to expose myself and, if the deal was good for me and bad for the other person, I can be accused of free riding and bad character. If the business was bad for me and good for the other person, I keep the mask of an idiot. In short, the concern with the opinion and reaction of people end up inhibiting me in business. I am good at business when I’m in the dark, when I don't need to expose myself.” (ALEXANDRE)

In 27 characters in search of being, Naranjo describes a character (this time real) quite similar to the pharmacist Homais from Madame Bovary. A friend of mine was a dentist for part of his life. He seemed like a kind, friendly, talkative person. Some of them really like the dental profession because they keep each other's mouths closed all the time, and so they can talk and talk as much as they want.

Surely you will have met very talkative dentists. It may be that they do not realize; unconsciousness plays tricks. And it's typical of the Conservation Seven who like to do something with their hands, something useful for others. They are practical. Talking and talking, the conservation Seven soon discovers the other person's weaknesses. “I see that you bought a new car, how is it going?» says the dentist. "Well, it's an excellent car, I'm very happy with it," replies the patient, “but unfortunately I have to sell it." “Ah, well - take advantage of the dentist, then I will buy it from you!".

It seems that with the Conservation Seven there is no conversation that does not lead to a deal. He does instant business because his mind is so alert to opportunity that he never lets it pass. His position is that of one who thinks that if you are not alert, if you do not keep your nose in the wind to catch opportunities, you will be a loser.

Somehow, the conservation enneatype Seven will manage to actively and passively remind you that he is a genius, a wise man, the best adviser, and that you belong to a lower category of human beings: those who would pay for it. for leading the life he leads, for being so nice, charismatic, suggestive and having such a gift for people; that of those who must be guided by intelligent people. Added to this is the fact that, certainly, the E7 conservation tend to have aptitudes for complex thinking and a good nose for opportunities. And that, in itself, is not a problem.

It can be said that the problem is, precisely, to be a free rider, not to live or enjoy the moment without more, but to be too thirsty and act as if there is a danger of losing the opportunity, relying on the distorted idea that it is better not to lose the opportunity, because nobody knows what tomorrow will be like; and thus, moreover, he forgives himself for his selfishness

The Conservation Seven needs, in short, to distance himself from anyone who is not part of his “tribe” and to place himself above him, something that often earns him the silent enmity of anyone who is likely to feel despised.

Cunningness

Do not forget that the E7 is a crook (and even more so, the conservatio nal), a rogue. He has a lot of charmer or, as the Argentines would say, blackmail (it is said, in the Río de la Plata, of someone who "has little disposition to do something that requires effort or constitutes an obligation, especially work"; or of the one who presumes of having something, especially an ability, knowledge, or power, that he does not actually possess). All this, very typical of this markedly speculative character. The distorted conviction underlying this attitude is: If I help you, I can ask you for a favor when I need it.

And it is that the Seven conservation is presented as the one who knows, the one who thinks, and his cunning is usually as valued as admired by the unsuspecting. Cunning is also related to their ability to distract the other from their true intentions or misdeeds. With cunning and seduction, he manages to obtain the forgiveness and approval of others, and he takes pleasure in his achievements, mistaking cunning for intelligence. Making the other fall into his nets gives him back a narcissistic assessment of himself; he is not interested in knowing the real feeling of the other; his constant search is the feeling of satisfaction resulting from his own abilities.

Paternalistic 

By adopting a paternal role, he places himself in a position of power and pre-eminence within the clan or the relational network of which he is a part; feel important and belonging. By overriding paternal authority, with the implicit or explicit support of the mother, he imbues himself with such authority (this applies to both men and women): I take care of mother because if she is ill, I am ill. In this way, the ontic insecurity is removed and the anguish due to the lack of a father, physically or emotionally absent, is avoided, substituting it with a narcissistic self-ideal.

“I remember the negotiation with the company that bought the apartment building where I lived. They were trying to cancel our rental contracts with minimum indemnities and soon I was at the forefront of the negotiation against the unfair speculators. In the end, we got some good things: neighbors of decades were able to live under the same conditions, others were compensated... Needless to say, I got everything I asked for and the company was kind enough to keep me happy so I wouldn't make things difficult for them. , because I used my ability at the head of the group to rise up as a voice obstructing their plans. In the end, we all win, yes, but... from which part I was? From the company? From the neighbors? From mine, to be honest.”  (DAVID)

 The self-concept can be, then, that of someone who feels like a warm and disinterested benefactor of their own (and even of society), in the event that the person is short of conscience. Although rather mixed feelings will coexist, where the self-image of the protector will coexist with a certain resentment more or less aware of feeling "bad", selfish, unclear in their relational gossip.

And perhaps it is not bad that it is so. Although this awareness of not being so good often leads the Conservation Seven to justify himself by thinking that the world is a battle in which one must be strong, that it is full of wolves and that it is better to be smarter than others to survive, the truth is that this awareness of being little altruistic in their behavior can help them grow.

One of the consequences of this lack of altruism is their difficulty in real listening. He can be a good adviser but with him, just looking for a share, to vent or to be heard can be difficult. "That's not a big deal or what you should do is..." are common responses. Basically, this tendency hides a will to shape the thought and the will of the other so that it goes well for him (me), something that refers again to utilitarianism and self-satisfaction. Again, the other does not exist by itself, but based on my own needs or desires. There is a wound in the capacity to trust, so that one tries not so much to control the other but directly to manipulate him.

The world is (also) a dangerous place

 The fight of the Seven - a «rebel without a cause to «be well, that everything be well» is a low intensity war, made not only of frauds and lies, but also of ambiguity in the discourse, elusive solutions and, to the extent If possible, avoidance of direct confrontation (although this is the most confrontational of the E7).

It is a fight against any form of authority, since there is the (not entirely) irrational belief that authority, in any of its forms, is the enemy of their greedy intentions and their hedonistic orientation, which they interpret as control and a crushing of his freedom. In the specific case of the Conservation Seven, this conviction that the world (or, rather, the social order with the powerful at the forefront) is a hostile place in which it is better to take care of saving one's skin, has a lot to do with their childlike sense of threat to conservation. Facing such a state of things, "the world belongs to the smart ones", he usually thinks, and "works" as much as can to take advantage of the cracks of the System in his favor.

This means that the individual with this character sees his accommodative tendency reinforced, behaving more like a 19th-century rabble-rouser than a 20th-century hippy. They are rebels, yes, but also, and especially, there tend to be among their ranks comfortable individuals who live parasitically from the system, speculators, tax fraudsters, freeloaders of all kinds, swindlers, shellers, hedonists and gourmets, journalists, court counselors. , public relations and propagandists, this being a character closely related to the light attitude and the typical intellectual superficiality of our time.

We are talking about great manipulators, capable of diffusing any conflict around them thanks to their friendliness and affability, their indulgence and well-structured exculpatory justifications, in which the euphemization mechanism plays a preponderant role.

Alejandro Napolitano says that in enneagram seven, particularly in the conservation subtype, a surprising psychological procedure called euphemization takes place, through which the harsh is softened and the tremendous is trivialized, innocuous and superficial. Naming descents to what a fall is, for example, is a euphemism that removes drama and intensity from an event, preventing full contact with what it is. The fear subjected to this damping and liquefaction operation may be expressed as disqualification because anguish is euphemized as contempt and mockery. A testimonial illustrates this with a professional example:

“Euphemization occurs a lot in the diplomatic field. I left my defensive activity focused on conflicts and began to specialize in the respectful, delicate and considered attacks that are established in the international human rights organizations. Although the issues discussed in these spaces involve fundamental rights, that is, very serious violations of human beings, the debates are addressed in a climate of cordiality and comfort, very convenient for E7 conservation.” (ALEXANDRE)

Also, in this sense, his cultivated loquacity (in association with his chattering), full of "good reasons", plays a role. In the latter, the typical defense mechanism of the E7, rationalization, plays a fundamental role. that supposes attributing to one's own acts a motivation that is different and admirable or more acceptable than the real one; essentially, the denial of the greedy and exploitative part of the person, while a generous, generous and helpful style is strikingly displayed.

Cynicism

In E7 there is a refusal to realize the harshness of life or the difficulty inherent in a situation, by way of numbing the annoying reality with large doses of narcissistic and naïve idealism. However, in Transformative Self-Knowledge, the Seven's position is defined as that of "idealistic opportunism," although the conservative variety is accused of more pseudo-idealism.

The pathological optimism of the enneagram Seven, capable of “turning shit into Chantilly”, acquires in the case of E7 conservation a dimension of fake sales pitch. We could even label him irredeemably anti-idealistic, not at all naive: a despiser and demystifier, capable of being very cynical and hurtful. And, of course, he does not believe anything and does not believe in anything; to the point that, in his case, idealism would even be healing.

Still, the E7 conservation is anti-idealistic only up to a point. His idealism, which he also has, manifests itself, yes, in a peculiar way. In his case, the ideal is not so much a utopian horizon as the futurism of a pragmatic "visionary." An anti Conventionalism about customs or ideas that has a practical, applicable background; a look beyond with the arrogance of a disobedient Prometheus.

But be that as it may, whether the opportunistic or the idealistic aspect stands out, the concealment of one's own interests behind some form of camaraderie reminds [the defense mechanism of] reaction formation, as occurs in Molière's Tartuffe, which is a parasite disguised as a saint."

Strategy and looting oriented

 It can be difficult to talk about interpersonal strategy in the E7 conservation when the strategy is a constant in the life of this, more than a planner, a plotter, who exceeds the limits of his knowledge with charlatanism, and whose expressive ability and lack of moral limits they make him a very effective persuader and manipulator of words. If planning is so present in all Seven encatypes (what wonderful things await me?, «how do I convince others to come with me there?»), the specific form of planning of the E7 conservation has to do especially with strategy, persuasion, deception, or the need to see oneself as smarter than others. If you're smart enough you'll get what you want, which seems like the crazy idea in the background.

 In the case of conservation, this anti-conventionalism acquires markedly strategic overtones: The strategic vision is highly developed, as in La Fontaine's fox, with its detours to achieve the goal, and the lack of altruism is sometimes flagrant (except with their own).

Associated irrational ideas (crazy ideas)

 Here is a list of phrases that a conservation Seven might say to himself. It must be remembered that these “crazy ideas” are beliefs and convictions that represent nuances of the distorted cognitive core of self-indulgence, and by describing them we can have a broader vision of the way of interpreting the experiences of this subtype. This is not an exhaustive description, but the proposals of a working group made up of members of this nature. Finally, it should be remembered that in the E7 conservation there are profound differences between men and women:

“Above all, when it comes to hedonism, I think that, for cultural reasons, we have been criticized for what man has been extolled. The criticism is not only from outside; there is a self-criticism hand in hand with the search and the encounter of pleasure versus love. In my case it is something very internal, there has been a constant question: «How can I be happy in a world full of calamities? And above all, when my mother is sick, what right do I have to make her happy?». Somehow, my crazy ideas are always well thought out to look good even if I do what I want.” (MARÍA MARTA)

• "If I'm honest, I'll miss out," .
• "No one can be trusted", and
• "That’s why I have to take care of everything",
• "If I play my cards right, I won't be in need and I'll have everything I need"
• "If I act well, I can fool them all”
• “My own are not capable of taking care of their affairs, I have to take care of them and save them from themselves”,
• “Before giving to others, I think about what I get in return”,
• “I do you favors and you do me favors”,
• “If you do not get involved in my business, you do not love me”,
• ”Blood ties are stronger than anything”
• “I know the truth and I must convince them to stop being blind”,
• “I can share my small doubts with others, but the big decisions I must make alone”,
• “For every problem there is at least one solution”,
• “I only believe in what I see”, it is better and faster to do things alone”,
• “I can't have patience with the dumb or the slow."
• “The world is too big and interesting to focus your attention on one thing or one person”,
• “Trust is like a crystal glass; when it breaks, no there is how to glue the pieces”,
• “Commitment is a prison for pleasure”,
• "You must have friends, even in hell”,
• “Give meaning to life does not have a clear meaning, so my own life would be a fiction”,
• “Nothing matters too much, everything is relative”,
• “We all have a price”
• “If I choose I lose opportunities, If I leave it to the last minute, a better option can always appear, one that benefits me more”,
• “It is best to get the exquisite when it is on sale”,
• “If I commit, I am not free”,
• "If I make people feel good, I win them over", “
• “I don't want to miss anything that I feel like a delicacy", and
• “I can handle everything".

CHAPTER 4; CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS AND OTHER PSYCHODYNAMICS

Bon Vivant

As an expression of a life dedicated to hedonism, this character has the facility to feel good and to feel that everything is fine, to seek pleasant terrain for himself and for others. His image is usually neat, elitist, friendly, in polite ways, with which he reinforces the power of his seduction. He likes to drag others into what he considers the good life: he wants them to have fun with him. This is the nicest aspect of your handling, as well as a way to keep the image narcissistic.

Ironic, cynical and sarcastic

 The conservation E7 usually has a great sense of humor; have fun and have fun. He laughs happily about almost everything; when it comes to laughter, nothing is sacred. The problem is that the sense of humor is put at the service of contempt for the interlocutor, with what is put above, in a clear display of narcissism.

He is irreverent, arrogant, mentally aggressive, and in this way he expresses his rage, almost as an alternative to physical aggression, since he does not allow it. He is able to put his finger on the sore spot with every word. He also knows how to laugh at himself, thus distancing himself from his true emotions.

But above all, he is not afraid of others, which prevents him from taking them seriously. Etymologically, 'irony' has to do with dissimulating and playing dumb; 'cinismo mo', with behaving like a dog; 'sarcasm', with cutting or biting a piece of meat. All this refers to a disguised sadistic behavior and a tendency to mistreat trying to appear cordial.

Self-indulgent 

The mantra of a conservation Seven might be: "First of all, avoid being uncomfortable." There is in this an anesthetic behavior in the face of suffering, a need to disconnect from the harshness of life in order to maintain the fiction that the “childhood paradise” has not been lost. He despises suffering as a thing for “unintelligent” people and, deep down, underlies an enormous fear of returning to the deprived place of childhood, in which he experienced a strong sense of threat to conservation.

“My self-complacency is so great that I lose the ability to listen or see at times when an authority, or any person, is pointing to my mistake, my inadequacy. If criticism is launched indirectly, I am unable to understand it as directed. give to me It would affect me a lot to receive disapproval in public and, therefore, I assume an authoritarian and excellent role, which inhibits people from pointing out my defects. For this reason, sometimes criticism comes in a veiled, indirect way, but I am unable to understand that it is directed at me or at my behavior.” (ALEXANDRE)

Entitlement

As an extension of his narcissism, we can cite entitlement: a feeling of superiority rights because of his talent and personal charm. It's subtle: The attitude of the enneatype Seven in a love relationship is different from that of those who go through life important and assume a role of authority. In this case, it is a more subtle importance: it is not that he expects to be obeyed, but to be heard and recognized as a person who is in the know. The man may expect the woman to be his audience; the same happens with a father regarding his son. Correlative to the charlatan's need to be heard is, naturally, his inability to hear, although he may not be aware of this himself, since he offers great empathy through an attentive countenance."

Jealous

A fundamental polarity in this character, already pointed out in chapter 2, is the opposition between the greedy insatiability, in the foreground, and the fear of lack, which is denied.

“There is a rejection of the victim in me, and this leads me to the inability to listen to the other's complaint about something, someone, it doesn't have to be about me. The idea behind it is that the weak complain, those who do not know how to face reality, those who resist making this world a better place.”  (MARÍA MARTA)

Although it seems contradictory to the oral optimism of the Seven, the conservationist tends to compare himself and, therefore, to feel, unconsciously, envy. Who compares, suffers. And although, unlike E4, there is a strong tendency to overcompensation that turns envy into insatiability, the background sensation of lack and disadvantage is common, probably due to having felt excluded or disadvantaged in childhood, which explains the voracity in their relationships and the aggressiveness with which they take on the world. Feeling that his starting conditions are less advantageous, he tells myself that he needs more and more to catch up or win.

“As a child I suffered a lot from the comments of adults, because they told me I was ugly. Throughout my life, I evaluated people's happiness based on their physical attractiveness. I always imagined that an ugly person would have enormous difficulties, almost insurmountable, to enjoy joy and be happy. On the other hand, he already considered beautiful people happy and felt enormous envy towards them. However, when it came to men, I thought they might be handsome, but they didn't have the sensitivity that I possessed to offer women in a relationship.” (ALEXANDRE)

Excessive, aggressive

This measurement and comparison causes stress and anguish and is a source of compulsive behavior and all kinds of excesses. «Just as the miser does not want to part with something that he feels is precisely scarce, the greedy person distracts himself in abundance: faced with the fear of lack. Excessiveness is the door to dispersion and, therefore, an inexhaustible source of problems for this character.

The greater the gluttony, the greater the orientation to compare and the greater the contact with the feeling of insatiability, thus creating a feedback loop that lays the groundwork for the usual manic co-depressive phases that this character usually goes through.

It is usual for the E7 to retain a certain degree of aggressiveness and a tendency to possessiveness, seizure and even looting, which sometimes leads to confusion with the E8 character. They are tendencies related to their disposition: narcissism and impulsiveness, acting before reflecting, risking everything to an art and, in general, a counterphobic attitude, even psychopathic.

Utilitarian and strategist

A good friend of the powerful, an effective propagandist, a highly perceptive planner and strategist, the Conservation Seven usually surrounds himself with people with the ability not only to help him, but to make him prosper and carry out his projects and ideas. His utilitarianism occurs in personal accounts, and could be defined as a feeling that friendship is only worth cultivating if the friend is useful to his plans or interests, or if he finds it suggestive enough.

 He usually deals with information, and uses strategies and tactics to position himself comfortably. Look for ways to get what you want without asking directly and, above all, without counting on others. And he is accustomed to making his responsibilities lighter by allowing others to deal with them, charging them to them, in order to reach pleasure earlier.

Impatience, boredom

He suffers predisposition and intolerance to boredom, allergy to everyday life and routines. You need constant stimuli and new or extraordinary experiences, to the detriment of feeling pleasure in everyday life. As background, a difficulty to connect with the emotion that causes a feeling of dryness in life.

Obligation and responsibility, predisposed to flight or abandonment, no: there is a desire to return to pleasure and freedom as soon as possible. It is also difficult for him to contact the slowness, that is, with the natural flow of life, which is constantly forced, accelerated by the planning ego, so as not to contact what is there, so as not to feel. Difficulty sustaining frustration and giving space to emotions, immediacy and constantly accelerating walking (antagonistic to the harmony of natural rhythms) are tools to avoid coming into contact with anguish and other unpleasant emotions.

Insubordinate and rebellious

The feeling is that accepting limits creates suffering. The authority has to demonstrate its reasons or logic, so it ceases to be an authority: internally, the E7 conservation underestimates and disqualifies it, despising and disobeying it. There is a fundamental distortion: "Accepting the authority of others limits my personal autonomy."

He has a narcissistic taste in presenting himself as a rebel, while avoiding direct confrontation with authority, to that dodges or seduces, thus avoiding the consequences that entails would contradict her.

Indiscipline and procrastination are inextricably linked to insubordination and rebellion. As a background, the invalidation of the father in childhood is the engine of the invalidation of all other authority, always identified as repressive or imposing. The limited capacity for self-criticism further contributes to this scenario: there is difficulty in repenting, as well as little tolerance for criticism from others. All this, reinforced by its aggressive mentality and its tendency to be elusive.

Egotistic and individualistic

The absolute priority is to satisfy one's own desires, with the feeling that others have to adapt to their times and needs. In the Conservation Seven, narcissism has a lot to do with objectifying others.

 There is a difficulty in seeing the wife as an entity separate from her own ends of exchange, especially the couple as another separate from her interests and desires. The rest of the people, those who do not belong to their own circle of trust, can be seen as a limit or a hindrance to their plans (or, simply, they are not seen).

The inner feeling is that of a need for self-preservation. The crazy idea that I can “handle everything, I don't need anyone” contributes to this scenario. And as background, search for immediate pleasure without assessing the consequences for those around him. There is also the crazy idea that giving oneself emotionally makes one gregarious and makes one lose independence, as well as stop being "special" or "unique."

Prone to corruption

Not even for some representatives of this character does this descriptor sound too strong, we can subject the term 'corruption' to a process of euphemization (typical of this character) and go on to call "the tendency to take legal shortcuts" or to interpret the laws as indicative instead of to respect its mandatory compliance. Underlies the light attitude towards life typical of all E7, and especially the conservation ones.

If one does not believe in anything, if one implicitly thinks that the authority is useless, that the system is corrupt, then one must do what is best for oneself. And with a lot of people like that, it's impossible for the community to function. When Socrates was offered to flee, he preferred to give his life as an example of support for the ideal of democracy, to strengthen faith in the idea that the people can govern themselves; that, even if he is wrong, one can in principle arrive at a system in which wisdom prevails. How far we are today from that attitude!

What would have done, instead of Socrates, a conservation E7?

Fraudulent and charlatan

This character uses any available resource to achieve an end, both words and actions. Some of the most used resources are lying, stealing, confusing others, cheating, intriguing others…

He has his own morality where benefits are imposed on acts or, in other words, he does not pay attention to the means to achieve certain goals. purposes. For this, there must be a high degree of self-indulgence, own laws, personal interpretations of good and evil; and, as they are laws of their own, they can change so as not to sustain states of guilt, to adapt to each moment according to the greedy need that arises. Added to this is his great ability to arrogate merits that do not correspond to him, a strong desire for protagonism and a frequent imposition, mythomania and fantastic pseudology, especially in the intellectual field.

The Conservation Seven has become an expert at getting what he wants without asking for it. His basic conception is that things are not achieved by asking for them: either they take them or they cheat or speculate to obtain them. You believe that asking puts you in a vulnerable position and brings you closer to pain and frustration. There is in it, again, a disregard of the other. The childhood experience of loneliness, isolation, abandonment and survival contributes to promoting this scenario.

Schizoid austerity vs. seductive waste

At times, the E7 conservation shows a simplicity bordering on the greed of the E5. It tends to have a great deal of control over the economy and go, as well as a constant calculation of costs and benefits. He attaches great importance to money, and feels dizzy when he sees himself in financial trouble. But his difficulty in spending is tempered by a great facility to invest, to do "business' ', sometimes a hint of megalomania. His practical sense permeates everything: he does not want to complicate his life and tries to avoid everything that could be a source of displeasure. In the background, there is a great ski fear mile to deprivation.

On the other hand, everything said is invalidated when, in his manic state, he pursues his objects of desire. Then he can be foully wasteful, throw the house out the window', commit... Nothing will be enough until he reaches the object of his gluttony. Again, this behavior has a lot to do with his bipolar tendency.

Dryness

The intense mental life causes a physical disembodiment and a semiotic embodiment, bodily and emotional dissociation where life is confused with words and speeches. Impervious to pain makes you less permeable to emotions. There is a great fear of vulnerability that deprives you of being receptive. In the background of so much excitement and noise of thoughts and words, there is a frozen emotional world and the experience of a nuclear coldness. In the background, we find the schizoid origin of this character. At the same time, the difficulty with admiring love, with the spontaneous wonder at creation, complicates this panorama. Consequently, his attitude is more openly pseudo-social or even antisocial than in the other subtypes of Seven.

Sometimes he devotes himself to work to the point of becoming a worker, all based on his manic or depressive mood. After moments of excessive workload, usually getting sick or going into periods of depression or nervous breakdown. It is very difficult for him to trust the relationship, and it usually takes a long time to establish deep bonds (when they are allowed), which can quickly mutate a couple relationship from one first phase of strong seduction to another of great emotional dryness, testing the patience of the other or another.

Untrustful and skeptical

He feels distrust in the flow of life. He questions everything and has a certain degree of anger with life, little manifested. Basically, it underlies the difficulty of character for devotional love and recognizing the other. Similar to the E1 in the feeling that being smoke-not trustworthy, that people are imperfect, but without taking the trouble to try to correct others, E7 conservation isolates itself from the world in its particular garden: that of the "family" or the feeling of involvement with a network to link, as a defense against a life that it understands as chaos and that reinforces its idea that pleasure and non-stop are the only possible escape routes.

In addition, in someone who is a profiteer and lacks a broad sense of community, it is logical that there is mistrust. He thinks that everyone acts like him and that, since there is no law that is worth it, everyone will act with the same contempt for the rules. When he leaves aside for a moment his manic tendency to worldly pleasures, a nihilistic background appears: The narcis-sist balloon is deflated, the schizoid background becomes clear and disbelief and basic distrust of life appears even more strongly.

Stubborn and earthly

Beyond the tendency of all Siere to procrastinate, that of conservation often demonstrates tenacity in overcoming obstacles and standing up to adversity based on nerve, will and fury.  Sub- Nate an irrational idea: «I can handle everything».

He has an obsession with being efficient, with obtaining the maximum rewards with minimal effort. His mental agility helps him in this and his capacity for strategy.  

Combat is split halfway between mental activity and physical action.  He likes to feel that he is in control of the situation, which not only reinforces his narcissism, but it also helps to drain the anguish.

His tenacity can lead to disconnection from the body and its emotional needs, in addition, is the most realistic variety of the E7, with a great predisposition towards skepticism, the material and the earthly fruit of self-preservation.  All this, in relation to its utilitarianism and advantage in social relations. He doesn't behave like an idealist, but rather as someone disappointed with the ideals, a pseudo-idealist or even an anti-idealist.  He believes that by organizing himself well he will be able to avoid the return of deficient states experienced in his childhood, and with this he tries to annul the feeling of threat to conservation.

CHAPTER 5; EMOTIONALITY AND FANTASY

The E7 is a mental character, that is, a personality that breaks free from pain by separating emotional and instinctive experience from cognitive elaboration. Avoiding contact with the emotions and repressing his natural instinct, he relies on the ability to understand intellectually. This entails a freezing of emotions and an impulsive instinctive life and not connected with deep pleasure, while the intellectual part is reduced to an Instrumental and strategic mind.

With regard to the conservation subtype, we can say that the only emotional window that it keeps open is that of rage, which it sometimes expresses affirmatively and directly, but which usually transforms into cynicism or indirect aggressiveness, channeled by contemptuous irony, and above all placed at the service of a strong personality of his own and of the need for the material.

This is a greedy character and he feels lacking when he cannot satisfy his desires, which, we insist, he confuses with needs. Someone disconnected from their emotions is not nourished by anything, nothing fills them enough. The E7 is, deep down, frustrated, chronically dissatisfied. The conservation Seven wants everything, but at the same time he is not sure that he wants something too badly, because in a way nothing interests him enough.

“On the one hand, I look for emotional intensity, but when it's there, I get scared and back off and play with a sense of madness. Like when you get too close to the paper to read something and the letters blur and the eye makes strange. Well, like this. And that's how I use imagination and fantasy too: I start explaining the world with metaphors. My fall into the shadows was when I began to see how life told me and the difference with what was happening... and my difficulty in knowing what was happening to me. I have an easy time seeing where the rest is going; I think I have a good sense of smell (I insist on «believing») and I anticipate. And in this getting ahead of myself I don't realize what is happening to me and what I am feeling.” (MONICA)

On the one hand, anguish and emptiness impel him to form bonds of superficial attachment, an association of mutual interests rather than a relationship founded on love or friendship. A link based on utilitarian expectations rather than respect or altruism. On the other hand, their insatiability and their difficulties in staying and committing often show up when there is an opportunity for a deeper bond, such as with a partner, who may not be slow to complain about the lack of transparency and lack of communication typical of a conservational E7 in intimacy, in addition to the lack of trust, tenderness and even affection that could be experienced with someone who is accustomed to «going their own way», to function autonomously, radically independent , clever individual, who constantly seeks novelty and conquest, with a selfish background halfway between the easygoing and the misanthropic, and who needs a lot of time to "verify" that the love they offer her is "real" and surrender.

Pain is an emotion that the E7 conservation harshly represses. Let us remember that gluttony is, more than a search for pleasure, an effort not to suffer. It is for this that the emotional consciousness becomes superficial, that one avoids seeing things as they are, that reality is disguised in convenient colors, that one deceives oneself..

The passion of gluttony -a receptive orality intensified to the point of becoming a predatory or parasitic will- constitutes a thirst for pleasure (or an avoidance of frustration) with which the individual tries to recover the lost paradise of the true freedom of his natural impulses. And he will suffer an E7 from the consequences of this mistake when, over the years, he realizes that the pursuit of pleasure, comfort and advantage has distracted him from finding and living his own life.

Being well, and even love, is confused with physical and economic well-being. But, can one "be well" without integrating emotions, leaving aside what makes us suffer? The operation of E7 Conservation consists of getting away from everything that bothers it, which translates into an avoidance of interiority.

“I have a lot of hidden pain. Now that I am allowing myself to feel it, a lot of sadness and crying comes out. It relieves me to let myself feel the sadness. Crying helps me soften, to connect with the emotion, with the feeling, to open my heart, to be able to be with me, to be able to accompany me... I also feel loneliness, a historical loneliness; lack of clonal emo, of support, of support. Of all these emotions I am aware of now. They were covered. There was an idea of ​​a happy life and peterpanism: enthusiasm, parties, plans, dinners, trips... to escape and not contact those feelings.” (ANONYMOUS)

 As a counterpart to this avoidance, somatizations, stress and anxiety, intestinal and digestive problems are common (probable somatization of repressed emotions of fear, abandonment and lack), with E7 conservation being a character that oscillates contradictorily between rudeness and physical resistance in the manic phases, and a remarkable apprehension, especially in the depressive phases.

“Since I was little I have been taking medication to open my appetite. I have always somatized my nervous state in the digestive system, of tension, of fear. On one occasion I had a colonoscopy and the doctor told me that I had a tortuous colon, they call it, and that seeing the level of kink he must have had a high level of tension in my life... The neck is also an area where I have high tension and stiffness.” (ANONYMOUS)

“It may be that the typical digestive problems of this character come from not being able to assimilate those feelings that are denied. I have had diarrhea all my life, so much so that it seemed normal to me. Now less, because I am more aware of the food that makes me feel bad. I have also had a weak immune system, perhaps as a symptom of the inadequacy felt.” (MARÍA MARTA)

Anxiety and paranoia about one's own health are also not uncommon... And here is the best kept secret of a conservation Seven: he is a hypochondriac.

“I have had some other episodes in which I have entered places that I still cannot explain. When I was eleven years old I became paranoid that I was going to swallow my tongue. And, at night, I tested to see if it was possible to swallow it. It was hard for me to eat because I was afraid I would choke. The doctor blamed it on the growth spurt he had had that summer. At the time my parents were separating and I had more information than I could hold onto. And, curiously, when school started, I had mini-meetings with my friends to tell them that my parents were separating, but not to worry, that everything was fine. And I boasted that they had more to worry about than me. And here I see the disconnect between what was happening to me, which I was diverting into physical sensations, and what I was showing to the world. Today, when I start hypochondriacal episodes, I start to review what is happening to me to deviate towards physical illness.” (MONICA)

We are dealing with someone who only validates that "I'm fine, you're fine", and who strongly rejects both his own feelings of passion and the expression of discomfort of the other. But, at the same time, he also fails to fully enjoy himself, since constant alertness to prevent pain or discomfort ultimately acts as a kind of barrier against any other emotions.

“When I feel anger, sadness, etc., I don't validate it, with an internal discourse of the type: "I think it's not right for me to feel it because what's happening is not that bad." And between «it's not that big a deal» and «they're going to think I'm a brat», the emotion seized me. With these two sentences of the internal dialogue, I delve into control and image. Thus, when I manage to go beyond the internal dialogue and appropriate what I feel, if someone confronts me, I doubt again whether what I feel is real.” (MONICA)

Any claim of affective order will be understood as a lack of love, or even as a betrayal of his balance, his well-being, and he is extremely sensitive to feeling emotionally invaded.

“For me, intense emotionality is closely related to invasion, manipulation, lack of respect for my space, my needs, my emotions. I am learning to open myself up to feel and accept that fear and everything that moves me there.”  (ANONYMOUS)

The contact with fear is another emotion that the E7 retains but does not allow.

Fear is more thought than sense. The last time I felt fear was in a dream. The experience was so strong that I woke up scared, tearful, incredulously, and already half awake. I said to myself: «This is really scary, damn it!». I had a brutal realization, an awareness of how little fear let me live. I sometimes think: «You will not go through this again». That the boy that I was once said “You will not go through this again”. (NÉSTOR)

As a subtype of Seven, belonging to the head triad, this character builds his ego structure on an avoidant, fearful basis. According to Francesco Bonsante, the E7 is a personality that is formed as a defense against the fear of losing control. A fear covered by a more visible concern: the fear of abandonment. This is why, according to Bonsante, he tends to avoid the experience of "emptying himself" that would normally characterize abandonment.

Paradoxically, in this way he becomes the personality least able to bear the suffering of abandonment - and any painful feelings - when life catches him off guard. In fact, the fear of abandonment, related to loss of control, is both widespread and repressed. It is linked to lack of affective and vital nutrition. These remnants, beneath an apparent optimism, emanate an underlying lack of confidence in the external world. And this mistrust is the matrix of the need to be free that corresponds to the fear of being controlled and conditioned.

 His childhood conviction was that there was no one who could provide him with protection and affection, and at some point he decided that he had to be autonomous and manage alone to ensure his well-being. That made him a fierce individualist. Which means that he will live his relationships of trust with the feeling that the other must be at his disposal for what he may want, and he will feel any resistance to his needs as a betrayal. The fact that he lies so much without flinching, that he disguises reality at his convenience, also has to do with the infantile sensation of having felt swallowed by the mother. It was a relationship in which he felt caught between the need to "save" her and, at the same time, to keep her in check so he wouldn't be emotionally engulfed. Hence his fear of not being free.

Here is a tremendously controlling enneagram of your flow of emotions. At the same time, there is an emotional hardening on the outside, facing the gallery, and a certain fragility on the inside. The E7 Conservation is someone who suffers from a strong fantasy of self-sufficiency.

“I don't usually ask for favors unless it is something very relevant to me, but I can do favors for many, somehow creating a debt, something that puts me at an advantage. Many times they have told me that I am self-sufficient, something that flatters me on the one hand and hurts me on the other, because many times this attitude leaves me alone. Not needing nadic is not real, now I am aware that I need, only that I have it associated with my childhood survival. When I needed, I had to look for life alone, and I have that deeply engraved in my body.” (NÉSTOR)

It is also a character that tends to be easily offended and to disavow anyone at the slightest touch. That is, he reacts aggressively to criticism, even if he does not allow himself to be conditioned by it. While he is convinced that he can handle everything, inside he is much more fragile than that.

“Faced with any emotion that takes me out of my comfort zone, the tendency is to move on. If I stop, it is to think or reason why what is happening is happening. Depending on the section (work, love, family, etc.), I look for one solution or another. Sometimes I look for justifications, explanations to see the positive part and «understand» the painful part of the matter (and not to feel much, just a little). Also, I get distracted and disconnect doing other trivial things. The Achilles heel is, for me, not only to open my heart, but to expose myself and show my true feelings without games or strategy. Just do what you want, without expecting anything in return. let me fall.” (NÉSTOR)

“I feel an immense paradox: as if I were someone very strong on the outside and absolutely sensitive on the inside. I remember being really very fragile when I was a child: short, skinny, quiet... I lived alone with my fantasies. I didn't like being treated with such diminutive coughs. When they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered: I want to be strong! My sister would say to me, amused: "Don't you prefer to be pretty, smart, rich, famous?" And I answered: «I want to be smart... and strong!». I don't know where that desire came from, perhaps from the feeling of being fragile in the midst of so many giants and of living in an atmosphere of emotional storms. Later I understood that everyone in my family was very emotional, uncontrolled, inflamed... and I felt insecure. I began to contain what I felt and kept everything in my silence.” (LUCIANA)

The emotional discomfort of this subtype is diffuse, and maintains a background relationship with narcissism, which appears in the foreground. Diffuse but constant, only appeased by lenitives such as sex or alcohol. Repressed feelings of inferiority or envy are not unusual, and a clear tendency to feel "bad," inadequate, lacking... In general, the E7 conservation does not feel good about the world around him, despite his apparently cheerful temperament, and in this also plays an important role the schizoid orientation and the infantile sense of threat to conservation.

His utilitarianism, his strategy, his ability to get a slice are also explained from an emotional withdrawal. The one who is not connected with others through the heart, the radical skeptic who does not feel life as a somehow sacred experience, finds the door open to converting others into exploited and anything into merchandise.

The emotionality in the Seven conservation appears profoundly castrated, left aside. He is someone who has hardened very early. That “weird mix” of E8 and E5, where the lecherous and schizoid aspects make up a somewhat indecipherable puzzle of personality, makes this enneagram type someone far removed from emotional contact.

On the other hand, the lack of emotional transparency is a fact: dishonesty has a starting point in the disconnection with empathy. Therefore, it is also very difficult for him to identify such things as fear or anger.

“Sometimes I realize that something has made me angry when two days or months have passed. At the time I downplay it by telling myself that maybe I'm exaggerating, until I see that it's not like that, that it hurt me. Sometimes it's hard for me to turn the page. Especially when the damage is from someone I consider "family". Here the word «mafia» is very present to me.” (MONICA)

In general, it is a character who is afraid of emotional life, which sustains his typical disconnection (and this condemns his greed). You fear and anticipate pain with exaggeration, thinking things are going to hurt more than they really do. A common idea is that if you go into pain, you will never come out of it again; Put your compulsion to avoid it there.

“Emotions scare me. And when I speak of emotions, I think of anger and sadness. When I see sadness in others I have the feeling that they are walking through an autumn forest... Instead, when I play with mine, I see a lake of quick waters that will suck me in as soon as I step on it. I have had times of bordering on depression; What's more, now is when I feel like I'm coming out of one that has lasted me about three or four years. When I read Claudio's phrase: «You get depressed to avoid it hurting», I was amazed... That's it. While I have been submerged in the dark it has always been afraid of touching something and being crazy. It's like there's a part of me that's hiding information from me. And that part does not stop me from shifting the waters so as not to submerge myself in them.” (MONICA)

The E7 conservation is someone used to monitoring the world to detect not only opportunities but also dangers, Controls, forms of authority that can curtail the achievement of their desires: the defense mechanism of rationalization stains everything with its explanationism and intellectualization of the life.

Reason is put on a pedestal, but that does not mean that one will behave in a reasonable way; we are not before an E5 or an E6. Just like road signs, which a conservation Seven considers more indicative than obligatory, reason is used for convenience to seduce or undermine the opponent, or as a way of "ordering" the emotional world of others by way of try to create watertight compartments in which to file each emotion, without having to listen to them.

Correlative to the charlatan's need to be heard naturally is his not knowing how to hear, although he may not be aware of this himself, since he offers great empathy through an attentive countenance. In matters of parenting, too, the love of the self-indulgent is less than it appears to be, due to their persuasive talent and charm.

In the background, there is a lot of fear of losing one's head, losing control, with fantasies of being able to kill and, in general, fear of physical aggression (sometimes very present due to bodily abuse suffered in the family environment in the childhood), which is nothing more than the fear of one's repressed aggressiveness.

«All the misfortunes of man derive from the fact of not being able to sit quietly and alone in a room», said Blaise Pascal. A phrase that applies perfectly to the conservative subtype: running away from boredom is a constant in the life of a Seven.

«Boredom», moreover, is what this character calls his evident difficulty in connecting with the here and now, focused as he is on a more promising «there». «The issue of boredom relates to Alejandro Napolitano- is included in a larger issue, which is the particular relationship that enneatype seven shows with that which occurs in time or is linked totemporality».

The emptiness, the tedium, are very badly handled by the E7, who do not usually notice that it is when apparently nothing happens and time slows down that the roots of things become deeper, much earlier that any effort or expectation will bear fruit. Waiting becomes, therefore, very difficult in the face of what lacks immediate attractions, which is why restlessness, stress and self-existence arise when feeling that time, life is not being used, that the cow is not giving milk or that there is no the attractions offered by an existence not as exciting as it would be expected to be are being optimized. There is a lot of anxiety to get results. One's own slowness is not sustained, much less that of others. Since, in his chronic dissatisfaction, nothing fully satisfies his needs, he keeps moving in order to move away from painful feelings such as guilt or sadness.

However, despite the internal rage, there is no real desire to hurt anyone. Only that it is very difficult for the E7 conservation to recognize the pain caused by his disaffection, his lack of involvement when, curiously, this is his specific passion, his neglects and his constant privileging of pleasure over obligation, since he blindly launches after any promise of instant gratification, disregarding the hurt and exhaustion that his wild and impulsive adventures sometimes bring.

Napolitano also reminds us of the need for brilliance and sparkling performance typical of this character (it is not in vain that there were seven intellectuals and writers of eminent practical orientation such as Francis Bacon, Alexander Dumas, Mark Twain -who sold their own books door to door to avoid intermediaries-or Umberto Eco). This compulsive and notably narcissistic need often prevents healing silences and attitudes of stillness, «to make do with what there is... and not only in the therapeutic space, but in practically all life situations that require assimilation or recollection.

Emotional dryness underlies the friendliness and people skills of E7 conservation permeating everything. His intense mental life condemns him to a kind of disembodiment in exchange for a semiotic re-embodiment: emotions are lived especially in the head.

Because he has sealed himself against pain, he is also not very permeable to any other emotion. Or, at least, it is difficult for him to externalize it when there are witnesses, lest his "strong" self-image be called into question. There is a great fear of being vulnerable, of leaving behind the role of warrior, of a person who controls the situation. The phobia of pain makes contact with emotions very difficult: love passes through pain, and we only reach the depths of the heart when we are able to slow down and enter the language of receptivity. The associated crazy idea might be expressed as: "If I go through the pain, I die." Something that, obviously, leads him to avoid pain, fleeing from difficult situations through a compulsive and mechanical search for pleasure, sex, seduction, leisure...

There is a confusion between emotionality and affability. Not knowing how to contact emotions easily, he shows himself to be a warm person, a good hostess, gentle and paternal, as well as accommodating and attentive to those he intends to seduce. However, this warmth can quickly turn to coldness, distance and even insensitivity when the other does not belong to your circle of trust. An E7 conservation without conscientious work is very far from the concept of universal love, as if denying the letter of human nature to those whom it does not accept as part of its bonding system.

This polarity is complemented by another, which we could call greatness and smallness. An E7 conservation will try to behave in a soft and little arrogant way with those who are the object of seduction, to the point of being perceived as humble while feelings of greatness flow unchecked inside, the feeling of having special virtues... «They do not claim any glory for themselves, but they want their ideas to triumph»

The conservation enneagram Seven is adept at staying out of any situation that upsets him emotionally. He goes in parts, compartmentalizes the problems in order to deactivate them and entangles to convince the other that he is wrong or, at least, knows how to earn his appreciation despite everything, avoiding commitments and responsibilities, with very little capacity to feel guilty (in fact, he seems immune to guilt, and when it does appear he defuses it with rationalizations and indulgence). This contrasts with a reality that seems to have crushed the motivation of conservational E7s in childhood, making them more fussy and allergic to the emotional commitments or demands of relational life. Narcissists (and this applies perfectly to the Conservation Seven)

Not only do they show considerable talent for rationalizing their lack of social consideration, but they also use a variety of other intrapsychic mechanisms with equal ease. However, reflecting very little on what others think, their defensive maneuvers are transparent, poor camouflage to a trained eye. Their inability to hide what is bothering them also contributes to being seen as cocky and arrogant.

Post a testimonial:

“People, to me, have typically been divided into two camps. On the one hand, those I know, take into account and love me. On the other, the rest of the world. This rest of the world is made up of indifference and offends, because it is not uncommon that, one week in and another too, it reaches my ears that someone I do not know or know little has said that I am an arrogant, contemptuous, indifferent type, etc. Those who love me try to defend me: “How unfair”, “they don't know you”, “but you are a very good person... and the truth is that they are right. What happens is that it becomes clear to me that those who don't know me are also right.” (DAVID)

Arrogance is related to a repression of aggression. His narcissism does not allow him to clearly identify a strong aggression, which, however, he usually conveys through words, with ironic humor or sarcasm.

“I can feel a lot of anger and aggressiveness inside. And one reason why I don't express it is that I consider it too strong, overflowing, and I feel that it won't have a place, it won't be admitted. So I do not allow it to not lose my good image.” (ANONYMOUS)

Psychological aggression is based, then, on jokes, on ambiguity, with which the emotional tension is also ironed out. "Should I laugh or be angry?" the "victim" will often ask. A bit like before a scene from Groucho Marx: “Excuse me if I call you gentlemen, but I don't know you very well. "I never forget a face, but with you I'm going to make an exception. "Do not think wrong about me, lady. My interest in you is purely sexual." «The secret of life is honesty and fair play... if you can simulate that, you have succeeded.»

“Humor is a double-edged sword for me. What would we be or who would we be without humor? Having a sense of humor is healthy (and this is the perfect premise and excuse to use it), but when it becomes irony it can become a throwing weapon to express our dark side. In my case, it has been a way of expressing and saying things that otherwise I would not have been able to do or would not have dared. Very easily I can see the Achilles heel of the other. I do it if I feel disadvantaged or threatened, because that way I will know where I can go if I am confronted. Although there is no guarantee of success, at least I have a card to play.“ (NÉSTOR)

In his quest for self-gratification, his aggressive impulse, generally less repressed than in other Seven subtypes, helps to reinforce his gluttony. The amalgamation of fear, lack and selfishness plus aggressiveness explains this enneatype quite well, halfway between the sullen, the ruffian and the seducer. However, his own anger frightens him, it seems inappropriate, reprehensible, and he will tend to hide it or disguise it in order to preserve "harmony" and his good image.

“Another emotion that scares me is anger because it is the least valid and, when it comes loaded with anger, I am afraid that it will get out of hand and hurt someone. Or to lose control and be seen outside of myself. When I see someone out of it, I tend to internally cut their head off thinking: "There's no need, he's gone." In the end, my limits to staying in control are loss of control and insanity. Whoever is unflappable wins. And sometimes I see myself using imperturbability, even with fire inside, as a weapon. In adolescence I always tended to pick on a friend who got angry quickly. We used to get into debates over various topics. Once he told me: "Damn, Monica, you always want to be right." To which I, with half a smile and with fire inside and ice outside, told him: «If we are arguing it is because I am not the only one who wants to be right». And, seeing his anger, I forget mine or I'm not so sorry.” (MONICA)

 With such aggressiveness, the Seven conservation enneagram type will find it difficult to hide it, especially in situations where it is free from the judgment of its surroundings. Other times, as Albert Rams says in 27 personalities in search of being, he does not notice "the aggressive acting that accidental mistakes, jokes,

forgetfulness or absent-mindedness can entail".

Especially, with his penchant for hurtful humor and destructive irony, he marks the territory and makes anyone who plays as his opponent, that is, who is not part of his "family" or network, feel idiotic. We are talking about a Seven and, like all of his character, the conservation one also presents an avoidance of aggressive impulses, although not as much as the other subtypes. In addition, his aggressiveness makes the relationship between conservational gluttony and envy more evident, even though enneatype Four is a kind of antipodal to enneatype Seven.

Gluttony, like oral-aggressive envy, looks abroad for what it vaguely perceives as an inner lack, only, unlike envy (in which there is a heightened awareness of ontic insufficiency), gluttony fraudulently conceals the insufficiency with false abundance, comparable to that of pride, so that the passion is externalized without complete self-awareness.

 This translates, in conservation, into a perpetual escape towards the pleasures of the senses, as a pseudo way of fleeing from the intimate and unspeakable feeling of frustration.

In the E7 conservation, aggressiveness is not paralyzed. as a masochistic defense against the hostile impulse towards the parent of the same sex, which has not served as a figure of identification. Somehow, he has managed to have a plus of aggressiveness that facilitates his path towards egoic self-satisfaction. This means that, when faced with a violent situation, he can alternate between paralysis or freezing out of fear, and violent reaction, even reckless.

“He was about three years old and was playing with a new toy with music. My father appeared very angry and kicked the toy, which became useless. I remember how internally I only heard silence. I got up, left the room and went to the dining room to stare at the TV, not speaking and not feeling anything beyond freezing.” (ANONYMOUS)

“I was in 4th or 5th grade of school(about nine years old), playing with rubber bands with a friend at recess. An 8th grade girl (about twelve, I think) came to bother us, especially my friend. I kept playing as if I didn't see her... until the impulse took me to spit in her face. The girl froze. They have always told me that when I get angry, I am scary. And here I would add that I too am frightened by the fantasy that I can kill.” (MONICA)

A sample of the intellectually aggressive and contemptuous behavior with authority, typical of the conservation Seven, is offered to us, again, by the philosopher Epicurus when he was still barely fourteen years old and studying in public school:

The teacher told that, according to mythology, at the beginning of everything was Chaos. The young Epicurus asked the master: "And where did chaos come from?" He replied: "We cannot know that, it is a point reserved for philosophers." And in turn, Epicurus said to him: “Then why do I come here to waste my time? Right now I am going to see the philosophers.” Already in this anecdote the character E7 is manifested: light, irreverent, relentless and impatient, not content simply to follow where everyone else is going.

 De Crescenzo makes the following observation about the character of Epicurus, which is fully compatible with the Seven preservation:

Who knows why Epicurus, so sweet and courteous with women, became a real viper with intellectuals, and above all with the Platonists and the Aristotelians. Probably, he wanted to be considered an autodidact and rejected any relationship between his thinking and that of others. A competitive one, intellectually.

In Essays on the psychology of enneatypes, Naranjo applies the three psychic instances described by the psychoanalyst Karen Horney - towards, away, against - to each enneatype, suggesting that E2, E9 and E7 are expansive characters (going towards the other).

However, it qualifies this primary characteristic with a secondary one, so the Two goes towards (towards-towards), the Nine goes far (towards-far) and the Seven goes against (towards-against). Which shows that, in addition to the warmth with which the E7 approaches personal relationships, there is also an element of rebellion and insubordination very present in his behavior.

Among the E7, the most antagonistic is the conservation one, "which is also the most similar to the E8, in its rudeness, its use of vulgar language, greater self-interest, orientation towards profits and its cunning." With this, Naranjo introduces a third characteristic:

 Although it is the I that most tends to go against others, I would say that the sexual E7 is the most impulsive and extroverted-expansive-, despite the little credibility of its generosity; while the social Seven, on the contrary, seems to be the most withdrawn in his search for goodness through the sacrifice of gluttony.

Conservation Sevens often camouflage emotion with fantasy, think they feel, and speculate on it. The result is an authentic exchange where it becomes usual to give (itself) a cat for a hare.

“I also thought I felt. And this thought moved me so much! I have always camouflaged emotion with fantasy. The pleasure and happiness, with that kind of capacity for suggestion.  Brotherhood, friendship and love, with relationships of debt, interest and loyalty.  Pain and sorrow, with an intellectualized discourse on the evils of the world.  safety, with dialectical display.  Rage, with fine irony.  Authentic compassion, with iron protection.  I have disguised or mocked fear as a grotesque clown that scared no one, and cast it away with self-sufficient bravado.

I have omitted the sharpest aspects of reality, I have tinted the black paintings of the war with a school watercolor of basic colors.  I have rationalized the lacerating wounds in my life to the point of ignoring them completely.  I have therefore hidden and denied my deep pain, preventing the people around me from feeling their own.

I have sung to life, secretly fearing it.  I have simulated love, avoiding their frustrations.  I have cheated death, hidden between your skirts.  I have challenged God by becoming his entourage, to create another world less hostile and more friendly. Finally, I have been moved by pure narcissism to feel an intelligent fan, so important, so vital, so indispensable.  And I have paid the price, of course.  Survival doesn't come cheap. And more if it lengthens beyond forty…” (ORI)

 Beneath this atmosphere of confusion lies a basic fantasy: that of feeling inadequate, not feeling good, or not knowing how to experience love.  That of being an emotional idiot with a small heart.

“I live the fantasy that I don't feel well.  That emotion is wrong and someone (unidentified) is going to scold me.  When I immerse myself in the least pleasant emotions for me regarding someone, I think I'm going to be scolded.  They are going to realize that I am not right (mixing emotion and reason) and they are going to catch me, placing me in an even more vulnerable and childish place, because I put the Other or Other in a place of superiority... and from there , it is easy for me not to let myself fall completely, associating emotion with loss of place and vulnerability.” (MONICA)

 We are facing a character with a great capacity to imagine, both in the creative sense and in anticipating fears, dangerous scenarios or dystopian futures. The fact is that, as in any mental enneatype, the head usually shoots off at the first sight of change.

“Fantasy for me has two faces: light and shadow. Depending on how I am, I am shot to one side or the other. When it's light, I appropriate it quickly; when it's the shadow one, I live it as if it weren't mine, as something that possesses me... Another fantasy to not take responsibility for something happening to me. I amuse myself fantasizing about the fear of the shadow, rather than taking charge of it.” (MONICA)

Beautifully illustrated fraud, fanciful lies, that is, mythomania or fantastic pseudology, are also common. The person tells stories that are not entirely improbable and with glimpses of truth, sustains them over time, presents himself in them in a favorable way and is involved in the plot in such a way that he sometimes comes to believe it.

“As a journalist, I tried to stick to the facts and I knew that anyone who read me would do so with a magnifying glass. But journalism is a trade that is partly developed with a drink in hand. And it's full of fanciful Sevens. You compete to see who has the biggest account. And in the end I realize that I always season my stories; I recognize a desire to entertain and move. And I remember Nasrudin when he tells the people that the king stopped to talk to him. People stay amazed, admiring him. Until a simple peasant asks him: What did he tell you? And Nasrudin confesses: "Get out of my way." (DAVID)

CHAPTER 6; CHILDHOOD

The E7 conservation usually develops in a family and socio-cultural environment that feeds their obsession with survival and, specifically, with filling with overcompensating pleasures what in a first time of life was experienced as lack or abandonment. Economic or emotional instability in the home triggers the conservation mechanism.

The boy or girl felt in inferior conditions, alone, lacking material or emotional support. Parents' messages tend to be a more or less implicit "there's not much for you" and an explicit "get a life" or "be independent," which quickly become introjects. This is accompanied by a great feeling of loneliness; Without wishing to make this a general rule, we can say that parents are not available and are often unloving or very ambiguous and manipulative with their displays of affection. On the contrary, they foster a sense of active or passive responsibility in the boy or girl, who immediately begins to cultivate positions of independence.

“I started working very early to achieve the things I wanted. I was born in a rich family, I saw my father spending a lot of money, parties, and cars, and then I heard my mother complaining about debts, talking about shortages... I lived insecure with that issue. I remember having knew from very early on that I had to become independent from my family. And I think conservation has to do with not trusting the people you loved the most.” (LUCIANA)

“I think that the character was formed in me when I realized that for me "there was not", and I had to be strong; vulnerability was not an option. I got involved with gangs with whom we committed petty thefts to get some money, until I started working: street vendor, movers, unloading trucks... At seventeen I entered a factory; then, in workshops and as a longshoreman at the airport, but I never stopped studying. I was going to get out of family misery, I was going to do better in life.” (JUAN CARLOS)

The boy or girl develops the feeling that he has to balance his handicap with intelligence and displays a keen mind early. He also quickly discovers that while he may often have felt physically clumsy or weak, he often outperforms his peers in intellectual abilities. Thus, the deficiency experience is soon counteracted with acuity and social skills, as a compensation for the schizoid core of this character. Deficiency becomes false abundance through an insatiability that turns into an obsession with not needing anything that one cannot provide for oneself, to ensure a minimum to feel safe, which in the end ends up not being so minimum, since the feeling of gluttony for the concrete and material does not stop growing. In this way, it fills with novelties what begins to feel inside as a thunderous silence where it seems not to exist.

“I was born with my lungs malformed. My breathing was always very shallow. My fragility was enormous and I remember showing feelings of lack, of fear, of the need for my mother to hold me in her arms, but I received a lot of criticism for it. So I created my world parallel to reality and I didn't ask anyone for anything else. For years I used a Type Five strategy: I would isolate myself by reading books and listening to music, and I didn't move much so as not to attract anyone's attention.” (ALEXANDRE)

Sometimes, the boy or girl begins to develop the role of provider early, wanting to satisfy loved ones with their sharpness and their gift of opportunity, to feel that one is through gratitude and recognition. In this way, he manages to live a certain illusion that there is no lack, conflict or sadness that can cloud his mood, and to maintain a fantasy of balance in the family system.

“Until a few years ago I thought I had a happy childhood; however, I do not remember much of that supposed happiness. My mother became ill When I was a child, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was fourteen years old. But his emotional instability had started long ago. My father was an alcoholic and did not fulfill his responsibilities. Today I realize that my mechanism was already working, everything is fine here”, when in my childhood and adolescence there was a lot of loneliness.” (MARÍA MARTA)

The childhood paradise early lost

 The chaotic situation or the lack of care received in the family of origin in which the child lives E7 conservation came to end very quickly with the feeling of happiness at the beginning of life. The early experience of a «childhood paradise», which in other subtypes of the Grandson can last until adolescence or can never be differentiated from fantasy, in the conservation subtype it seems that it does not usually go beyond the first four or five years of life. The difficult situations experienced, being doomed to survival, lack, loneliness, violence or intense fear make such a "childhood paradise" remain blurred among the oldest memories.

“I remember my father carrying me on his shoulders next to a river when I was three years old. I remember the smell of a hug from my mother when I was four years old. Then, a fit of rage from my father and a flying table with food and crockery woke me up from that dream: I had arrived in reality, and it was a disturbing and dangerous place. From that moment on, the violence became greater and greater. Paradise is, then, the moment before the violence, the moment when there was happiness, I didn't know what was happening and I felt that all the attention was on me.” (DAVID)

The E7 permanently carries within him a greedy child who often takes over his adult behavior. And although the allegory of Peter Pan does not fit the conservative subtype, much rougher and more realistic, the attachment to childhood is still very strong in relation to the ability to enchant and the darkness that this entails. Narcissism reaches its fullness in the Seven conservation. To reach this situation, a peculiar forging in childhood has been necessary, in which the difficulties have been compensated with emotional anesthesia and narcissism, especially in the face of loneliness and helplessness, which usually brings with it feelings of inadequacy, envy and rage, one later at convenience.

 “From a very young age I remember feeling a great emptiness, a feeling of loneliness always present in my house. I invented games, I was always fantasizing, I spent hours looking at the photos of an encyclopedia that I had at home and I imagined traveling to all those places in the world, I think my passion for travel was created there. I felt very alone and when I went out into the street, I would go out angry, I would look at other children with envy and rage; they had parents and I didn't, in their house there was tranquility and in mine, no.” (JUAN CARLOS)

“The common denominator of my childhood was having felt alone. The slogans in my family were: «You have to look for your life», «no one will do it for you», «the most important thing is the family», «he who hits first, hits twice», «the world belongs to bold", "I'm going to tell you something but you can't tell anyone", "dirty laundry is washed at home", men don't cry... The essence of all this would be: "You have to be a strong man".” (NÉSTOR)

“I had a painful childhood in relation to emotional loneliness; there was no place for my emotionality, there was little understanding of that in my family, they did not deal with the emotions of a girl and the emotional space was already overflowing with my mother. I learned that if I express my emotions and show myself vulnerable, they hurt me, they reject me, I'm mean and I annoy mom; so I can't get anything.” (MEKA)

 Soon the E7 conservation is going to become a "hustler", a controller and an emotionally controlled. The child puts par thes a to his feeling of lack, looking at everything he lacks and believes is abundant around him. And he sets out to get it for himself by tempering himself with strategy. The implicit question is: “How can I benefit from this abundance?” Feeling disadvantaged, he quickly develops his skills for optimization, advantage, and shortcuts; first, with small attempts that allow him to overcome his shyness and his skittish condition.

“From a very young age I got used to making a living doing errands for the neighbors and other family errands; but, above all, I found the greatest pleasure in taking a few coins from my father from the fishmonger's money. In the end I always had some money for whims. I gave gifts to my little sisters and I also bought myself something. That gave me power. And especially it kept me from feeling frustration and lack. The pain of lack. I have always run away (and I continue to run away) from feeling the need for something I want and don't have, from having to ask for or sustain that distressing feeling. It was also a way of telling my father: "I don't need you", of course.” (ORI)

“My father always encouraged us to study; He said that women could not depend on a man. The uncertainty about tomorrow, in relation to money, my mother's economic dependence on my father and the mantra I heard from him became the basis for my survival to be a constant theme in my life.” (JUSSARA)

“We are four brothers, and this led me to assume responsibilities that did not correspond to me. My childish arrogance led me to laugh at having everything under control to save my mother and, therefore, me and the world. Here comes my schizoid origin (and narcissism too): I began to disconnect from feelings and to be as practical as possible. This took me away from myself, from my being, and my ego began to inflate. He was going to show the world where the holes were. The Terran Controller was on.” (MARÍA MARTA)

Violent scenarios

Although this is not always the case, there are many testimonies that suggest that it is common to encounter scenarios of family violence in the childhood of a conservation E7. The child distances himself from his emotions and becomes calculating, strategic, fighting fear with anticipation and planning. He wants to become strong to defend his mother; sometimes save her from her father…

so she can get through these experiences, the Seven Conservation boy or girl becomes a kind of surrogate “family man” (regardless of gender). He learns to mediate between the elders, to sometimes even become a shield. He learns that he is being asked to fulfill a family expectation (usually raised unconsciously by the mother as a kind of emotional debt to her) that he fill the void and "save" his own from chaos. And, above all, learn to be tricky, smart, opportunistic. He introjects him through family messages, since in his family, in some way, he is expected to know how to deceive, take shortcuts, be intelligent, and that is how he is taught, albeit implicitly.

“My mother taught me to steal from my father. When she arrived drunk she didn't remember how much money she had in her wallet, and I went to get bills for her; it was like payment for a bad time, it was justified, and thus I did not have to ask for money to buy and I avoided possible arguments (my mother repeated to me, and I understood well, that I was not going to depend on anyone for my money, I wasn't going to put up with a man), then I started taking money from him for myself, to go out, "it was all for the bad times we had had", his payment for the scars he gave us. And no guilt, my mother taught me, who was blessed. (Better to cheat, to steal, to take what I need than to ask. Money appears to cover lack of love, unresolved conflicts).” (CONCHA)

We are talking about atmospheres where an atmosphere of confused emotionality often also prevails. The child is inhibited by the overwhelming feelings of his parents, so it is not surprising that he early shows a certain schizoid withdrawal as a defense, and that he also shows himself to be very rational and even organized, practical, a good student... like a way to restructure an unstructured environment. Albert Rams says, in 27 Characters in Search of Being, that «to assume a commitment, for a Seven, is to find himself once again immersed in that subtle obligation to satisfy the impossible expectations of the Family Environment», that atmosphere of chaos in which the child he is oriented towards the role of “rescuer” of the balance of the system, which indelibly marks his affective future.

“My mother sometimes used me to entertain my father, especially when he was drinking. Little by little I managed to take him to rest in bed, he hugged me-trapped me; I don't remember abuse, I knew he loved me very much. I knew I had the power to calm the ogre, I kissed him, talked to him, smiled at him, I felt betrayed by her, abandoned. She felt a lot of fear and also a lot of power: she was the savior.” (CONCHA)

“The discussions were almost always about the same topic, sexuality. My mother was not receptive to my father's sexual appetite, and he was continually angry. It caught me in the middle; my mother used me as a shield and my father rejected me because he said that he had made me a “mother’s child”. I remember that my mother drowned me. I was a woman who suffered constantly and could not find a way to get rid of it. I couldn't go with my father and I didn't want to go with my mother, I felt very alone.” (JUAN CARLOS)

“I saw myself on more than one occasion putting myself in the middle of the two to avoid what was often inevitable. Obviously, I sided with my mother because she couldn't stand so much violence. Which is why I learned that mediation is a good strategy to avoid expressing my anger. I do it in an ironic way, and even though I allow myself to get angrier now, sometimes I find myself cutting off this impulse for fear of overflowing.” (NÉSTOR)

This function has been experienced in family relationships, in which the E7, in the physical or emotional absence of the father, often took charge of alleviating the pain or depression of the mother. For boys, this has meant a distant relationship or rejection of the father; for women, on the other hand, it has been to fulfill a masculine role, leaving aside the feminine dimension (either in terms of the erotic or emotional aspect).

This support function did not translate, as for the E1, into a rigid assumption of responsibilities, but rather led to a compulsive need to please and be recognized as a skillful harlequin who puts himself at the service of the other without giving up his own advantages.

One more testimony illustrates how the rigidity of E7 conservation develops in an environment of emotional ambivalence:

“When I was a child, I didn't know what atmosphere I would find at home when I got home from school, if my mother would be singing or beating up her children. Even though my father attacked my mother, he didn't hit us. On the contrary, it was my mother who did it; I was moody and I have a lot of difficulty dealing with people who have abrupt mood swings. Many times, we believed that my father was going to kill my mother and that he would also kill us. The preservation of physical integrity, the fear of touch, not allowing others to get too close, began very early. If someone comes suddenly, eagerly, it scares me. My body becomes stiff and cold, I freeze, even though I need a hug.” (JUSSARA)

Sometimes it is not (only) the father, but the mother who is secretly aggressive and exercises violence, explicitly or through emotional manipulations, because it not only seduces, but sometimes also floats in the psyche of an E7 conserving the flavor of having been betrayed by her: "Mom adores me (or, more honestly, seduces me), but leaves me."

“My mother's aggressiveness was through her suffering. He was always complaining, "with everything I do for you", always emotionally blackmailing me. His way of feeding me was very anxious, I was very thin and his biggest concern was that the other mothers might think that he did not take good care of me. More than feeding me, he fattened me. I remember my mother's complaints and suffering like a drum in my head, I didn't understand why she suffered so much, and I remember telling myself: "I'm not like you, I'm not going to suffer." (JUAN CARLOS)

One way or another, the final feeling in the family environment is that the father is a threat or a hindrance, and he is discredited. It can be said that, with the collaboration of the mother, the father becomes redundant, so there is no paternal figure to rescue the Seven from the maternal seduction.

“The chasm between my father and I opened up very early and got deeper and deeper. My mother actively contributed to this, of course. Her relationship with him was going from bad to worse and I was clearly positioned on his side. My father's presence was accidental. For me, it was enough. It is painful for me to discover how my mother used me when I was so little, how she confronted me with my father and how she confronted him with me, how she exposed him to the shame of being confronted by a girl. Even today my father feels self-conscious when I speak to him, like a child hiding his guilt. I was a rather shy and sensitive girl who had to swallow her fear.” (ORI)

On the other hand, sometimes the father not only does not exercise authority, but is unable to orchestrate credible punishments, to make the child take discipline seriously. There is no ethics, a superego is not organized in an organized way. Sometimes even punishment is followed by a greedy benefit.

“As a child I often refused to eat. Then my father would take off his leash and threaten me. I was terrified, but resisted the blows. I knew that in the end he would get tired and tell me: «Come on, go to the bar and buy yourself a couple of Tigretones» [very sweet industrial cupcakes]. I'd get up from the table with a sore ass, receive the money, and walk out the door wiping away my tears, with a bittersweet feeling of self-pity and joy at my father's loss and at the sweets. Along the way, the little respect I had for him went down the drain. I was five years old.” (DAVID)

A me-you without him

Albert Rams says that the conservation E7 seems to have an I constituted as a kind of intimacy interestedly eroticized by the mother, in the case of men, and by the father, in the case of girls and women. In the first case, the father does not occupy the paternal role because he is subject to the mother, due to excessive authoritarianism or because he is perceived as weak; so there is no paternal responsibility and law.

The norm, the limits, are not reliable. In the case of women, there seems to be a father-not father, a father who does not make it sufficiently clear that his wife is the mother and not the daughter (who is usually daddy's girl),

Paradise, the false paradise, seems to be truncated, broken (through separation, abandonment, trauma...), and we are left with the idea that it was a lie... Then everything is a lie... Ergo I can do what I want because there is no law: anything goes.

In this way, adult life is going to be dedicated to the search for and restoration of that primordial paradisiacal state, that family-ma fa in which the seven conservation occupies a place of privilege. One flees from the dysphoric, from loneliness, of the unpleasant, of the emptiness, of the boredom, of the little, because of that infantile environment of dysphoria and lack. «Not touching the unpleasant emotions, the feeling of already because life is ending, the impatience, the need for everything to be alright permanently.

In this I-you relationship intensely eroticized by the mother, there is no room for a third party. According to Alejandro Napolitano, in the E7 conservation there is an intense bond with the maternal archetype and a conflictive relationship with the father (the «number three»). In adulthood, this will result in a closed universe where there is no room for surprises, third parties, or otherness. There is also no room for authority, which is considered good for others, but not for oneself.

The E7 conservation tends not to respect any type of authority, to circumvent the law, and he congratulates himself for it. In reality, we are dealing with an arrogant character that does not see the other, except the one in its me-you orbit. He loves who he considers "his own", but the rest of the world does not exist for him, he does not care. His dislike of humankind is cued by the expulsion of the third.

Enneagram seven belongs to the mother, is only her son, and is bound and subdued to her, because he is overwhelmed or because he lacks. In this subtype, the matriarchy shows some of its most fearsome excesses and reaches its saturation point. To be linked to the mother means, in this case, to be psychologically fascinated (fascinum means 'malefice', and fascia, 'bond'). It is about the endogamic bond between blood and the material, which reaches finished symbolic expressions of its nefarious aspect in the spider's web, in the octopus and in the gallows. "Blood ties" dominate over any other type of pact.

The alliances of the law, which, prevailing over those of the blood, open to exogamy, are here neutralized because the relationship with the law, the agreements, the contracts or the commitments are completely subordinated to the loyalties of the blood, with all the implications and derivations that we can extract from this affirmation. Being the only child of the mother means contempt, instead of fear, towards the father and towards the law. In E6, the conflictive relationship with the paternal principle" derives in a fear conceptualized by Freud as "castration anxiety". The decapitation-castration of our legend is replaced in similar ones by Saturn striking down the son with the ray of his gaze, or devouring him like the worst of cannibals. Tremendous images.

This influence of the mother gives rise to a series of omnipotent and infantile fantasies, which cause behaviors beyond the limits, as well as more disqualification of the father. Such behaviors manifest themselves as transgressive, self-indulgent, and contempt for authority, which is the basis of narcissism.

One of the consequences of the lack of a father figure is the difficult relationship with time. And we're not just talking about a tendency to be late, which can be corrected with a little effort. In this regard, Napolitano tells us:

The psychological structure of enneatype seven, particularly the conservative one, shows a specific constitutive difficulty in connecting with temporal becoming, and the deep roots of this difficulty are found in a conflictive relationship with the archetypal figure of the father. [...] Some known characteristics of type seven appear linked to this particular relationship with temporality: flight forward in time or morbid planning, the vital center of its evasive and strategic disposition.

The testimonials speak for themselves:

“I was very happy when, about to turn ten, my older brother came to rescue me from my father's house, where time had stopped for me, to take me back to my mother, who had run away from home because of the threats of my father. My father said that I was not going, and my brother confronted him. But while they were arguing, I had already packed some clothes and got into my brother's car. My father stood still. I told him: "Goodbye, dad!", and I left very happy. At last we were going to start a new life away from that alcoholic and violent Falangist whom I loved, feared and despised, but above all I was ashamed of.” (DAVID)

Partner of the mother

In some way, both the E7 conservation boy and girl are chosen by the mother as a "husband" or surrogate partner and take on a role as solvers of concrete problems. There are many stories of women (and some men) of this character who have lived the experience of having to care for their mothers in illness and in life, in the face of the inhibition or absence of the father.

 In general, E7 conservation women do not necessarily experience this «paternal substitution» as an open conflict against the father, but may even be apparently in alliance with him and even admire him, although taking the father's place makes them clearly or hiddenly in conflict with the father figure.

However, sometimes we find in the biographies of women of this character fathers considered as those to whom they profess a feeling and a protective role, in the same way that they profess it towards the mother. And, at the same time that this protection is given, and even a typical absorption of «masculine values», there also usually exists in the woman E7 conservation a disqualification of the father (and of the man in general), as the girl learned to do from this character through the mother more explicitly or implicitly.

“Personally, I have the experience of becoming my mother's savior or protector and that gave me a place and recognition for life. My father's absences didn't help, of course. And the consequence is that where there is a near void in the role of authority, I hurry to occupy it quickly. Simply, my father did not take care of placating my mother's emotional outbursts, or protecting her from her fears and shortcomings and I had to do it, I do not know if she chose me among her four daughters or if I took a step forward. In either case, the result is the same. My survival depended on her being calm and content. I wasn't going against her, but against Dad. Now I see more clearly that both of them put me in that situation, but my feeling as a child and adolescent was more for blaming my father all the time.” (ORI)

“I took great care of my mother's health. At eleven years old I saw the first abortion of my life, attending to my mother in the bathroom, with blood everywhere. As a teenager, I came into conflict with my father, because he did not understand how he did not realize that his wife was killing herself with abortions, since the same scenario was repeated several times. Ten years later, my mother died of cancer. I took her to the doctor, to radiotherapy, to the hospital, and not my father. He found him incompetent for the task. I think that at that time I began to disqualify men, I found them weak.” (JUSSARA)

In this way, finally, we can see how the position in the original family triad is, both for the boy and for the girl by the E7 conservation, quite similar: an alliance with the mother and a displacement or devaluation of the father, beyond specific nuances and unique personal experiences that will always make important differences.

Reverse Oedipus

At this point we can affirm that, regardless of its sex, the E7 conservation is a character strongly kidnapped by the mother: we have seen how the child becomes the father's placebo substitute, the «mama's boy»-absorbing in this I protest the values ​​of the mother. And how the girl tends to become likewise the masculinized partner of the mother (due to the absence or inhibition of the father), and sometimes also in “girl/daddy’s playmate”; his place in the family triad is that of an alliance with the mother and an opposition/seduction (undoubtedly an ambiguity) with respect to the father.

“It was usual for my father to have romantic and sexual relationships with other women. My mother was aware of some of them and finally separated. I also knew about this parallel life of my father, but I kept it a secret. I always sided with my mother and acted in front of my father with a layer of nonchalance.My father became violent at random. My confrontations with him were looking into his eyes, without speaking and showing him that I was not afraid of him. The relationship with my mother was one of compassion and defense against my father. Although I always felt that she was mad at me for something. Until I became a woman, I was not aware of the guilt I was carrying, feeling that she was angry.” (ANONYMOUS)

The mother, halfway between seduction - she makes the child feel special and emotional manipulation - complains or is anxious, trying to get the son or daughter to satisfy their emotional needs, and often even material ones. These projections of the mother are introjected by the boy or girl of this character, so that they become his neurotic "values." The girl, as we have seen, tends to "occupy" the role of "husband", with a tendency to despise or invalidate the father and to incorporate values ​​typically considered masculine - which often also derive from projections of the mother.

In Tenderness and aggressiveness, Juan José Albert describes this process using the hypothesis of an inverted Oedipus: an identification of the self with the parent of the opposite sex, with which the boy takes the values ​​of the mother, and the girl, those of the father. -because "the same-sex parent is invalidated as a liberating figure from the seductive erotic possession of the other parent and, therefore, as a figure that completes their gender identification". At the same time, there is “a tenacious internal resistance to the authority of the parent of the opposite sex, who has been experienced as powerful, possessive and, whether fantasized or not, incestuously protective”.

 It is typical in Reichian analysis and bioenergetics to call character Seven a "rigid passive-feminine" although in women we might call it a "passive-masculine" character instead, especially, as we have seen, in the conservation subtypeprecisely because of this identification with the values ​​of the parent of the opposite sex, “the only available parent, under whose complicity [the E7] feels powerful, but at the price of falling into a passive attitude based on the need to have to inhibit part of his aggressiveness”,

Thus, by the way, the component that would lead to the satisfaction of his desire is inhibited, which avoids the anguish of incest but also individualization and complete independence, Albert concludes.

In addition, the figure of this parent [of the opposite sex], the object of intense incestuous desires, is also feared as generating anxiety by being suffocatingly possessive. Before her, the child finds it necessary to inhibit his aggressive impulses, including the hostile ones that may later manifest in a sadistic way, which will imply the renunciation of his phallic position of independence, even though it is already anchored and defined. genitally.

 As a phenomenological sample, without claiming it as a proven fact, we will read below a couple of testimonies that coincide with the reverse Oedipus hypothesis:

“My mother worked all day, while my father roamed the bars getting drunk "with the money he takes from me," she said, or participating in violent demonstrations.

My unconditional support towards her was total: it was order (and also seduction) in the face of chaos. Because of her I became a good student, a promising student, and for a long time I denied the thug demon that (despised, like my father) also lived inside me.” (DAVID)

“Father and mother. He, the night; her, the day He, the party; her, work. He, the rebellion; her, the responsibility. He was the most beautiful and desired man in the neighborhood; she, a common and demure girl. I became my father's doll; funny, shrewd, brilliant in his eyes: an accessory he displayed to feed his vanity. With my mother I became a rival. I didn't understand why she suffered so much, always poorly dressed and in a bad mood.

 I was ashamed of my mother and I remember that I didn't want to be like her. It took me a long time to realize that my most faithful relationship was with my mother. I idealized my father; the distance was so great that it became Platonism. I became very much like him, but it was because of her that I became a free, independent woman. It was because of her that I had many men. I wanted revenge. I felt that I was not like her or like any other woman. She felt that she was like a superwoman who functioned like a man, but even more powerful because she was a woman.” (DAVID)

Oral-aggressive character

In the enneatype Seven conservation, this renunciation of the aggressive impulses described by J. Albert is not as clear or as great as in the social and sexual characters, since the boy or girl of this subtype has a character with more psychopathic compromises. or of greater phallic intensity than the other E7. In this way, the submissive identification with the figure of the parent of the opposite sex, which hides an attitude of pseudo-rebellion, can emerge in a much clearer rebellion, and even in a fierce contempt and aggressiveness.

Although E7 has been defined as an oral-receptive character, we could say that E7 conservation is an oral-aggressive character (like sexual E4). His aggressive attitude has to do, to a great extent, with the fantasy of being devoured by his mother. There is a fundamental ambiguity in this, an attraction/repulsion towards the mother, who appears at the same time as someone who, metaphorically speaking, nurtures but can devour, castrate, annul. Hence, then, that the E7 conservation is a character that is both extraverted and introverted.

The testimonies reflect a deep ambiguity in the relationship not only with the parent of the opposite sex but, in all cases, with the mother:

“I have always seen her as a tremendous manipulator from whom I had to defend myself. Before her, I have spent my life with the whip in my hand, trying not to get tangled up in her emotional shenanigans. Born in the post-civil war and daughter of a single mother, with the social stigma that came with it, she is a strong woman, but at the same time, an innocent and fragile girl whom I adore and hate. In the end, the relationship becomes very that because I get warm with it it takes up too much space and suffocates me, and if I withdraw emotionally, then I freeze.” (DAVID)

“Mom has always done with me and my brothers what she wanted. When he has a problem, we all have to go or he starts telling everyone that we don't pay any attention to him. But when I was little I was never there. She would place us at her friends' houses and would pick us up after days. Then she emotionally contacted us very strongly, she seduced us, but then she disappeared again and we were left hanging, missing her. Today it is still the same. She removes and puts on as she pleases, she continues to despise our father and in the end we always do what she wants. She still has the power, but we all have a lot of anger with her.” (ANONYMOUS)

Adolescence

Once the boy or girl grows up and becomes aware of the maternal kidnapping, they will try to break that bond with all their might. The adolescent E7 conservation becomes a radical independent, often from a very early age, showing great aggressiveness with everything or those who intend to exercise the limits with him that should have been put in long before and that he will now viscerally reject.

Soon he stops giving explanations at home, he isolates himself from everything that hurts him from the family of origin, even despising it or feeling that he has "outgrown it", and projects all his attention on the professional and social world. The rebelliousness manifests itself in all its splendor and will surely achieve economic independence very soon, although it will often move in a polarity between a libertine life and a responsible attitude towards work or studies.

“In adolescence I began to feel hatred towards my father and, later, towards my mother. I didn't want to be the good girl anymore. Uncontrolled aggressiveness was on. The Eight in me emerged and took center stage. I would attack anyone or anything that I felt was a threat to me. The softness made me angry and pity too, I wanted justice.” (MARÍA MARTA)

“We changed neighborhoods and I decided to continue in the same school; I felt attached to my classmates and teachers. So I fought to impose my position and every day I saw myself crossing the entire city alone, by subway and bus, when I was ten years old. From then on, I began to do more and more of what I wanted, reinforced by the fact that I had very good grades and seemed to have everything under control. pulled out”  (DAVID)

“At the age of fifteen I began a relationship with the man with whom I deflowered; He was eight years older than me, a cocaine and heroin addict. This led me to know the world of drugs in depth: consumption, trafficking. Until I returned from a trip to South America, at the age of seventeen, where I was involved in the trafficking of a kilo and a half of cocaine. My audacity and some guardian angel made sure that no one in the family found out and that I didn't end up in a reformatory.” (MARÍA MARTA)

The feeling that "everything is a lie", that adult authority is not respectable, only becomes more and more ferocious. Greater skepticism and a defiant and competitive attitude also begin to take shape. The limits have not served to curb gluttony. But limits also have a protective function for people: they delimit the internal territory of security and self-confidence. In his absence, the adolescent Seven conservation will fully develop his strong instinct for self-protection, with the aim of avoiding what he interprets as an atmosphere of constant threat to his survival.

CHAPTER 7; PERSONA AND SHADOW: WHAT IS DESTRUCTIVE FOR THEMSELVES AND FOR OTHERS

Let us briefly recall that Carl Gustav Jung coined the concepts person and shadow to differentiate between the mask -person- with which the human being appears before others, and that which (consciously or not) tries to hide -shadow-: all that content of the psyche experienced as unacceptable and not lived on a conscious level.

In E7 conservation, the person or mask is built around the trait of (self)indulgence. He presents himself as a pleasant person, on the surface gentle but deep down exploitative, in constant search of possibilities, of markets, of self-promotion.

“I can use my trickster side, seducing or with stronger arguments, to convince and carry out some project, and thus get recognition. I have ideas (according to me, very good) in which I will try to involve others to carry them out. Here I understand as a shadow that I do not recognize that deep down I seek my own benefit before anything else. Self-deception occurs if I see that the benefit is for others.” (NÉSTOR)

This non-relationship with the other hides his exploitative character, as well as a schizoid more interested in himself than in the other to the point that this other form of selfishness would be unacceptable to others if it were not compensated by at least an equivalent dose of gallant generosity.

Utilitarianism also disguises itself as friendly relations, but in reality it weaves networks where contact is superficial and has to do with the exchange of favors. In reality, this selfishness is difficult to recognize and has its origin in another great shadow: the disconnection between feeling and thinking. Narcissism arises from the denial of feeling; then empathy ceases to have a place and, therefore, love for the other. From there comes selfishness and opportunism.

“Recognizing myself as selfish without further ado, without justifying myself, has been hard. One part of my child's story learned to survive without the other. This is embedded in my body, and the individualistic attitude is there, even when I catch myself making speeches about teamwork. That's why I think a challenge for my (our) character is to take true actions without looking for anything in return.” (NÉSTOR)

The conservation E7 is a cynic. The disbelief of everything and everyone, mistrust, skepticism, also denote a certain disillusionment with life that is little manifested. There is, behind all this, a tendency to nihilism that has to do with the fear he felt in childhood when faced with the sensation of a threat to conservation, which in turn feeds his permanent insatiability: fill the void with abundance so as not to feel deprived.

“For me, a crazy idea is not knowing what the purpose of being in the world is. I want it all at once, and I don't really know what I really want either, because in the end I don't focus on almost anything, but instead keep trying different things to try to fill the void. I only focus on something when I really feel a clear desire for it.” (SIRNE)

From the mask to the being

The difficulty for contact and the feeling of emotional emptiness is compensated with an intense seductiveness. To the extent that the conservation Seven can spend their lives in games of seduction that remain in shallow-touch relationships (again, not relationships). Depth is replaced by quantity and diversity, with multiple contacts followed by more or less instantaneous withdrawals and a more than evident fear of intimacy, which fits with his usual escapism in compromising situations or that he simply dislikes. Of course, he runs away from everything that makes him uncomfortable, not just emotional pain.

But, beyond the obvious and superficial tricky or seductive behavior, the shadow of the E7 conservation reaches more subtle dimensions. It is someone who presents himself as strong but who is afraid, and hides it.

He also presents himself as apparently satisfied, keeping well hidden a low self-esteem and such a fear of impotence, of frustration that he does not tolerate these feelings in the least. The generalized fear of emotions is, of course, its most intimate, fragile and defended part. His fear of cuteness masks it as cynicism. And he also disguises his enormous fear of depression as cynicism. Something very profound is involved in this, such as contact with the mother's experience of depression, whom she could not save” from her sadness. That is why he also fears relationships, where he often recalls his fear of pain and helplessness that he felt in the relationship with his mother, and that even shakes him the ghost of depression.

All this fear of intimacy is given, above all, by the emotional castration he suffered at the hands of his mother. In reality, it is nothing other than a rejection of maternal love, for he fears being swallowed up and invalidated by her again; to which is added his lack of recognition towards the father, who was not present enough to save him from this invalidation.

The fear of illness (both present and hidden) and even the fear of dying also have to do with this emotional invalidation, and with the ambiguous relationship with the mother. Any emotional pain is amplified and there is fear that it will take on shades of chronic suffering, leading to hypochondria.

 Lastly, another very present fear is the fear of being a man, masked by the machismo or misogyny typical of men of this subtype, or the fear of being a woman, masked by the typical masculinity of women of this character.

“Suffering is difficult to manage. I become totally incredulous before life and I enter a kind of emptiness; I keep all my feelings in suspension. To avoid the pain, I move. When I get into a spiral of doing a lot of things and not getting anything done, I know I'm in a stress phase.” (JUSSARA)

Another typical trait, related to escapism, is the denial of aggressiveness. Although sometimes he can experience outbreaks of bad temper, and violent reactions if he is put between a rock and a hard place. Conservation Sevens often react with contempt and denial of the other, to the point that it is easy for them to abandon loved ones through emotional cooling.

“The avoidance of conflict or direct confrontation contains an internal attitude of superiority and a certain arrogance. I am understanding with others, with a rather condescending attitude, which surely hides a deep disinterest, distrust and even contempt for other people. Why don't they look for life as I have always done?” (ORI)

“With one of my best friends from adolescence, with whom I spent most of my time for ten years, I ended the relationship abruptly and with little feeling. A couple of years ago, reviewing why. I realized that it felt like a betrayal that I was not present at a time in my life when I had a conflict with my father. I cut off the relationship by telling myself that our lives were already going their separate ways. Actually, I felt such pain that I expelled her from the "family." (MÓNICA)

“Beneath the apparent indifference many times I have anger and I don't know how to deal with it; it's explosive. When it arises, it is as if I were six feet tall and had a sharp sword in my hand; people get scared because most of the time I'm a calm, controlled person.” (JUSSARA)

The mask is completed with a belief in one's own wisdom, superiority, respectability, and good intentions. However, under all this lurks the shadow not only of a freeloader, but of someone in need of finding satisfaction for their narcissism. Why? Because there is also a diffuse, unacknowledged feeling of low self-esteem. The E7 conservation does not like himself too much, he suspects himself and despises himself; otherwise logical thing in a character so contemptuous of others.

He gives full priority to the satisfaction of his desires, with the feeling that others are at his disposal and must adapt to him. If the other opposes resistance to his wishes, he is seen as a limit. And whoever sets limits on him does not love him, it seems to say. All this supposes an arrogance that does not go unnoticed, especially for people who do not feel loved or seen by the Seven conservation (which are usually the majority).

Beneath his sense of superiority, often mixed with his strong intellectual competitiveness, there is, however, a deep feeling of loneliness, almost existential, nihilistic, hidden by his tendency to appreciate only concrete things or facts, by his chattering and by his false sociability.

Suffer this loneliness like an inseparable companion:

“I've always played to be smarter than others. In the end, from considering them fools so much, I have been very lonely. My narcissism has led me to a cave. And my utilitarianism in human relations, to arouse many suspicions and rejection. For me it has been a cure to realize that I can feel comfortable with people who are less arrogant and arrogant than me, speaking without embellishments or fantasies about my intimacy and taking a sincere interest in what hurts them.” (DAVID)

Arrogance is a neighbor of contempt, and in its shadow is the key to this difficulty for admiring love. The disqualification of all authority, mockery, cynicism and irony reveal a contempt for something that has been sought and loved very much: the father, and also a kind of revenge against the father for the fact that he could not trust him. him, because he failed him, because he abandoned him... As we already know, whoever is not capable of experiencing admiration, devotion, philia, cannot feel a connection with a larger systemic order either. Hence, with even more reasons, the E7 conservation is accustomed to settle in the «everything is a lie» and in the «anything goes».

“I see in my life a constant search for paternal figures and a struggle to make them my friends and then, from an artificial situation of egalitarianism, I end up despising them at the slightest «failure». It has happened to me with teachers, bosses, trainers... I was incapable of feeling admiration. My automatism is that, when there is something I don't understand, I become critical.” (DAVID)

No less important is being a cheater. Paraphrasing Fritz Perls, we could say that we are dealing with a malicious thug disguised with good manners. Thus, the use of privileged information and its traffic, positioning oneself above others, tactical planning and the tendency to get what they want without having to ask for it directly and without counting on others is common in the Conservation Seven. The shadow of this matter has to do with his belief that if he asks directly for what he needs they will not give it to him because they will not consider him valuable or they will think that he can't be alone. This leads him directly to something that is impossible for him to sustain, frustration, as well as the feeling of impotence or rejection.

“We use seduction and manipulation to achieve our goals. We exercise a shadow ideological leadership that benefits us and that inflates our narcissism. “I am the one who comes up with the idea and I win over the others to execute it.” I remember as a teenager embarking groups of friends in my fun projects, parties, excursions, trips... or family tasks that I had to do. People came to help me, I gave ideas and the others did. I am a teacher and I remember seducing the rest of the teaching staff, the families, the students, with my «wonderful» ideas and projects.” (ANONYMOUS)

Finally, it should be remembered that E7 conservation tends to feel intimately «bad». One of the characteristics of its shadow is precisely the denial of feelings of purity, innocence, clarity, love and altruism, which are invalidated on the altar of personal autonomy, survival and the gluttony of specific pleasures. There is in him a fear of tenderness, of delicacy. Despite the erotic orientation of every enneatype Seven, the conservation subtype does not allow himself to be a child, that is, fragile and needy. If he surrenders to that denied need, the mask of the “smart guy”, of the superior, of the unassailable, falls off, and he is left naked in his fragility. Faced with the danger of suffering, he cools his emotions and tells himself that "it's not worth it" (it's not worth the job you have to fight for, it's not worth the person you have to fight for, it's not worth the pity this life pity that for which we must fight...). In addition, becoming fragile to this point would be equivalent to admitting that he has never had the place of a son, since it was not given to him, or he was denied it, or he felt abandoned. Getting in touch with the shadow is, here, more healing than ever.

“What I hide the most has to do with sensitivity, fragility, purity and innocence. Deep down, I feel very sweet, vulnerable, susceptible to any kind of tyranny or violence. I think my mask was created to defend that little romantic and dreamer who wanted to be loved, but had to grow up fast. Hope is also an extremely denied feeling and is part of my shadow.” (LUCIANA)

The evils of the world

If in the personal field the E7 conservation is not very transparent with his feelings, in the social field we can practically speak of omertà: mafia silence. A firm defender of his intimacy, of secrecy and the safeguarding of honor and self-image, he feels betrayed very easily and, based on this feeling, he tends to “frequently cut off heads and withdraw affection.”

In The Ignored Root of the Evils of the Soul and the World, we read that the Seven conservation enneatype «considers the world as a great supermarket where you can take the most without giving anything in return». Egoism, profusely argued and decorated with discourses on the value of the individual, personal autonomy and self-support, is perhaps the main destructive contribution to a society of social mammals such as the human, so much in need of deepening mutual support. The E7 conservation is also one of the characters most prone to corruption. His excessive laxity, his mood swings, his moral relativism, make him an easy target for any dishonest proposal.

“During my career as a state attorney I was always very close. attorney general, so I was able to enjoy the benefits of this position. In correspondence, he used to make legal alternatives available to the government to develop often suspicious projects. The bosses always wanted me around, both because of my ability to manipulate facts and interpret the laws, as well as for the credibility that I transmitted in the legal world.” (ANONYMOUS)

Perhaps the rebellious nature of the character could serve to offset this tendency with a little social commitment. But, in the end, the E7 conservation -like all Sicte- can end up being an accommodator in nothing dangerous for the patriarchal system, as well as a procrastinator, because «the rebellious attitude of the passive-feminine character has its most important manifestation in the opposition that they experience before the realization of their own desires"," so that such internal rebellion ends up functioning as a self-boycott.

Dysmorphophobia and Aporophobia

To complement the theme of the shadow, we could refer to two descriptors that are more consequences than features of the Seven conservation. By dysmorphophobia or cacophobia is meant, for lack of a more exact word, the excessive concern for physical defects, the obsession with beauty.

We are talking, in the case that concerns us, not so much about a concern to appear beautiful and elegant, although vanity is closely related to narcissism, but rather about the search for beauty in the world and in the other, something closely related to that orientation to the search for "more and better" typical of this character. Such a trait applies perfectly to the obsession of many playboys to collect more and more beautiful lovers, in the style of a James Bond. Or by houses or luxury cars. Or for the money and social brilliance. But could it not be suspected that this hides the intimate experience of feeling ugly and dirty?

A clearly shadowy trait, aporophobia is described as fear or rejection of the poor. In this case, we will exclude the implicit sense of hatred towards the poor, and we will use the word only to describe the conservationist's scruples in the face of misery, lack of resources, ugliness, unhappiness, misery, indigence... and everything that feels like a direct threat to conservation. And it is that in misery he projects his own history of poverty or lack, which frightens him.

Both terms equally evoke an ancient emotion: the schizoid drive of emptiness, of horror vacui, the infantile feeling of helplessness, of abandonment, sometimes even of hunger, that the conservative Seven could, as we have illustrated, have experienced in his early days. years of life. The emotional sensation of nihilism and fear of nothing is, surely, the most difficult experience of this type of enea, the deepest damage, its oldest wound. And also, the most difficult to cure

CHAPTER 8; LOVE

It is said that all E7 are used to adopting strategies or having a plan B when they have to carry out a relationship, sentimental or emotional. This helps him cope with the emotional pain and commitment, which feels like a burden because it plunges him back into the atmosphere of subtle obligation to meet the impossible expectations his parents placed on him as a child. It is difficult for a person of this subtype to be able to give themselves in a continuous delivery calmly and without turbulence.

“I associated commitment as a couple to a prison where I would wither. At that time I was sexually related to men and where I enjoyed it was in the conquest. Once the relationship went the other way, I would jump ship. There were seasons in which I was chaining meetings, and it was not until I was twenty-three that I had a somewhat longer lasting relationship, for three years; only that he had a partner and lived away for a while. Having him as a partner made it easier for me not to suffocate too much. From here I saw that I needed relationships to be open. Although more than a necessity, it is a desire that I live as indispensable.” (MÓNICA)

The various subtypes of the Seven adopt different coping strategies. In conservation, the “double life, which is sometimes more like triple or quadruple, is common. InfidelityIt takes many forms, from the systematic multiplication of sexual adventures to the simplest but equally fraudulent trafficking in sentimental information, that is, not being clear, transparent, not giving in, not trusting.

 Many times it does not even manage to establish a deep link, such is its difficulty, that is why E7 conservation often renounces quality and depth, replacing them with the simple multiplicity of passing adventures.

“It has been common to have friends/lovers to escape loneliness, to feel beyond pure sexual interest or conquest. In relation to women, the feeling of "hunters" has always been present. There is pleasure in conquest, and once the woman is conquered, interest is slowly lost. There is a reification of people. There is a lot of fear of intimacy, fear of being found out, which has made it difficult for me to bond on a deep level. Most of us have suffered humiliation in one way or another, and this reflects a not very attractive image of ourselves.” (JUAN CARLOS)

“Something that was repeated (and sometimes continues to happen to me) in all the relationships I have, whether family, friendship or partner, is the feeling of being there but not; I'm with one foot in and one foot out. Here I rescue a phrase that an E7 friend used to say: «When I arrive, I am already leaving. I need to know that I can leave and not feel the weight of someone's dependency (although it is also true that dependency is something that I tell myself and interpret).” (MÓNICA)

The gluttony of the Seven conservation often manifests itself as specifically sexual. Here, the tendency of all E7 to confuse love with pleasure is heightened by the confusion of pleasure with erotic pleasure. The deep dissatisfaction that underlies gluttony comes to be covered with seduction and sex, in a race to escape from a feeling of loneliness that is never mocked, where the lack of pleasure is interpreted as lack of love and even as abandonment.

“There is a paradox between the need to belong and the superficiality of relationships. There is a need to deepen the links, but at the same time we live relationships as commercial transactions. We do not accept relationships with conflict, and the paradox is that there is no relationship without conflict, so the feeling of not belonging is eternal.” (JUAN CARLOS)

“During a period of sexual abstinence I realized how much I had confused sex with love. Sex took me to heaven sometimes, to the fusion with the whole; however, I didn't realize how much it vited real contact. It was common to seek rapid penetration to avoid intimacy. He put me as an object of use without respecting me. I was going liberal when in reality I wanted love, someone to love and feel loved, again in search.” (MARÍA MARTA)

Dominance of erotic love

The E7 is an erotic enneatype (along with E8 and E3). That is, eros predominates over philia and agape, which together make up what might be called the three "basic colors" of love, according to the ancient Greco-Roman view, and from which all its forms can develop. . This means that the Seven is above all silly, instinctive, playful...

Expanding on the information with a characteristic secondary love, it can be said that the E7 is an erotic-admiring enneatype, in which idealization plays a strong role, although in the Seven conservation we find it replaced by cynicism.

Finally, adding a characteristic tertiary love, the E7 conservation is, despite his cynicism, an erotic-admiring-compassionate enneatype," in the sense that his role as caregiver for his family is coupled with a development of compassionate love or olderthan in the rest of the subtypes of the Seven. In other words, the E7 conservation is «<sold» as an erotic enneagram type, but an admiring longing underlies it that is cynically trampled underfoot, a need for compassionate love that is often ignored, but not for that reason unfelt. like a painful emptiness.

“I feel that I sell erotic love; It is through this center that I place myself in the world, seducing, sowing illusion, making in some way a promise of freedom, lightness, joy and celebration. But today I know it's a trap. In truth, the erotic center speaks for an extremely lacking of compassion. When the relationship is actually established, all the lightness and erotic freedom become weight, insecurity and the need to be emotionally welcomed, often with the hyper-demand of an almost unattainable ideal model.” (LUCIANA)

“The hardest thing for me is admiring love. The weakness that my father represented in our family life, in addition to his usual drunken state, robbed me of the ability to trust something or someone greater than myself. Without trust there is no surrender and without surrender there is no devotion. If admiring love is associated with the love of the father, it is difficult to feel it without the reference of a protective father. On the other hand, erotic love would be better defined in my life as porneia love: spontaneity and joy were never present. Indeed, sexual intercourse was marked by tension and anxiety. Before I got married it was common, after a sexual adventure, to masturbate when I got home.” (ALEXANDRE)

Promiscuity 

A single couple, but many lovers. Or a multitude of lovers in short and emotionally uninvolved relationships. The E7 conservation tends to like polyamory, at least in thought. He usually feels great discomfort being in a relationship, feeling your freedom limited. Has a strong sexual gluttony orientation: Seeks sex a lot as an attempt, sometimes in vain, to contact the emotional by substituting quality for quantity.

There is a confusion between giving/receiving love and giving/receiving pleasure. There is also a confusion between displeasure and heartbreak. Sometimes he behaves like a "thief" of sex, with a seductive attitude close to predation or plunder.

The disconnection from the body leads him to try to fill the emotional void with sex or seduction. In the background, there is a difficulty with intimacy and deep contact.

He usually makes friends with his lovers, whom he integrates into his bonding network, so that the result is suspiciously similar to that of the mafia. available around you. Likewise, women are also prone to lack of affective commitment. In general, regardless of sexual orientation, the Conservation Seven tends to seduce and achieve great productivity.

“I normally have sexual contact with others. I have never had a harem, but I have come close. During adolescence, my starter was to be in the game of seduction and always had someone in perspective. And from there I went straight, caring little if there was rejection. What's more, my internal experience is that if I didn't go to the conquest, no one would come because I didn't feel like most women. I saw myself with a different energy, which can be read as more masculine, although I see it more as a high feminine energy. I remember times when, taking it to the caricature, it seemed like a femme fatale. A few years ago I ran into a high school friend who described me as a volcano about to erupt but wouldn't explode.” (MÓNICA)

“In the case of the E7 conservation woman, I would speak, more than harems, of promiscuity. In the insatiable search, men, no matter how valuable they are, pass as objects of experiment. But when the authentic contact appears and it's time to undress, fear appears and changing partners is the easy way..” (MARÍA MARTA)

“Having just one man is too much! It requires a lot of commitment, intimacy, trust, and that used to scare me. Suitors used to come in pairs, never just one. When I felt unrequited by one (I have a low tolerance for frustration), I had the other for protection, and so it continued. Or else, I was looking for a friend to dance with, travel with; another to live the day-to-day routine... I felt that I rested from one being with the other, since it is also a fact that I got bored easily. Sometimes, I couldn't stand the hobbies and affairs of one anymore, and being with another distracted me from that, I didn't need to create conflict and that's how I came back later, already "recycled". I'm talking about the past, of course! Today I am a new woman, ha ha ha.” (LUCIANA)

“From the age of seventeen to the present I will have been without a partner for about four or five months. Of course, with each partner I combined some other adventure (not more than one), and I always had the feeling that he was not my definitive partner.

I have had a hard time trusting men, and I have also felt unable to seduce them. I guess it has to do with the early renunciation of my femininity, due to lack of mothering and identification with the figure of my father. For me to seduce, putting "women's weapons" into play, meant humiliation. For this reason it has been easier for me to relate erotically with women. Later I also understood the fear of male rejection that was behind my attitude, although I professed it as a perfectly coherent militant feminist ideology.

Committing and giving myself, finally, has made me feel more internal freedom than with all the tricks, strategies and fantasies of previous relationships. Also, increased confidence.” (ORI)

Don Juanism

 Another way to approach it is to describe the conservation E7 as the most openly lascivious, next to the sexual E8, of the enneatypes, to the point that some of the great seducers of all time, such as Giacomo Casanova, belong to this character. The mythical Casanova, in the 17th century, wrote a detailed account of his gallant conquests, as well as his picaresque, his frauds, his forgery of bills of exchange, his friendships with nobles and Monar Gas, his wanderings through Europe and, in finally, everything that apparently gave him a greedy life in style.

In Barcelona [Casanova] was arrested for getting involved with the wife of the captain general. One of his noble friends, unable to have children, asked him to sleep with his wife, without suspecting that she was the natural daughter of Casanova himself. A portrait made by the Venetian Inquisition at the time portrayed the spendthrift and libertine Casanova thus: "He comes and goes everywhere, with a frank face and head held high, well dressed... He is a man of about forty years like Maximus, handsome, healthy and vigorous looking, with very dark skin and lively eyes. He wears a short brown wig. From what I've been told, he has a cheeky and dismissive character, but above all, he is very smooth-talking and therefore witty and educated." In short, the living image of an E7, capable - as one of his biographers explains - of being "the most successful seducer in history" thanks to a simple technique: "When he met a woman, he studied her, discovered what he lacked in his life and he provided it. Ultimately, he made his fantasies come true.

We find another example of a heartthrob Seven conservation in a character that was surely not just fictional. This is Jacques Kohn, who gives his name to the book of short stories A Friend of Kafka by Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. The author describes this presumptuous friend-of-celebrity (recall that it is characteristic of the conservation Seven to "shine through others") as "an old and defeated man", who wears a monocle and who has been given the nickname of "the Lord” at the literary cafe he frequents. Kohn is always looking to get a loan from someone.

But what the narrator most admires about this old lady is "his way of treating women." He always finds something nice to say to less attractive women. «He flattered them all, although always with a tone of good-natured irony, adopting the attitude of the ravaged hedonist who has already tried everything». His way of speaking of the female sex is halfway between sincericide and narcissistic opportunism:

“My dear young friend, the truth is that I am practically powerless. Impotence always begins with the appearance of overly refined tastes. When you're really hungry you don't need caviar and nougat. And I have already reached a point where there is no woman that I find really attractive. There is no defect hidden from my sight. And this is helplessness. Dresses and corsets are transparent to me. There is no perfume or blush that fools me. I don't have a single tooth left, but when a woman opens her mouth I see the slightest filling.”

Idealization of love

Seduction is linked to idealization. It is about the compulsive search, with many discards, of an unrealizable ideal. In the case of men, the idealized image of women is an extension of the mother. We already mentioned the protagonist of the film Eight and a half by Fellini. Something similar also happens to François Truffaut's The Man Who Loved Women, who, after walking around contemplating the feminine beauty of the city, laments: "Unfortunately, I can't have them all.”

In reality, the erotic love of the E7 hides an admirable will that is not so evident, and even less so in the cynical Seven conservation. But in relationships, the tendency to imagine perfect loves, ideal partners, people who complete you, is the norm.

“Love for me was always an ideal. I also confess that I am addicted to falling in love, to the emotion of the beginning, to the initial enthusiasm and to the strategic game of seduction. I see the difficulty of truly contacting, of creating an authentic bond, of accepting reality with its limitations and shadows. When love ceases to be that paradise imagined from my Childhood desire, I experience an unbearable frustration, a disappointment that threatens my survival. Instead of working to accept what is, I can enter a mad race to recover and maintain the ideal. At whatever price.” (ORI)

“A very painful moment for me was when I realized, in a SAT, that I did not know how to love, that I had a very strong ideal about love and that my self-deception was brutal on this subject. I realized how lost I was in this area and that love went beyond sexual relations. Since then I have been able to open my heart and experience small acts of love. But they have been that: "acts of love", something that I do not know how to sustain over time. At least, as something that I feel has been expected or is expected of me.” (NÉSTOR)

“What really touches me is to perceive that the other feels admiration for my soul, for my movement in life, for my ideals, my thoughts, my words... all that admiring, almost devotional atmosphere. I also need to feel something admirable and devotional. I fantasize that love is what gives meaning to life.” (LUCIANA)

Fortunately or unfortunately, behind the erotic push and the search for the ideal there is usually a daily reality in a couple that does not match expectations. At the moment of the frontal encounterWith this less poetic reality, the narcissistic balloon bursts and the person will have to face their escapist tendencies, derived from their difficulty in emotional delivery. Running away, French goodbyes, the most varied forms of escape are common when the relationship begins to heat up emotionally.

“I recognize myself in love with seduction and infatuation, but when love comes I deflate. While I am starting relationships, erotic energy is what drives me; as soon as it starts to become habitual, my sexual desire goes down, even disappearing; I enter a gray energy. From this point on, I have a hard time contacting tenderness as a couple (my partners agreed to call me the «intimate moment-breaker»). There are times that as a couple I feel like a fraud where I am only playing fifty percent. One of my crazy ideas is that if I commit, it's until the end... So I never quite get it done and play "as if." (MÓNICA)

“My gluttony has made me be in an insatiable search for love, without realizing that it was impossible to find outside what I can't find inside. Compassionate love is the one I missed the most and the one I seek the most. I disconnected from the emotion to survive, it was a lot of suffering to feel my mother sick and I wanted to understand. Thus, I hyperdeveloped, distorting them, admiring and erotic love. I admired my mother more than my father. When the two figures fell I looked outside. I admired my maternal grandfather and looked to him for answers. Later I have been looking for figures to lean on and for this I needed to admire them first; there have been dead writers, like Socrates and Fromm. and alive, like Claudio Naranjo, Thich Nhat Hanh and many others.” (MARÍA MARTA)

Underlying all of this is an obvious fear of intimacy. It is a territory that is unknown and slippery, where the ghost of childhood abandonment and the atmosphere of emotional chaos that was experienced in the family of origin is constantly revived.

“I have spent most of my life not knowing how to open myself to love. Although I have had periods of being in a relationship, most of the time I have been alone. It's not that I said: “I don't want to have a partner” or “I don't want to have children, but I knew that I experienced this differently, as if the topic of a partner and children had little to do with me. The couple supposes intimacy, encounter, tenderness, communication, trust, conflict, limits, seeing me, seeing you... I didn't know what any of this was, I hadn't developed it and it made me panic.” (ANONYMOUS)

The I-You Axis

The typical sequence of an E7. From his narcissism and utilitarianism, he chooses someone (pretty, handsome, who "knows how to be", who has something "pure" or “innocent" or "virginal"...). «If I am wonderful-it seems to say and I choose you, then you must be wonderful». From then on, if escapism does not prevent commitment, a hyperdemanding begins, related to the tendency to idealize love and deprive it of all conflict, which has a certain resemblance to the reformism towards the couple that could exercise a sexual E1, but without indoctrinating about how the other should be on a moral level, but, rather, about how they should be so that they give back a flattering reflection.

This is related to a tendency not to see the other, to consider him an extension of himself when he is «adopted» (phagocytosed) as a member of the family. And even more so when it comes to the sentimental partner, understood as an appendage, a reflection of himself who is spared an existence per se. The conservation Seven only sees the other to the extent that it benefits from him and fulfills his need for pleasure, self-aggrandizement and satisfaction of his object libido. Thus, not only does he ignore the needs of the other, but also how he may feel about one's attitudes, since the relationship is experienced as a possession.

“Egoism is, for me, the difficulty to see the other separated from me, from my ends of exchange. There is something very bidirectional. In relationships, if I give, they have to give to me, but without my making it explicit. It's like playing a game in which only I know the rules, and I see it as selfish because I don't count on the others and then I bill them for being with them.” (MEKA)

Something similar often happens with children. It is difficult for him to conceive that they have their own desires or needs different from what the E7 conservation believes or wants. "You need what I tell you you need," he will try to sell effusively. "I know what is best for you.",etc . The obvious danger, and what to watch out for, is to see one's own children as instruments to continue satisfying the neurotic need for success, recognition, money, business... in an even more perverse form of the characteristic of "shining at through others."

But where does this confusion of you with self come from? Naturally, from an early submission to blood ties, to what we call "family", and which Alejandro Napolitano describes as "a way of alluding to the most degraded and destructive forms of the family bond matrix", crystallized in the forms gangsters to seal alliances with blood, related to the mammon's attachment to the mother's lap, to the mamma.

The I-thou relationship intensely eroticized by the mother of the Seven conservation man is a framework that mixes both identification with the mother and Don Juanism, "with the homosexual tendency that this entails," Napolitano notes, "and an unconscious hostility towards the mother, who appears displaced towards other women”, since this subtype, with a majority of males, shows a notable misogyny as a natural corollary of the phenomenon of capture by the mother.

The same thing happens in the case of women: there is misandry (contempt for the man) and a relationship of admiration/rejection towards the mother.

“Throughout my therapeutic process I have been able to realize this contempt for the father figure, but it has cost me much more to rescue the pain and fear to which my mother exposed me, the battles that were not mine and in which I had to deal with and get involved. Besides, I didn't just have to protect her; I also had the indirect task of taking charge-emotionally-of my sisters. But I made his story my own and until recently I have not been able to understand his manipulation and his responsibility in the matter and the anger that this provokes in me.” (ORI)

“I perceive that my promiscuous movements with men have had to do with disrespect towards my mother and all women, in addition to the desire for revenge towards men. (Brief historical comment: my father was unfaithful all his life and my mother always accepted.) I was outraged! He was more angry at her for accepting than at him for betraying. Today I know that I am coming from both of them.” (LUCIANA)

According to Napolitano, misogyny (and misandry) is sustained by the deified existence of a single woman who is a single woman: mom, derived, sometimes, towards Mother Nature, Goddess Fortune, Mother Church, Sacred Ecology or some other The inability to exercise an unfaithful eros towards that character in the children's novel and thus open up to the world and its true possibilities generally results in a dedication and fidelity as perpetual as it is unconscious to the maternal image, displacing infidelity, superficiality and the restriction in dedication to the couple relationship, that is, to real life.

As for women, it is the other way around. She takes the place of the father, from whom she "protects" the mother, becoming her oedipal partner. With respect to the father, rather than being eroticized by him, she identifies with his values, exercising since she was a child a role of friend, companion, sister, dad's colleague (when not in severe competition or directly at war with him). Later, already in the couple, the anger against the father shifts towards the men (when he chooses male partners), with a tendency to see them as inferior. As a child I lost my father and lost the ability to win him back. Hate made it impossible for me to ask for anything.

“My relationship with men has always been difficult because of this inability to appear needy, vulnerable, or even receptive. I sacrificed a lot of my feminine part to keep myself worthy, strong, safe. Distrustful, above all. In fact, without feeling homosexual, I have had more relationships with women than with men, simply because it has always been easier for me. I could say that I paid the price of masculinizing myself, without even realizing it.” (ORI)

The betrayal of the bond

In relation, the claims of an affective order are understood as a lack of love, and the same thing happens when the couple does not return an ideal image. The E7 conservation projects the loving onto the «family» universe, where the commitment is attenuated, often under utilitarian conditions in which any deviation from its demands of dedication, service, affection, return of a good image of oneself, etc. ., is interpreted as a betrayal of the bond.

When he feels betrayed, the Conservation Seven can act directly and without euphemisms like a mobster, and it is not uncommon for him to get cold towards his partner or loved ones, separating, condemning them to ostracism, silence or indifference, being able to reach to adopt very hard and cold attitudes in this regard.

At the same time, he does not tolerate remoteness, emotional distance, which he interprets as neglect. In this sense, it is usually very difficult for an E7 conservation to close relationships. Rather the custom is to try to leave a door ajar, especially with ex-partners.

“My feeling with the people I love is that they have to be available to me. I am very sensitive to your neglect. I can keep quiet about it, but inside I can feel betrayed and with a lot of resentment if a person who is important to me neglects me, either because he starts a relationship with someone or because, simply, he wants to distance himself for the reason to be.” (DAVID)

“This leads me to the fact that you have to get involved. "If you don't get involved, you don't love me." “I get involved for your good and you have to get involved too.” And so on. The family is seen as a herd, a flock of birds, dolphins dancing together... Each one free in their individuality and all as one. The crazy underlying idea is: Blood ties are stronger than none.” (MARÍA MARTA)

The great difficulty to commit effectively leads him to get tired in relationships where there is a lot of emotional involvement. He doesn't want to get involved. But at the same time, he gets "bored" when a relationship doesn't come across as exciting. Precisely his lack of involvement makes it easy for him to leave the couple. It could almost be said that when he begins to love someone, he leaves; in a bond avoidance maneuver, which usually lives as threatening or limiting.

“The first characteristic that comes to me in love is emotional cooling. Faced with harm caused to me by someone I consider family, I go through a phase of anger that quickly gives way to internal hardening, accompanied by impassiveness and a conviction that I don't care what has happened and that it's no big deal. . Therefore, imperturbability and emotional invalidation come together... and then it is difficult for me to return to the relationship because of this difficulty in becoming aware of what is authentic.” (MÓNICA)

“In relationships, I usually leave a door or a window open most of the time. I can blacklist someone if they have hurt me or someone I love very much. In that case, forgiving me can take a life. I can apparently forgive, but deep down I don't forget. And I don't feel like it's rancor as such, but it has to do with trust, with trusting again.” (NÉSTOR)

Fear of intimacy

The feeling of lack also permeates the field of love and sex. As much as a large number of lovers can parade through his life, it is not uncommon for a conservation Seven to feel lonely, with few opportunities and lack of affection, as a consequence of his difficulty with emotional delivery. There is an ancient horror of intimacy, surely related to an early feeling of having felt emotionally rejected by the mother.

Although touched by the feeling of guilt, he tries to escape by distracting the attention of the other (and his own) from his misdeeds. [...] Making the other fall into his nets gives him back a narcissistic assessment of himself; he is not interested in knowing the real feeling of the other; his constant search is the feeling of satisfaction product of his own abilities.

In this way, their selfishness and independence hinder their chances of accessing deeper and more satisfying relationships.

As he is adept at anticipating future failure in his interpersonal relationships or pointing out flaws in his partner, he more or less unconsciously sabotages them, in order to avoid the risk of future emotional pain or a more compromised relationship. When asked about what he really wants, he often feels pressured and refuses to give an honest answer about what he wants to do with his love life.

There is in E7 conservation a compulsive desire for ties while rejecting them. Since he tends to spread very dense networks around himself to satisfy his most varied appetites, no one is irreplaceable. Naturally, their links are very relative. He doesn't feel tied to anyone, and even though he acts as a defender of his own, he can abandon people in his circle when he doesn't need them.

This is clearly seen in his ambiguity in the face of love. He seeks to seduce but then gets bored, disconnects and continues with his crazy frenzy of seduction towards unexplored territories, since he is terrified of what would heal him the most: the construction of a deep, real and committed love bond.

CHAPTER 9; HISTORICAL CHARACTER: CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

Christopher Columbus, the fabulators

In the life of the famous Admiral Columbus there are few clear things and many dark facts. Even today, historians dispute its place of origin. Catalans, Genoese and Corsicans, mainly, continue to dispute the birthplace of the discoverer, who was able to hide his family events because he was of Jewish origin. It is also not at all clear that the sailor was the first to arrive in America, since recent discoveries place the Viking navigators of the 9th century on the coast of Labrador, and there are even indications of Chinese maritime voyages in the 15th century. The only thing that all historians seem to agree on is that they list a series of character traits of the mariner that match the description of an enneatype Seven. Christopher Columbus was «a man animated by the exploratory impulse typical of this character, and the first to put into practice navigation guided by the stars».

He wasn't the kind of person who lives in the clouds; he was a man of action rather than a thinker: practical, earthy, adventurous, and somewhat impulsive. Yet his interpretation of what he did was fanciful: not only did he believe he had reached the coast of Asia, but even more surprisingly, he seemed to have no problem enslaving Indians whom he sincerely wanted to convert to Christianity. .

Although it is true that the utilitarianism and practicality of Columbus are beyond doubt, there are solid reasons to think that the admiral must also have been a fanciful charlatan, one who believed his own fantasies, albeit very well reasoned. Something that undoubtedly must have been of great use to him when the mari industry of the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa MARÍA began to have serious doubts of finding land, already advanced the adventure of the Discovery. "Columbus deceived the crew every day about the miles traveled.”

Thinking about the cordial and egalitarian treatment that the admiral must have lavished on his subordinates in those moments of tension would be mere speculation. Even more so when the E7 conservation tends to be egalitarian towards those who are hierarchically objectively above him, while he usually shows a certain authoritarian and even despotic drive (perhaps as an influence of the E1) towards his subordinates. Columbus had the opportunity to demonstrate his authoritarianism in his long period as Captain General of the newly discovered lands, until in 1499 he was returned to Spain in chains, due to his abuses and corruption in office.

But before we deal with this matter, let us go back to the days before October 12, 1492... When the situation became untenable on board and the sailors had already started a mutiny, the admiral made a blind forecast: they would reach the Indies in three more days of sailing.

It was said on October 9. During those three days, Columbus managed to get the peace on board and, miraculously, he was right in his forecast, which is perhaps another example of a special predisposition for planning, so typical of this character, and even more so in the schemer, controller and earthly Seven conservation. What happened during the trip to America? The Catholic Monarchs granted ten thousand maravedís of rent to whoever was the first to spot land.

In this respect, it is also necessary to speak of the falsehood and greed of Columbus, claiming the certainty that he was the one who first glimpsed the American land, when in fact Rodrigo de Triana was such a privileged lookout, and it was him who corresponded this prize promised by kings.

Taking credit for others seems to have been a constant in the life of this fine opportunist, who knew how to gain a monopoly on trips to the Indies and make his public image profitable far beyond that date. Sometimes with theatrical staging, such as when he crossed the Peninsula as a penitent to be received by the Catholic Monarchs, who had withdrawn his privileges.

But before continuing to comment on his facet as an opportunist, let us analyze that of a charlatan, which in the case of Columbus reaches the categories of mystifier and megalomaniac, displaying a narcissism mechanically destined to foment a personal legend based on plagiarism, exaggeration and half-hearted truths.

Already on the way back from his first sea voyage, when he was only twenty-four years old. "Columbus began to attribute to himself marine adventures, surely overheard by some of the crew members on that voyage and the others he made," says the historian Cardona. Why did Columbus act like this? For vanity? Better maybe for his own frustration and to cheer himself up."

And also, we should add, for being built an image more in keeping with his narcissism. For not having been a daring cabin boy who climbed the poles to mend the sails, but a simple passenger in charge of guarding the bundles of canvases and various fabrics woven in his father's house.

However, the opportunities for more interesting adventures would not wait. In 1476, Columbus embarked on what would be his second sea voyage, this time to distant England. Again, he had to guard his father's merchandise. This time. the threat of corsairs was real and the ship was well supplied with culverins, bombards and falconets. What emotion the young and dreamy Christophoro must have felt when, rounding Cape St. Vincent, the trading ship he was traveling in ran into corsairs under the command of Guillaume Casanave de Coullon, in the service of the King of France.

The combat was fierce and the galley in which Columbus was traveling began to leak. The young man had the guts to jump into the water and grab onto a piece of wood. After long hours of anguish, he arrived at a fishermen's beach where they took him in and healed him. From these people he learned that he had just fought against his «uncle» Coullon. His "uncle", yes, because for some strange reason, attributable to the mythomania typical of the enneatype, the young Christophoro had imagined since he was a child that he was the nephew of that famous pirate. The fishermen praised the deeds attributed to the French corsair, so Columbus kept quiet that it was a Genoese galley and told the hoax that he was serving under the orders of his "uncle", the Frenchman Coullon, with whom he would have taken part in various combats, especially bloody, as he told anyone who wanted to listen. In this way, Columbus was weaving his own legend. And there are still more:

The previous year, in Chios, he had also claimed command of a ship owned by King René of Naples (after learning that a certain Columbus, probably an Aragonese, was on that ship). He also added that he had sailed under Colombo the Younger in 1459It mattered that on that date he was less than ten years old. Who was going to ask him for data accuracy? Columbus was determined to forge a very interesting marine and military history, telling everyone about his dream adventures, with grace and self-confidence, things that as a good Mediterranean (whether Genoese, Corsican or Catalan) should not be lacking.

And convinced that lies and farce were going to be very necessary in his life, he made up his mind to use them for his own benefit, although he never used them to harm others [italics added]. Thus, for example, when he later demanded sonorous titles to undertake his daring adventure, he kept silent about his first profession with his father, and the reasons for his first voyages, and claimed to have commanded a galley from King René in 1473 (he wrote Reinel), and fought in the action of Cabo San Vicente and in those of Colombo el Mozo or Joven, who had attacked four Venetian galleys coming from Flanders.

What a treasure this young Columbus was: a true fraud... Arrogant, vain, Christopher Columbus preferred to go down in history as a fearsome and feared corsair than as a vulgar fabric and brocade merchant». To this day, there is still speculation about these adventures of Columbus that he himself was responsible for propagating. As one fanciful historian speculates:

It is not possible that Christopher Columbus, in that early period of his life, of which hardly anything is known, would have been embarked on a Viking ship and that under the orders of some chief worshiper of the god Thor, such as Erik the Red, for example Had it already reached the shores of the continent that would later be called America?

Legends, mysteries, enigmas... This is the life of Christopher Columbus. There are those who doubt that, as he left written in his own handwriting, he visited the island of Thule (current Iceland). The great Salvador de Madariaga gave credibility to this story, since Father Bartolomé de las Casas, who accompanied Columbus on his American adventure, alleges this testimony:

In some notes that [Columbus] made on how all the five zones are habitable, proving it by experience of his navigations, he says as follows: I sailed in the year four hundred and seventy-seven in the month of February, ultra Thule, island one hundred leagues, whose southern part is far from equinoctial 73° and not 63° as some say, and is not within the line that includes the west, as Ptolemy says, but much more western, and to this island, which is as large as England, the English go with merchandise, especially from Bristol.

Columbus's text contains some true data, such as trade with Bristol, but at the same time makes blunders regarding latitudes, which again opens the field to doubt and the suspicion of mystification.

Colón knew how to sell himself very well in his time, but not everyone bought his speech so easily. Columbus was not heard at the Portuguese court of John II. The Portuguese king was surrounded by highly experienced sailors, before whom Columbus was only capable of contributing vagueness, half-words and mysterious stories about the possibility of reaching Cipango by sailing west. His only proof was his visionary faith, which, in the end, turned out to be founded on something more than fantasies.

The half planner and half visionary and fanciful character of Columbus also comes to the fore in the description of him by his friend and ardent admirer Bartolomé de las Casas:

He conceived in his very Christian heart the confidence of finding what he sought as if this orb had been placed in his ark. But because, according to what I understand, when he was determined to look for a prince who would help him and turn his back, he was already certain that he would discover lands and peoples, as if he had personally been there.

However, King Juan II, "despite paying attention to him, asked him to give you specifics and not vagueness." The historian Salvador de Madariaga defends Columbus, arguing that "it must have been a real torment for him to have to remain before the king muttering the degrees and widths of the sea in full confusion, when there within his soul he felt as much clarity and as much decision and as much fire as the sun.

The king, much more stubborn, gave Colon a no because, among other things, he considered that the navigator's requests far exceeded what was reasonable and violated the rights of the Crown:

In effect, Columbus requested to carry out the expedition the title of Grand Admiral of the Ocean Sea, the honorary and effective title of vi king of all the lands he discovered, and a title, that is, ten percent of all the fabulous treasures that, according to him, he would find in said land.

It is very common for E7 conservation to hang pompous medals. Like magpies, she is attracted to the shine of metal, especially when it comes to money.

Faced with this snub, and surely fearing being involved in a process due to the strange and sudden death of the castaway Alonso Sánchez [whom Columbus had picked up from the sea and who is speculated to have given him valuable information on the navigation to the West ), Columbus decided to secretly leave Portugal. It is also possible that the reason for his departure was debt.

Before leaving, he copied the Toscanelli map, a forgotten chart on which he placed all his faith in his expedition. With this letter he was able to appear before the Catholic Monarchs to defend plans. He did it behind the back of King John II who, had he known, would have considered him a traitor.

When, on October 12, 1492, Columbus arrived in America, he drove thinking that he had reached Cipango. For a long time he continued to cling to the idea of ​​being in Asia, and his fantasy led him to conclude, in his exploration of the Paria Peninsula, that he had found the Terrestrial Paradise and that the Orinoco River descended from it. Although earthy and practical as a good conservationist, Columbus also guided by being a dreamer, as a good enneatype Seven. Proof of this is the fact that he was always aware of finding the passage to the Pacific Ocean in order to finally reach the East Indies, as was his long-awaited initial objective.

His facet as a charlatan and swindler is clear if we pay attention to the fact that Columbus promised the Catholic Monarchs and anyone who would listen to him a colonization of the newly discovered lands based on obtaining easy riches, which he predicted with great zeal and which finally it was not fulfilled, which unleashed a strong mistrust and resentment towards the admiral.

Again in his relationship with money and power, Colón turned out to be a lousy administrator and even an embezzler. His management of the viceroyalty ended up being disastrous in this regard. The family aspect of the E7 was in it powerfully developed. In a nepotist way, his brothers Bartolomé and Diego were promoted, passing over any hierarchy. In a short time, the discoverer turned Hispaniola into a fiefdom of Columbus. In the times of the viceroyalty, his appointments to high positions by relatives continued to unleash great suspicion against him, which, added to his authoritarian and embezzler traits, would give rise to a series of riots that Columbus tried to repress violently. and that, in the end, they would end their privileges in the Indies.

Not content with his excesses as governor, and failing to follow the expected riches, the Columbus attacked the indigenous people and sold some as slaves, thus disobeying the ordersIsabella the Catholic, who had made clear her wish that the indigenous people be treated as subjects of Castile”.

In conclusion: Columbus acted in a pseudo-social way before the authority of the Catholic Monarchs, but then he did what he wanted when the authority-which he did not recognize in his inner heart-was muffled by distance. A very typical attitude of the enneagram Seven, but even more so of the conservation, with its proverbial lack of moral scruples.

 Abounding in the family aspect, Columbus seemed to despise all who were not of his tribe. «Suspicious and very distrustful, he only trusted the men of his clique, who were not very good, with the exception of Antonio de Torres.

Columbus was often noted for his cunning, as in the famous episode where he used an old adventure novel trick. It was time for his fourth trip to the New World and the admiral remembered that in the Regiomontana Calendar the astronomers announced a total lunar eclipse for February 22, 1504. So he sat down as a magician by telling the indigenous people that he was going to take away the moon if they did not give him and his family their daily sustenance. He added that the night would be eternally black for them... And the comedy went off without a hitch. The indigenous people were stunned and frightened by the powerful magic of Columbus, so finally they all fell on their knees before him begging him to return the star, to which, with some theatrical magical passes, the admiral agreed, showing them the scope of his magic. This theatrical facet, with ostentatious staging, could also be developed on the return from his second trip to America. Already harassed by multiple accusations of corruption and authoritarianism, Columbus had the opportunity to meet the Court in Burgos, so that he crossed Spain with the clear intention of making himself look like the lamb he was not.

From Andalusia to the old Castilian city, he was once again offered a vast rural and sensitive public, which he could move with his theatrical presence: emaciated, aged and wearing a penitent's sackcloth. The contrast of his suffering humility with the splendor of the entourage that accompanied him would demonstrate to the Spanish ascetics the Admiral's austerity, destroying all the black legends of his enemies, who were already many.

His pride was the pride of a nobleman, a musketeer, a narcissist for whom the heroic, self-sacrificing, disinterested and reckless self-image had been built lie by lie, fantasy by fantasy, based on saliva, luck, suggestion and, above all, everything autosuggestions.

CHAPTER 10; A CINEMATOGRAPHIC EXAMPLE

Schnider’s List

Steven Spielberg. 1993

By Ori Hernandez

This film is based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, published in 1982. To write it, Keneally interviewed everyone alive who had known and dealt with Schindler, so it is a good approximation of Schindler's. the historical facts.

Spielberg, for his part, focuses on a specific stage in the protagonist's life: the German occupation of Poland and the final stretch of World War II. Shot entirely in black and white, the film stars Liam Neeson in the role of Schindler, along with Ben Kingsley as the Jew Itzhak Stern who, in his extraordinary sobriety, offers a perfect counterpoint to the character's overwhelming and disproportionate personality principle.

Character

Born in Zwittau on April 28, 1908, Oskar Schindler was a German businessman and member of the Nazi party, who saved the lives of approximately twelve hundred Jews during the Holocaust, employing them as workers in his kitchenware and ammunition factories, located in what are now Poland and the Czech Republic. Both the novel and the film present him as an opportunist who, initially, only sought to make a profit and who ended up becoming the person who managed to save the lives of his employees.

The end of his life was marked by economic difficulties, in which he was helped by Schindler's Jews, whom he had saved from the Holocaust. Oskar Schindler died in Hildesheim on October 9, 1974 and was buried on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

The movie 

The first images give us the context: the German occupation of Poland, the start of World War II, and the recent order that all Jews move to the big cities to be registered and controlled by the Waffen SS. We see whole families parade arriving in Krakow, with the house on their backs and with a heavy heart, disorientation and fear in their eyes.

These images contrast with the appearance on the scene of a tall, blond and very handsome German. He is choosing a suit, tie, cufflinks, a gold pin with the Nazi insignia, and collecting all the money he has stashed around his house. He arrives impeccably dressed at a restaurant frequented by the senior staff of the German army. By bribing the waiter he gets a discreet but privileged table. With an air between carefree, mysterious and seductive he serves and awaits his opportunity with the patience and finesse of a feline. His moment arrives with the entrance of a high-ranking SS officer, accompanied by a lady and another officer. He shows a ticket to the waiter while asking him to bring a bottle to the newly occupied table.

—Yes sir. What do you want me to say?

—Tell them that it’s an invitation.

He was completely unknown, but in a couple of hours he managed to end up in the center of the party and all eyes. He ends up inviting all the army commanders to a sumptuous dinner washed down with the best wines from the cellar. He ends the night embracing the most important characters who, moreover, strive to appear at his side. The result of this investment is his photo with the Nazi high command exposed in the main offices of Krakow. First objective accomplished: the appropriate contacts have already been made. Scenes from the atmosphere of humiliation, ridicule and submission of the Jews pass before our eyes again. An endless line before an office building to sign up for job lists. Misinformation, contempt and harassment everywhere. Again Oskar Schindler, who seems to take better advantage of the case the worse things get. He walks tall, elegant and oblivious, alongside the queues of devastated and suffering people. Nobody looks. With a determined step, he advances until he finds Itzhak Stern inside one of the buildings. Stern was an accountant for an old Jewish factory that is now bankrupt. He asks about her and they tell him of their plans.

“Sir, I am required by law to inform you that I am Jewish," is Stern's first curious response when Schindler addresses him. “Well, and I am German, matters settled.” -concludes the company entrepreneur, who wears the swastika on the lapel of his silk jacket.

Our character has no principles or criteria other than those of his own interest. He is not on one side or the other, but on his own. He wears the swastika because this gesture opens doors for him and provides him with interested relationships, without further ado. For him it is not a problem. mingle with Jews, if you need them; Nor do they kill them. He proposes to Stern that he be the director of his pot and pan factory to supply the German army.

—When the war is over, we'll see, but meanwhile, you can earn a fortune.

The plan is perfect, but he doesn't have enough money to buy that factory. He needs investors, Jews with money they can no longer spend. He offers them a part of the production so that they can exchange it on the black market. Stern, who looks at him dumbfounded, wants him as CEO:

 —Let's see if I understand it. They will put the money; me, all the work. Excuse the question but what will you do?

—I will take care of publicizing the company, that it has certain style. I'm good at that, not work; the job, no. The presentation!

—I don't think I know anyone who would be interested in that.

—Stern objects.

—You should be interested, Stern. It should interest you.

Schindler knows very well that the Jews are not in a position to choose and he is going to get a cut. A last scene, in this opening of contrasts, illustrates his skills as an opportunist and profiteer. All Jewish families in and around Krakow are forced to move to the ghetto; They must leave their homes. The sad images of people collecting photographs, cutlery, clothes, paintings, etc. collide with the following, in which Oskar Schindler arrives at a flat recently expropriated, a luxurious and stately house in the center and lies in bed exclaiming:

—It couldn’t be better!

Meanwhile, the legitimate owners settle in a crowded dilapidated shack with other families, consoling each other:

—It could be worse!

Finally, he gets his factory and sets off to use his contacts in the military to gain loyal and constant customers for the duration of the war. In addition, he hires Jews from the ghetto as workers in his factory, thus saving even more on labor. His advertising campaign is accompanied by lavish gifts obtained on the black market for his powerful German clients. Of course, his strategy works perfectly and he starts making money hand over fist.

He only seems to care about his success. He lives in continuous and disproportionate ostentation. He is shown as a restless man, hedonistic, refined, drinker, heavy smoker, lover of good food, womanizer. In a way, dreamy, selfish and ambitious, but also generous, because he likes to make those around him participate in his excesses, like a good narcissist. He doesn't look around except for his business.

This is well exemplified by the scene where Stern is mistakenly detained and put on a train to Auschwitz. They warn Oskar, who manages to get him out in extremis. A terrified Stern apologizes for forgetting his blue essential worker card.

—I tried to explain to them that it was a mistake! I am sorry! I've been stupid!- laments Izthak

—What if he was five minutes late? What would have become of me?- Schindler answers very angry.

Stern had just escaped by a hundredth of a second from being taken to the concentration camp and almost certainly to his death, but Oskar didn't even notice. You can't see it. His extraordinary egocentricity prevents him. Somehow, he manages to deny reality. By focusing on his own, he betrays the devastation that surrounds him. For the rest, he continues to live in constant extravagance. Women, drink, food... Nothing is enough. He always pursues something else and he is not really satisfied. He appears to be a calm, affable and confident man but, in reality, he never rests, not even swimming in all the worldly pleasures within his reach. He exhibits an insatiable gluttony.

In these moments of success and opulence, he receives an unexpected visit from Emily, his wife, while he is in bed with one of his mistresses. It doesn't change in the slightest. He comments to his wife, while the other hurriedly dresses:

—Look at her: Poor thing, she's nervous. Do you know something? Would you like it?

It seems that the problem does not go with him.

Later, he goes out to dinner with his wife and they spend the night together. It is surprising to see that they really know and love each other. Oskar talks to him about his business with enthusiasm and sincerity. He is happy because he has far surpassed his father in the number of employees in his factory. He puts a lot of interest in his need for recognition. He is also interested in what they say about him in his hometown, he lets himself go in his dreams and delusions of grandeur... He seems full and enthusiastic like a child.

Finally he declares to Emily:

—One thing was always missing. In every business I started, it wasn't me who failed. Something was always missing. Even if I had known what it was, I would not have been able to do anything, because it is something that cannot be tamed and that makes the difference between failure and success.

—Luck! points, attentive, his wife.

—The war! - answers Oskar.

 After their pleasant evening and night together, Emily asks Oskar if he wants her to stay. He suggests that she decide it. Emily replies that she will stay if she promises that no doorman or maitre d will ever doubt that she is Mrs. Schindler (she is obviously asking him to be faithful and respect her in order to stay with him). The next scene is at the train station. Oskar, on the platform with his imperturbable smile and Emily at the window, sad and desolate, back in Czechoslovakia. He seems unable to commit, to surrender to giving and receiving love, to give up his continual carousel of erotic experiences. To his deceitful freedom.

Success in business continues. Actually, the factory is run by Stern. Schindler is not interested in the accounts, or the bills, or the details. The detailed reports from your accountant give you a headache. He is only there to sell his product and collect profits. Stern is also in charge of recruiting the workers from among his ghetto peers. He does not hire them for their professional qualities, but to give them the opportunity to obtain the category of essential workers, a condition that prevents them from being detained, deported or killed. Oskar looks at this with indifference and condescension at the same time. If it doesn't detract from your profits, you don't much care what your CEO does either. Again, we see his permissiveness and indulgence, his lax and ambiguous morality. Nothing concerns him enough to get complicated. Just your benefit.

There is one scene, however, that seems to disturb him somewhat. While you're enjoying a hearty meal-as usual, Stern asks him to give the mechanic a minute

who wants to thank him for giving him a job, because it has saved his life. Without too much enthusiasm, he agrees. A skinny, worn-out man, somewhat older and one-armed, enters. He is full of praise, bows and thanks to Oskar, who is visibly uncomfortable. And even more so when at the end the mechanic repeatedly exclaims:

 -You are a good man, God bless you!

When the worker leaves, his face has changed and his appetite has gone. Later he berates Stern for putting him in that situation. When the worker tells him that he is good and thanks him, something seems to be disturbing him inside. He doesn't feel good. Moreover, a real fraud is known, it is taking advantage of everything and everyone. How can anyone consider him a good person? Despite his apparent self-indulgence, internally he does not feel worthy of praise. He strongly rejects it, and yet something about this episode has touched his heart.

External events rush. The situation is hardening for the Jews. They build a concentration camp in a nearby place and take all the Jews from the ghetto, in a long night of real massacre. In charge of the camp is Commander Amon Göth, an SS captain, a ruthless whimsical lunatic, who does target practice from his balcony with the camp's inhabitants before breakfast.

The brutal massacre in the ghetto, in which he stands paralyzed on his horse from the hill, brings about a change in Schindler. Until now he seemed not to see what was happening around him. Now he no longer looks the other way, he begins to be interested in silence. There is a certain awareness. Stop coming across as unflappable. Although he hides it, it seems that the pain and suffering of others are penetrating him.

Schindler begins to use his tricks and bribes to ally himself with Göth and get the workers of his factory to leave every field day to work for him. He develops a true obsession to protect his own. He organizes parties for the commander full of food, drink and women, gets drunk with him, jokes and appears as his accomplice... Finally, he keeps his workers by telling them that they are specialized workers and that he would lose a lot of money training others. The only one he can't get out is Itzhak Stern, who is forced to work as an accountant and secretary for Amon Göth.

He communicates it visibly sad and excited:

—I couldn't get him out of here. I will come every week; the Wednesdays. I will be able to know how it goes.

As he leaves, he gives her some food. He really is worried about him, not just about losing his accountant, as happened in the train scene. Perhaps to his own chagrin, he has created a bond.

In this way, it becomes incriminating and involved, above all, with concrete people. There are numerous signs of this progressive trans training. A Jewish girl goes to visit him at the factory to beg him to take your parents off the field because they are older and Göth is getting rid of old people.

—They say that no one dies here, that their factory is a refuge. They say you are good. Schindler snaps.

—Who says?

—All the world! He gets very angry and, faced with the girl's pain, he yells at her:

“Cry and I'll have you arrested, I swear to God!"

He has her in front of him and he cannot bear her pain; once again you can't look the other way.

He later talks to Stern about this situation:

--People die. It is a fact of life! He wants to kill everyone and what should I do? Bring them all here? It's dangerous, dangerous for me!

At this point, he tries to justify Göth. It's not that he has a good relationship with him, but he takes the iron out of his cruelty by being, in a certain way, indulgent. Although internally she despises him, she tries to excuse him to Stern; deep down, because he cannot understand or accept that he likes to kill and cause so much suffering. He is just a hedonist who has lived thinking that he did no harm to take advantage of the opportunities that were presented to him. The world belongs to the smart ones, it seems to say. By excusing the captain's atrocities, he is also somehow exculpating himself. It is one more example of his self-indulgence and permissiveness. However, Stern tells him how a few days ago Göth randomly killed twenty-five Jews in a barracks. It puts the harsh reality in front of him. In this conversation with his accountant-and now friend, he can't help but acknowledge with horror Amon's insatiable cruelty.

“It can't be that he enjoys that," Oskar mutters, horrified.

And he gives her the names of the Jewish girl's parents along with a gold lighter to get them to come to work at the factory. He also makes a gesture in the hold with the captain's servant, Helen, whom he sees emaciated and extremely depressed, as she is being daily subjected to the capricious cruelty of her boss. He comforts her with hopeful words, advises her to get stronger, and gives her chocolate. At the end he gives her a kiss; she makes a frightened gesture to withdraw.

"It's not that kind of kiss," he reassures her. It is a loving, compassionate kiss from a healthy and protective father. Helen thanks him, both surprised and touched. Perhaps he is now exhibiting the patronizing and patronizing attitude that he would have liked to feel as a child.

That night he stays with Amon, who is totally drunk, they drink together, but Schindler never loses his composure.

—I always watch him and I never see him drunk. That is true control. Control is power! - Göth comments with a mixture of envy, admiration and suspicion.

It is true that Schindler never relaxes, he is always alert and never loses control. Take advantage of this conversation to convince the commander that true power is shown when we have the capacity to kill and we don't; He compares him to the Phoman emperors...

—Sparing the life of someone you think is going to die... That's power! Amon, the Good!-he whispers.

The captain succumbs to this subtle dialectical manipulation, which is his way of trying to mitigate Göth's enormous violence and thirst for power. It works for a few days; yes, only until he gets bored of this practice too, but some life is saved thanks to this ingenious trick.

Although he proceeds stealthily and with the utmost care, events are precipitated and Schindler is less and less attentive to his own protection. To the extent that he opens his gaze and his heart becomes more compassionate, the protective shell softens, thus exposing himself more and more. So much so that the next scene shows a train loaded with Jews to be moved, like cattle, and as they wait, under the hot sun.

After the rickety train leaves, Oskar proposes to Amon Göth that they be hosed down. This one takes it as a joke, thinking that it is something cruel, to entertain himself. Schindler laughs, playing along. but insist:

--Give me that treat, it'll be fun.

Finally, he manages to refresh all the busted passenger seats and has cinated in the filthy cars. He collaborates personally at work, in shirt sleeves, to make sure that the water reaches everyone, before the astonished and perplexed look of the SS and the captain himself, who smiles but doesn't know what to think. Fortunately, she can't conceive of doing it out of compassion or simple kindness.

—Another wonderful day-exclaims Schindler, in his particular mockery of the system.

Already in the last year of war, the order arrives to close the Plaszow camp and send all its prisoners to Auschwitz. This is one more step in barbarism and also in the evolution of Schindler. At first, he is saddened and seems to lower his arms before the unstoppable machinery of death of the Reich, as evidenced by a private conversation with Stern-which sounds like a farewell and almost an elegy in which, at last, they have a drink together with emotion on the surface.

It seemed like a final goodbye; however, Schindler is not resigned to watching impassively the death of his friend and all the rest of his workers. He is still rebellious and fanciful, so he conceives another plan. He proposes to Göth to stay with the people from the factory and build his own field in Zwittau, his hometown. Of course, this is achieved with money again; he must pay the greedy captain the price he sets per person.

Once again, Amon cannot understand his motivation:

—Where is the business?

But it is so much money that he is not able to refuse. From here, Schindler begins to draw up a list with Itzhak Stern, while delivering suitcases of money to Göth. He is stretching the list to the limit of his solvency. As Stern types names, Oskar asks:

—How many?

—Four hundred, five hundred, eight hundred... —More, more, more!-he insists, feverish.

He seems to finally find meaning in his efforts, in his ambition, in his life, in the act of saving as many lives as he can... There is in him an honest, compassionate Impulse, but also an obsessive determination to save his own, in continue to believe that you have the power to safeguard your partial and totally unreal image of the world that has been built. In his personal fight against evil, he feels powerful. He thinks he wins the game. Visibly sorrowful, he hits the economic ceiling and knows he can't include anyone else.

—Finish the page and leave a gap at the end!-urges Stern.

Itzhak pulls out the last page of the list, while he says with a moved gesture:

 ——Look, this list is the absolute good. This list is life. Beyond its margins the abyss opens.

Beyond ambition, selfishness, cruelty, unreason and death, there is this simple and heroic gesture, this act of love that makes him not only lose his enormous fortune, but risk his own life to save other people. It is the hope, the way out from the Nazis and the war, in general. In his new ammunition factory they don't build a single projectile that can be fired, because he has miscalibrated the machines on purpose. The Zwittau-Brinnlitz field, in the seven months it was at full capacity, was a model of lack of production.

The radios finally announce the unconditional surrender of Germany and, consequently, the cessation of hostilities. The war is over!

—The time has come for the guardians to enter the manufacture!-orders Schindler with determination.

Jews and Germans, meeting. In front of all of them, Oskar Schindler begins his speech lamenting the losses of the Jewish people, and thanking Stern for his courage and solidarity (now we understand that all the time he was an example for him and a mirror in which to look at himself). Then follows an authentic denunciation of himself and his behavior:

—I'm a member of the Nazi party! I am an ammunition manufacturer! I have taken advantage of slavery! A criminal.

The character appears in all his ambiguity. These statements are true and false at the same time. Prisoners and officers know this, but they can't object to anything. He then exhorts the guards not to carry out orders to annihilate all the prisoners in the camps before midnight. He encourages them to return home, to their families, as men and not as murderers. They all leave, one by one, until the factory and the field are empty of guards and officers. His powers of persuasion are still intact, but now he serves more than his selfish interest. Finally, observe three minutes of silence for the countless victims of war. He does not shy away in the least from feeling the pain of such suffering and, therefore, accompanying those who are suffering. He

 no longer feels the compulsive need to run away.

The story could end here, and it would already be a good story of a transformation process for an E7 conservation, but we are missing the last scene in which our character appears. The limit. The farewell. The fall.

One of the workers miraculously preserved a gold tooth. They manage to extract it and melt it down to make a ring and give it to Schindler. Already at the door of his car, Stern hands it to him. They are both excited. It has an inscription, a verse from the Talmud that says: "Whoever saves one life, saves the whole world."

The gratitude and recognition of all his workers and perhaps, by extension, of the entire Jewish people, seems to offer Oskar Schindler the redemption to which he never thought he was entitled. Deeply shaken, he breaks down for the first time, physically and emotionally. He is hugged and supported by his faithful friend and companion, Itzhak Stern, and also by the women, who come closer. He cries like a disconsolate child in the arms of his parents. Meanwhile, he laments the continuous wastefulness in which he has lived, the lives he could have saved, he despises himself for all his previous life.

His pain is also that of the definitive fall from his false paradise. The world is as it is and your power to transform it is limited; reality hits him in the face and in the soul. He has saved a few Jews but evil and death still exist, he cannot change that. It is overwhelming evidence, before which one must surrender. It becomes small and that is when it is dropped. But he is loved and accompanied in his fall. You are not alone. A profoundly significant and restorative scene for an E7 conservation, no doubt.

Finally, one of the women offers him a prisoner's shirt to go unnoticed on his escape. It is the uniform that the Jews had worn during six years of war and persecution. It is the suit of humiliation and degradation. It is to put yourself in the other's skin, it is to equalize and unite to the fullest in suffering.

Also for the first time, he ditches his luxurious silk suit. He leaves, then, as a naked person, stripped of the costly egoic wrapping in which his life had passed.

It is often said that healing lies in the wound. Oskar Schindler's story points out that by living with what he had been running away from all his life-pain, by looking at it fully, acknowledging his own too, surrendering, crying, letting himself fall and leaning on others, he obtains a greater reward than all those achieved until then in his opulent, greedy and superficial life. The help and love of his fellow men, belonging and recognition, support and protection: Just what he always craved with ferocity, only he looked the wrong way.

CHAPTER 11; JOKES AND VIGNETTES

Mullah Nasruddin, a famous character in Sufism, often offers profound lessons by way of appearing as an idiot -and sometimes he appears to be a Seven conservation type idiot, as in the following story, where he shows us the typical tricks of this character . Nasrudin is accused of having stolen from the public treasury. But there are doubts about who took the money... if it was Nasruddin or another. Nasruddin, always astute, asks his lawyer: the

—Why don't we send an expensive gift to the judge to facilitate the discharge process?

—You're crazy... that judge is very upright and would irremediably condemn you.

The next day, the judge, without hearing many arguments and in a blunt manner, condemns the other inmate.

Leaving the court, the lawyer of Nasruddin tells him:

—What a surprise! I would have sworn that we would lose this case and that you, Nasrudin, would be convicted. It was lucky that you had sent him such an expensive gift... I imagine you did! Nasruddin replies:

—I confessed that I did. But I couldn't resist the temptation to send it to him in the name of the other prisoner.

A common theme in the E7 conservation is its usual difficulty not only for the commitment in the couple, but to be transparent and to solidify a deep relationship. In the following story, two widows meet in a cemetery;

one is very happy, cleaning her husband's tombstone and singing like crazy; the other is very sad and cries profusely. After a while, the disconsolate woman looks at the happy woman and asks:

—Oh, ma'am, how long have you been a widower?

—One week.

—And how do you manage to be so happy if I've been here for three years and I haven't been able to get over this pain?

—Because after many years, it is the first time that I know where it is and who is eating it.

Other times, the E7 conservation is indeed transparent, only its clarity takes on a clear tone of cynicism: The judge asks the woman:

—Tell me: what is the reason you want to divorce her husband?

—My husband treats me like a dog.

—Is he mistreating you, hitting you?

—No. He wants me to be faithful to him..

As the representative comic character of E7 conservation, we have chosen Herminio Bolaextra, «the reporter with the three eggs»>, by the brilliant Spanish cartoonist Mauro Entrialgo.

Herminio works as an editor for the tabloid newspaper El Caos, where he dedicates himself to doing what he knows best: manipulating and exaggerating. His nickname is due to the curious fact that he has three testicles, a wink that reaffirms his tendency to brag. He is addicted to Ricard liquor, with insane customs, a scoundrel and a tendency to go to cocktail bars, commit all kinds of erotic excesses and consume drugs and alcohol.

Herminio is irreverent and is characterized by teasing people, putting himself above others and attacking them with his acid humor, all thanks to his mental agility. He is also a loudmouth, a provocateur who aspires not to go unnoticed, a freeloader and an unscrupulous person who seeks to climb on the shoulders of others.

CHAPTER 12; TRANSFORMATION PROCESS AND THERAPEUTIC RECOMMENDATIONS

 By CONCHA ÁLVAREZ, MÓNICA QUESADA AND DAVID BARBA

How can someone who tends to corruption, but does not realize it because he believes he deserves pharisaical rights, someone who exercises an atrocious individualism, who sees others as utilitarian means and not as ends in themselves, become a virtuous, altruistic, sincere and humanized being? How can someone who believes he is superior, smarter than others, but who at the same time feels so inadequate, almost in danger of extinction, take an accurate measure of himself and others? How can someone who is not present because he is scanning the future, the horizon, concentrate once and for all on the here and now, enjoy the moment calmly and without bingeing on gluttony, but savoring pleasure in sobriety and tranquillity? How can a visionary and a lover of generalizations finally concentrate on the details? What does he need to let go and what does he need to take who, in his neurosis, does not know the genuine implication and exchanges it for an interesting complicity?

The E7 conservation that has not undergone a transformation process does not trust anything or anyone. He is usually a skeptic who does not validate anything, beyond what is concrete or palpable; he is a materialist and an antidealist. His heart is closed and he shows himself to be as stingy emotionally as an E5. His process involves assuming a greater order in which, behind every change, there lies a meaning and a deep reason, and that the person could recognize as Tao, totally. God, if he could make himself small, if he could feel trust in his neighbor and recover an admiring gaze before the wonder of life.

Therapeutic recommendations

In the relationship with oneself, a first therapeutic recommendation is to dare to live with the punctured balloon, without trying to retread it. From there, one can attend an existential fattening of another kind. This time, in a more genuine place, without falsifying or fraudulence, without inflaming the curriculum, the talents, the charms. By recognizing fraudulence, you will be able to live without fraudulence.

Let us bear in mind, however, that it is difficult for the conservation Seven to recognize fraudulence, masked as it is by the experience of having acted in the name of helping his family, or camouflaged by the victimhood of having had to take care of others. . It is difficult for him to see clearly that having taken advantage of all this is in itself fraudulence, and not a right.

It helps to cultivate intimacy and vulnerability, recognize yourself as a person and give up the crazy idea that you can handle everything. It helps this character to see himself as a child: a child who had to look for life, without paternal guidance and without tender love from the mother. It is a fundamental step of all Seven conservation to recover the natural needs of the child, since he has put the emphasis of what he thinks he needs in the concrete of survival. His egoic image is also fed by this value for having survived, and he can feel like a hero in this sense, but it is difficult for him to see the enormous lack he suffers in terms of his affective needs, because contact with such a lack leads him to relive the experience of abandonment and loneliness.

In the therapeutic process, you need to create a good relationship of trust before you can touch this fragile part, and that is difficult in itself, since it tends to escape from the therapy that pain smells like. The therapist must have the ability to fuel the curious mind of the E7; at first accepting his escapes, his stories and fun, while patiently accompanying him to explore his inner world. The main objective is not to let him escape from the therapeutic relationship, that he manages to endure the commitment. The Conservation Seven is, among the subtypes of this character, the one that least recognizes the emotional world. In therapy, it is easier for you to feel your emotions in the form of somatizations, physical pain, muscle pain, contractions, chest pains that scare you... It is important to take time so that you learn to recognize these signs and redefine them as emotions and feelings. , being necessary to accompany him to a world that he does not know and that scares him.

The therapist needs to have the great sensitivity to see the child behind the big cheat, and not be seduced by the affability he displays to befriend him. It is not uncommon for the Seven conservation patient to offer, for example, concrete help for the therapist's life, in an attempt to paternally position himself in his role as  the helper.

Keeping one's word, not escaping from commitments, are matters to cultivate. It would be good if, in the end, the conservation E7 came to be considered and to consider himself as someone authentic and clear in whom one can trust and deposit intimacy, fragility and contact. Someone open to the world, to life and to woe love, and especially to his own interiority. Someone capable of deep commitments in their relationships, whatever their nature.

It also helps to be oriented towards a spiritual here and now. The Conservation Seven does not present the problem of going astray along the paths of spiritual inflation; that is to say, it does not commune with the new age or with the positive psychology that sells cheap well-being. But being too practical misses the spiritual nuances of existence. It is important then to pay attention to the nuance and the sacredness of each moment. Help sacralize and ritualize. Cultivate the sacred in any of its forms. Develop faith in impulse and in organismic self-regulation.

“Contact with the subtle helps me overcome the sole interest in the material. To feel an inner god running through my veins, to be able to look up at the sky and feel small, to accept a wise authority without criticism, to understand that not all authority is inherently corrupt or overwhelming. And, above all, practice some form of altruism. Look carefully for a terrain in which to put it into practice and keep that area of ​​my life protected by a sacred atmosphere of discretion.” (DAVID)

Yes, it is important to engage in the practice of some form of altruism. This means, exactly, an activity of service to others for which no type of compensation is obtained, and if possible, carried out discreetly, without giving it any type of publicity of the type: «Look how good I am». Thus, contrary to what happens in other E7s, it helps the conservative subtype to develop a healthy idealism. This being a very earthly enneatype, surely you will not forget that the spiritual and social justice must go hand in hand. As the Buddhist doctrine of the bodhisattva announces, there is no individual salvation. The opposite would represent, for the Conservation Seven, a disconnected spirituality (and here his character disposition and his most genuine vision will go hand in hand).

“What has helped me a lot in recent years is the definition of an ideal and my concrete commitment to its realization. That has occupied my time in a satisfactory way and has removed from my mind so many fantasies, so many desires, so many hobbies, so much anxiety. Sometimes I have been frustrated with the lack of external recognition with the intensity that seems to me to be deserving. But I I feel comforted with the certainty that my work, my effort, helps some people and also myself. It is a simple job, which rewards me with a subtle pleasure, but much more satisfying than the other pleasures that wake me up when I am idle. It brings out a genuine joy, which comes from within!” (ALEXANDRE)

Authentic altruism can open up when the E7 conservation begins to see his inner child and feel empathy and love for him. This will help you see others as people, human beings, and not as objects or easy adventure partners.

The development of admiring love is important: feeling small before someone or something bigger than oneself. Review the relationship with the father, with the intention of developing respect for his figure and towards healthy forms of authority. Understanding what the word "respect" means is essential.

In this sense, it is essential to stay for a long and consistent time in therapeutic relationships, or as disciple/teacher, without giving in to the impulse to escape by telling oneself that there is no time, or that there is something or someone better and more interesting, or that this one doesn't work... and the other one doesn't either... It is useful to do impractical, creative things, from walking, reading without candles or going to the movies, to theater or performances or bodily activities, all without looking for profit.

Body work helps to cope with excessive mental activity, as well as manual work, dance, tai chi; all this, in an atmosphere of simplicity. In this field, it is a priority to work for sensitivity, to explore the sweetness of movement to open the doors to emotions and to a love that is more erotic than phallic.

It also helps to define, know and express one's own limits, clearly recognizing where one is not going, and doing it directly, without detours or justifications. The path of the Seven is to find the balance between these two phases: in euphoria, work on containment and sobriety; in depression, tranquility, feeling loneliness as an encounter with oneself, and experience humility in the face of the typical arrogance of character.

It also serves to conform and become transparent: Accept death and physical decrepitude, dare to show the lout, the disorganized, the chaotic, the bungler that is in him. Another way to put it: Daring to seek and experience whatever innocence remains in him. Dare to hope (not to fantasize about the future), stop being a cynic. Hope is assuming responsibility. This phrase by Jacinto Benavente is a lesson to be learned: «Thinking badly in order to excuse ourselves from doing good is the pessimism of petty spirits. To think badly and to do well is the pessimism of a great lord».

Living in the present is essential, even if it strips you naked and makes you feel empty. Do not look for light in the future. The slightest spark of light in the darkness of the present will be greeted as an anniversary. But if no spark is produced, then the very darkness of the present will be greeted as an anniversary.

“It helps me to trust, to trust in life and not in what I plan will work out. Trust that life puts me in the right place for my growth.” (MARÍA MARTA)

It helps to be punctual. And other simple and clear ways to see the other, to respect him and to respect oneself. Listen carefully, for example. Do not be indulgent with your own plans, projects, responsibilities, but fulfill them and on time. Be detailed. Respect is shown especially in the small details. There is a reason for the saying that: «God is in the details», which is the way to communicate to others that you count on him. Keep the word given. To be honest, set reasonable goals, weighing at all times what can be covered and what cannot be done so as not to start a thousand things at once, but only a few and that they are attainable goals. It is very important to give space to this part in the therapeutic process. The therapist must help the E7 conservation patient to create realistic projects, giving time in the sessions to verify the steps carried out. What superficially might seem like behavioral therapy will deep down become a way of rebuilding the father/son relationship, since in childhood the father did not guide the son or daughter and did not help him to fulfill himself. Dare to break their narcissistic image of the type or the girl to whom everything goes well. Do it by saying what is there, openly confessing your state of mind, your problems, your weaknesses, your fears... Lean on intimate confession.

Seek silence, retreat and meditation to escape mental noise and planning. In patients reactive to meditation (because it can sometimes open them up to a state of anxiety), it may be appropriate to propose active meditations, for example walking or creating some manual work, writing, etc., so that a space of silence and finer attention.

In the manic and depressive phases, realize how the manic lays the foundation for the depressive, and how the depressive lays the foundation for the manic. Do what needs to be done, regardless of mood (ignoring self-indulgence). In this way, anxiety is reduced. In the face of depression, silence and discipline are advisable (tolerate the low level of stimulation). In the face of the maniac, expressed with gluttony of pleasure and intensity, or with irritation and anger, it is necessary to do good energy management: sports, bioenergetic catharsis, crying, screaming in the forest... But I don't work all the time, disconnected sex as an outlet or crushing oneself by filling the schedule of activities until the collapse starts the turn of the bipolar wheel in the opposite direction, that of depression.

Doing must be slow, be in contact with what you are feeling, be it fear, shame, anger... without necessarily having to put it into words. This implies allowing yourself to contact fear, experiencing loneliness, disappointment, accepting feeling bad, not putting an evil/good face , and contact with your emotions, feelings, needs, tenderness and sensitivity. Differentiating between need and desire is a good way to sobriety. Be thankful for what you have.

Distinguish between pain and suffering. Do not oppose so much defense against pain and try to calm the mind when the suffering is magnificent. Do not try to smooth over what is happening: confront and deal with the discomfort, live in conscious pain.

Allow improvisation, do not impose constant plans in your mind.

“In experiences of pleasure, when I become aware that it is going to end and I get hooked on it, it helps me to repeat two phrases to myself like mantras: "It what is, what it is” and “what has to be will be”.” (MÓNICA)

In relationships, it is important to put aside the mafia or utilitarian implications, so that you can see the divorce between the advantageous interests and the sense of community, and orient yourself towards it. In this sense, it helps to make decisions and be consistent with them, and to have a severe attitude towards mafia involvement. In addition, it is important not to remain in one's own solitude, in the «I cook it, I eat it», nor in the tolerance of the indulgent court. It helps to take sides for just causes, "get wet" and be resolute and clear about it.

And also give space to other people, open up to the unknown. Not only those you love, but precisely and above all those you love, those who are not from the "mafia" or the "<family." Loving and suffering with the one who does not suffer "breaking the bill", as Albert Rams says. Understanding that it makes no sense to love some and not all is a step forward. You have to treat strangers as if they were part of your own world. Develop a willingness to trust and surrender, even when the object or subject of trust or surrender is not entirely convincing. allow the experience of

painful, own and others, since the pain for the other connects with the neighbor and with kindness.

Talking less and listening more will help a lot. Value the other and oneself and feel the pain that one causes to other humans and brings the opening of the heart closer. Likewise, it is necessary to allow yourself to be angry when something is not to your liking, instead of withholding aggression and then applying cold revenge or falling into cynicism.

Managing guilt or the hole in one's self-image left by openly showing aggressiveness to others is difficult to manage, but it is much better to face it than to fake it.  Thus, in relation you need to be clear, say what is really happening behind closed doors, without falsifying or disguising what you feel. It is better to establish honest, sincere relationships. Be direct and clear expressing what you feel and need, taking into account the other person.

In love, it helps to delay the seduction and even give it up, to slow down in order to appraise the experience calmly and without getting carried away so much by the impulse, so that you know more about what you want and do not act as a mere consumer of sex or of seduction. Later, already in a relationship, it helps to make an effort to cultivate an atmosphere of intimacy, accompaniment and listening, both exposing oneself emotionally to the other and allowing them to expose themselves, and creating spaces for intimacy that do not depend on the clock.

“For me, rest has come as a result of being able to see and accept reality as it is. To the extent that I dare to question the ideal, the real world is drawing before my eyes and my heart can open to what hurts too. Giving myself to the person I love, really seeing her, embracing her shadow and letting myself be embraced equally in mine, gives me an immense and unknown rest. And I feel more honest and worthy of being loved.” (ORI)

And, of course, if you intend to keep more than one partner at a time, you have to undo the double life, the secrets of bed, be honest with all parties and give them the option to choose despite the risk of being alone. In this sense, it is also good to remove the protection of "you" (hide behind others to go out into the world, for example behind your partner) and feel that you are well within yourself and you can go out into the world on your own. .

“The key for me, for the moment, is to accept what is happening without shooting at how I think it has to be and to experience what is there... even if the sparkling energy doesn't wake up in me. And above all, accept that even if I'm not jumping, that doesn't mean I'm withering in the relationship.” (MÓNICA)

In the family, it helps to leave the place you occupy as "savior”, referent or godfather. Rescue the figure of the father, who is the one who must occupy that usurped place. And it helps to redefine the relationship with the mother, to dare to see her defects and her seduction, to free herself from the maternal tentacles when she is manipulated or manipulated and, in the recognition of the hidden rage towards the mother, to finally be able to rest in accepting her as she is.

It is important to be aware of the environment. There are others who also have their needs. It is necessary to avoid taking oneself as an absolute center of reference. See the other person and see yourself in it. Understanding that the other may have different needs than mine and that he does not please me does not mean that he doesn't love me; that the other exists without being aware of me, but by himself; that I am not the center of anything but myself.

And the confrontation with oneself is convenient, more than with others; and asking instead of taking or taking on your own; don't lie, don't exaggerate, don't misrepresent, don't swindle or cheat, and don't even fabulate, because... you may be a good storyteller, but instead of using that talent to tell stories that help you escape from problems , take him to literature and write a novel!

How would a person of the character Seven conservation be healthier?

* I would be able to value the other and connect with their emotions.

* I would accept what is in each moment, without interpreting what I feel through the filter of the intellectual;

* I would just stay with the feeling. It would be transparent, without judgement, without pretense, without waiting, without seeking personal interests, recognition, etc.

* I wouldn't speculate so much with tenderness, hugs, love, but I would give myself without fear.

* I would accept that I don't love as many people as I think and make believe.

* I am far more miserable than that, and I would accept it without judgement, I would rest in that acceptance.

* I would stop lying to escape from conflicts.

* I would acknowledge my pain and my wounds, and show them to others. plus; would let me lick my wounds.

* If I feel my pain, I can slow down my heart a little, leave the internal coldness.

* I would believe in people, I would truly trust in life. It would flow without control or anticipation.

* I wouldn't have to struggle with the underlying feeling that "there isn't",

* I would trust that what I need (food, love, etc.) will come one way or another.

* I would cultivate altruism.

* I would feel that not everything is in what I see and touch. that I am part of the universe, that not everything depends on me or is in my hand

SEXUAL 7

CHAPTER 1; THE PASSION IN THE SPHERE OF INSTINCT: HOW GLUTTONY ACTS IN THE SEXUAL

When the passion of gluttony invades the sexual instinct, the emphasis is on an attempt to live in an extraordinary state of exaltation, of idealization full of possibility and hope. Psychic energy is invested in an enchanted and fanciful approach that represses the instinctive need to become a mental seduction.

Gluttony becomes a desire for more pleasure through intellectual seduction aimed at satisfying idealizations and dreams and not instinctual needs. The sexual E7 idealizes the other and lives in his head a relationship that only serves to maintain an idealization of himself, thus losing the nature of instinct. The search for intimate and sexual pleasure becomes a romantic dream of multiple satisfactions, while deep down there is a fear of surrender. He is more interested in being chronically infatuated with life experiences, people and things.

It is as if the sexual E7 looked at life with the eyes of a lover. He idealizes the other, he invents him. And he lives with him in his head a relationship that only serves to maintain another idealization: himself. The search for intimate and sexual pleasure becomes a romantic dream of multiple satisfactions, for fear of surrender he uses pleasure, laughter, and humor to bond, with the illusion of an absence of frustration and abandonment. He denies the aspects of suffering that may limit his arousal or ironically minimizes them. Joy! His specialty is turning any negative trance into a positive. And create a love object that gives you satisfaction. The search for pleasure, the natural energy of the sexual instinct, is channeled into satisfying himself with his own mental creations. The sexual impulse becomes a continuous magical flowering of thought. In the background, an interest in gaining attention through grace, sympathy or talent, in order to nurture a narcissistic self-image of a smart and nice child.

It is said that love is blind, and the sexual Seven, with that look of love, lives enthusiastically, maintaining a blindness before the limits of existence. And when he realizes that the difficulties are insurmountable, then he is able to convince everyone, starting with himself, that the goal is not worth working for.

The life of the sexual E7 is a fiery frenzy of experiences. The volume of life rises insatiably in an apparent joy that covers the internal discomfort, in an attempt to escape from pain and fear. In fact, he is not very much in touch with what is pleasurable. Behind the effervescence there is restlessness and anxiety that transforms into agitation and movement. It associates enjoyment with speed and intensity, confusing quantity and quality. Happiness, for him, lies in finding no limits to impulse or desire, and so he gets into compromising situations, feeling excited and putting his own life to the test. In his flight towards intensity, in the absence of borders, in doing what he feels like doing at all times, he feels alive.

“Already as a child I had a lot of freedom and autonomy, thanks to the fact that I always managed to convince my parents about my abilities to move around the world. That way I managed to stop them from controlling me like my classmates did. When my parents separated, a routine was missing clear rules, so I got more freedom of movement, no limits. I learned that anything is possible and that I can do whatever I want.” (ILARIA)

This voracity of autonomy and constant excitement makes the sexual E7 a very impatient character, with the impulsiveness of launching from one experience to another. Like a child who wants it now, because the waiting time until you can satisfy your desire is a malaise. It's hard to hold the void. And when he wants something, he goes.

We could say that his psychosexual development has been fixed in the oral stage, with a dependence of satisfaction linked to the pleasure that comes from maternal nurturing. The mouth and lips are his elective organs of pleasure. Sucking is the foundation of the affective bond, so that what comes from the other becomes something of their own. The passion of gluttony defines exactly the passionate attachment of a character who wants to always incorporate more and more of the good that the outside world offers, with the illusion that this can bring back the love and happiness that he lost in childhood.

Freud speaks of a cannibalism that we recognize in the sexual subtype of E7, avid in its nourishment. With an egocentrism that does not recognize the other as a self-existing individual, but as someone who can offer something good. He is a narcissist who puts the satisfaction of his needs at the center of any relationship. This greed also appears in behaviors that are dependent on anything that can offer gluttonous satisfaction: tobacco, alcohol, food, sex, and drugs. Everything, always more.

The child did not develop the ability to become independent from a mother who, to satisfy her frustration, seduced him by promising unlimited gratification. By making the mother fall in love, he seemingly achieves everything, but loses touch with the deep need for warm intimacy. As an adult, he will continue to confuse the pleasure of filling himself with breast milk with that of genital intercourse between adults, love with permissiveness.

The combination of illusion, enthusiasm and fantastic planning is what the sexual Seven calls enjoyment. Delight is a mental pleasure: an anticipatory idea of ​​what you will experience. More than enjoying, the sexual E7 gets excited and exalted, for something that doesn't have to be pleasant. He confuses consuming with enjoying, movement with enjoying, effervescence with well-being. It rejoices in the present with the potentialities of the future, of what may be, rather than with what is real in the here and now. It is more in fantasy than in reality itself.

“Until I met my wife I didn't know what it was really like to enjoy. I realized that I was consuming and devouring, but not enjoying or savoring.” (ENRIQUE)

The attraction to any rewarding stimulus or that simply catches his attention makes him jumpy and changeable. He is a quick, mercurial character who, when he wants something, goes for it shamelessly, being able to border on insolence. The permanent excitement confuses feeling, and for that reason it is confused and it is located between the emotional characters.

“I've always been a bad student. Since I was little I was interested in a thousand things at once. After doing them for a while, some of them ceased to interest me just as quickly. But what has been learned remains, the sensation of what has been lived does not disappear. well of it.” (RICARDO)

Humor has been his specialty. Everything is a source of jokes, which he uses as a tool for social interaction. To seduce and to give well. Or to subtly attack with a passive rebellion through ironies and the most acid ingenuity.

“I got older and, as I had been raised with the minimum effort and in the absence of good training, I was a terrible student. I soon developed another attitude, which was the one that, with the time, gave me power over others: irony. this was for me for a long time a tool that filled the void that, due to lack of studies, and due to my vulnerability and my fears, made me inferior to others. When someone felt bad, they always had the alibi to say that they were joking. The funny thing is that I did not accept jokes from na die and was also very touchy.” (PEDRO)

The sexual E7 shows a clear resistance to acquiring the responsibilities that the adult stage entails, to manage difficulties. Eternal child, he is not capable of accepting the consequences of his actions. He refuses to grow up because of his identification with childhood satisfaction. It presents a marked emotional immaturity, with strong insecurity and a great fear of not being loved and accepted. This resistance to growth entails great difficulty in caring for oneself and others or establishing equal relationships, especially with a partner. In fact, his childish immaturity easily makes him a liability to them.

He hides behind excuses or lies in order to hide his inability to grow. He talks about fantastic projects, incredible businesses, great love affairs... These fantasies (generally impossible to fulfill) allow him to seduce with promises of a world without pain, and blame the other for the bad that happens to him.

“While in university, I remember a great fear of showing myself incapable and not being up to the task, for which I avoided any confrontation with the professors. Confrontation that would have allowed me to overcome the shortcomings I had. Pride, mixed with the underestimation of myself, has taken me away from what could make me grow. Then, even though my skills improved, there was still insecurity and the fear of not having the necessary knowledge to manage my professional life.”

The sexual Seven presumes to be nice. It is the life of the party. Skilled seducer of young girls, or young men, even at notoriously inappropriate ages. He seems very sure of himself, even arrogant and haughty, and it is just a front to hide his fears and indecisions. Behind his almost imperishable smile and his presentation as a jovial and fun person, enjoys, hides someone tremendously insecure, afraid of loneliness.

“Once I got married, my wife got tired of this behavior of mine [the irony] and made me see the damage it caused to others, but especially to her, because I used her at times to make fun and remain the center of the group. This made me change my tactic and use another one that he also knew well: that of talking about everything even without knowing almost anything, with a lot of passion and, above all, not letting others speak. Listening, for me, was superfluous, the important thing was me and showing my skills as a speaker, which I mastered quite well in hand-to-hand combat but not in front of an audience, since my fears did manifest themselves there, due to the lack of confidence in myself.”

Insecurity is also reflected in the affective field. Despite his apparent independence and autonomy, the sexual E7 is in need of large doses of affection and attention, especially from a partner who can offer them. However, due to lack of awareness of this need, when the relationship becomes somewhat more serious and begins to require more and more commitment and responsibility, he becomes frightened and usually ends up causing the breakup.

“At that time I had been in a relationship for six and a half years, including a year and a half of living together. When I arrived from SAT III I decided to cut it and after six days I packed my bag and left home. In the talks with my partner, she insistently told me to stay: to give what was built a chance. Back then, those words were basic Chinese to me. I really believed that I was leaving for a search, for an idea superior to that of being in a couple. I always remember the face of my ex-partner in the discussions, as exorbitant, of not understanding anything at all, and I, with a passivity that aroused a lot of anger in her. A complete lack of register in me of what I was destroying in the blink of an eye eyes. In addition to how destructive and harmful it was for someone to take the floor [floor] out of you so abruptly and violently. A bucket of cold water.”

“I made the decision to end a relationship suddenly, and the next day I left the house where we lived together. I had been dissatisfied for a long time, but I was afraid that the relationship would fail; that is why he had put a lot of energy into sustaining himself. I remember very well that when he came back from his Introductory to the SAT Program and told me what he had experienced, I felt that this was the opportunity. I made the decision; I informed him that the relationship was over and I acted without turning back. I did not feel any empathy towards what he was experiencing. I maintained a cold detachment equal in intensity to the confluence that had played out in all the years we'd spent together trying to make the relationship work.”

We can also find many sexual E7 who, out of fear of loneliness, out of need for affection... remain in relationships defined by conflict. Yet, they are usually unfaithful at least mentally, simulating in their fantasy multiple relationships with different people.

“In every therapist session I had, in the subway car, in almost any group, I found a woman with whom I fell deeply in love.”

“In general, I recognize that what I lack in my partner manifests itself with fantasies of falling in love with someone who has characteristics that I lack.”

We see in the stories of the sexual E7 how children have been attached to their mother or father, in an ambivalence of idealization and, at the same time, of avoiding the experience of being "eaten" by them.

Like all E7 children, the sexual subtype takes on the task of making the often depressed or suffering mother happy. Without much possibility of success but with the permanent illusion of obtaining his love, giving him life with his grace and joy.

This illusion is repeated in adulthood with the compulsion to seduce and sell the partner distraction from their hells, while he flees from his own by distracting himself. Staying committed to a partner awakens the terror of being trapped there, without freedom or a life of your own.

In sexuality, he finds pleasure in seducing and in achieving admiration. He enjoys the cognitive usurpation of the other: He is not so interested in love and, sometimes, not even in the consummation of the sexual act (more of the conservation subtype), but in the excitement of conquest and falling in love. With relative frequency, once the other person has been conquered, it does not even reach the sexual relationship, or it almost becomes a mere formality because, deep down, the toy of motivation and excitement of trying to achieve it has run out.

What you want is to check again and again that you can captivate. Once a person has been conquered, he can move on to the next, to show that they do not resist him. The women or men become prey which, once "hunted", become trophies. It's relatively common in the sexual E7 to keep track of the people you've had sex with, like a seduction marathon. This history of captures is a great source of fantasy and illusion with which to fatten up the self-image. The more trophies, the more one is worth.

This confiscation of attention is achieved not without pillage and manipulation, which feeds his narcissistic idea of ​​believing himself above others.

“I planned my meetings with the person I liked in a very complex and effective way. I prepared possible answers. I seduced and made friends with her acquaintances, even if I wasn't really interested in meeting them, to coincide more with her. Thus, managed apparently casual and somewhat magical encounters with her I found out later that I was terribly afraid of a sincere and open meeting with the girl in question. The idealization of the girl was total, since I barely knew her. By knowing her a little, all this love for her would disappear right away.”

The sexual Seven enjoys time passing before "eating a donut", warming up the atmosphere with words and gestures. He is an intellectual seducer rather than a physical one, with a sensuality suggestive of desire based on humor, glances, ingenuity and even details. Like poetry, flowers for his girlfriend... He plans the conquest without pause and practically seduces, and even does the love, in and with the head.

“I am skilled at using exactly the words I want to say, hint or ask for what I want in a tangential, indirect and subtle way to get what I want. The precise use of words and language games favor my subtle manipulations. With that, he used to create atmospheres of mystery to be more interesting: unfinished sentences, ulterior motives, half-hidden messages, double messages, riddles...”

The tongue is a way of cognitively masturbating, of indulging in dazzling one's own ideas: "I'm so cool!". As he speaks, he is dazzled by how interesting what he is saying and how intelligent he is. He is so self-referential that he only listens to himself. He delights in his own words even while, politely, leaving a little space for the other to introduce his comment, already thinking about what he is going to answer: he continues to recreate his internal speech, he does not shut up even in silence. He immediately confused intellectual attunement with sentimental or sexual. Intellectual attunement itself is a seduction.

“I think I started to take advantage of that ability (to speak and convince) to compensate for a lack of love. As a child I had the conviction of not being able to be chosen In a competition, I would lose for sure. So I leaned on the ability to speak and imagine to attract love and admiration. As a teenager, I discovered that there was also sexual pleasure, which I could offer, to be chosen. I felt that being "easy" was the only way to get a guy; Besides, I never felt pretty or worthy of deep interest.

That attitude lasted until I had a real relationship, which would have ended quickly if I had not expressed my interest in a serious relationship with my partner. Until then, my relationships lasted two or three months, perhaps because they were only linked to the sexuality that I offered with the illusion that they would become a deep and long bond over time.”

The sexual subtype is the most disconnected from the body among the E7. He does not pay much attention to what happens to him on a bodily level. Perhaps his body constitutes a kind of ballast to give free rein to the utopian vision of his ego. Physical needs are inconveniences to fully enjoy life. Sometimes he physically abandons himself, avoiding even the minimal frustrations and obligations of having a body with needs that need to be met.

This neglect of the body is manifested in areas such as hygiene or health. There is resistance to discovering or accepting oneself sick; he does not want to feel discomfort and is capable of self-suggestion to avoid physical pain.

It is, among the E7, the one that is more “hung, the less land and material. And to "fly" better, leave the body behind. Especially the social Seven maintains a better relationship with his body: he takes better care of himself, eats better (he is even excessively neat), grooms himself and takes care of his image. Also the E7 conservation, whose connection with pleasure makes him such a gourmet, has a better connection with the earthly and the senses.

This same chaos and carelessness is shown in their way of dressing and getting ready. A sexual Seven can often be distinguished by their style of dress, on the border between originality and caricature. The anarchy is almost total in the combination of garments such as colors. Taste in clothing is scarce, being able to make compositions of unsightly shapes, colors and sizes, which almost hurt the eye. In this sense, it can be extravagant and bizarre, with an originality that is as funny and burlesque as it is grotesque and ridiculous. This carelessness also goes with the tendency to find pleasure not in the body or in the genitals, but in the mind and fantasy.

There is in this character a joy in the delay, in prolonging the excitement. For example, on a sexual level, he delights in sustaining an erection and postpones orgasm as much as possible, sometimes even avoiding it. He usually postpones the consummation, taking the prize, enjoying the goal, not so much because he doesn't like it, but because of what the subsequent drop in excitement will mean. The moment it wears off, that excitement wears off and relaxation or even depression ensues.

This pleasurable arousal stretching doesn't just happen in intercourse. It is extended to the realization of any project and pleasant experience (unpleasant ones are directly avoided). Somehow he awaits the "cosmic orgasm" in all life experiences. Increase the intensity of future enjoyment by leaving the good for last, so that the experience lasts longer and allows you to continue fantasizing, in an increasingly pleasurable illusion until, finally, the culmination arrives. In this way, the sexual E7 ends up becoming a kind of mental ejaculator within his imaginary worlds.

“I believe that the hidden limit is the compulsion to want to reach the height of the experience, the moment that gives the maximum pleasure. That experience that is the highest, the one that can satisfy everything, that can fill everything. I believe that this search is what makes me a limitless sucker. An unprecedentedly optimistic oral.”

Behind this tendency to postpone the realization is not only the postponement of the energy slump that it implies, but also a great fear of failure, of not being enough, of not being valid. To not live up to the idealized image that you have created in the other. The unconscious catastrophic anticipation of eventual frustration can lead him to start sexual relations or a shared sexual life later than other characters (not so at an individual level, since he usually starts to masturbate quite early, in addition to doing it relatively frequently). This fear of failure, together with the nervousness caused by continuous cognitive activation, favors sexual dysfunction due to overexcitement.

The distorted sexual instinct, in its literal erotic sense, is expressed in this character not as a spontaneous search for pleasure but as a tendency to mental seduction and an abuse of suggestion and the creation of fantasy atmospheres destined to feed the narcissistic self-image. , instead of nourishing the skin, the senses and the emotions. Seeks illusory gloating instead of making love quietly (spontaneously, freely, openly) and enjoying sexual contact.

Contrary to appearances, the sexual E7 usually has many problems enjoying sexuality. In a field where enjoyment might seem assured for a glutton, he becomes neurotized and substitutes genuine contact for lubricious substitutes and narratives for non-graphic ones that distance him from a more genuine sexual contact.

CHAPTER 2; THE CHARACTERISTIC NEUROTIC NEED

The passion of the sexual E7 is defined as suggestibility, understood as the neurotic impulse to attract the other and oneself. It is a passion for enchantment, for achieving a look that makes you feel special. And also for self-enchantment, to build a bubble of happiness where you can spend life gently, far from suffering.

The sexual Seven has specialized in making joy, not only for him, he knows how to spread it. And fascinate, excite and hypnotize, so that the other is trapped in their stories and does not make room for discomfort, conflicts or demands. He is a boy who wants to confuse his mother with seductive words and gestures so that she does not realize something he has done wrong and, at the same time, achieves the satisfaction of making her laugh. In this way he fulfills two needs: he is not punished and he feels good for having taken Mom out of her worries. The ideal self-image is nurtured, although the sense of guilt will remain as background noise, from which he will defend himself all his life by inventing new and imaginative justifications.

The suggestibility is a distortion with which he flees from an emotional world that he has not learned to sustain and, above all, from emptiness. Filling himself with the fantastic images of a parallel life, and believing in them, he compensates for his lack of confidence in the development nature of life. With suggestibility you avoid the discipline and effort involved in satisfying a need. Jumping into fantasy, he avoids checking whether or not he can achieve his object of desire, he escapes possible frustrations and, confusing action with thought, feeds his narcissistic self-image that can do anything.

 Emptiness is a monster that appears to him in the form of boredom or mediocre and flat life. Boredom blows up the fuse: you can lose the meaning of life or fall into depression. It has the taste of death itself. The sexual subtype, plus the others, then fabricates illusory images and plans in order to feel alive. Suggestion is a way to avoid anxiety and sadness, which lurk around every corner. He disguises an unpleasant internal space in his flight into an enchanting world, just as he reacts to something painful with laughter and apparently covers it with humor.

A suggestible person is an enthusiast caught up in making situations feel more beautiful, pleasant and easy than they really are. He is an idealist who tries to see life with colored glasses and dreams to the point of phosphorescence. A chronic optimist, he is adept at recycling any negative fact into something interesting, humorous and even enjoyable, turning shit into whipped cream. He is a dreamer to such an extent that he ends up not distinguishing reality from fiction, thus falling into his own illusion and enchantment. Claudio Naranjo has defined him as a charmer enchanted with himself. It is, in this sense, the most deluded of the three subtypes of the Seven, since it deceives itself and does not even realize it, by inflating balloons of ideal worlds to which it remains attached. He doesn't have his feet on the ground.

“In my mind I continuously imagined fantastic situations and experiences. As a young man I participated in cycling competitions and then the mere fact of seeing a bicycle race on television made me identify with the winner or the domestique who sacrificed until the end. I remember that I felt like a commentator with emphasis when pronouncing my name... I felt the emotion and even chills in my body, like if it was really there. I got so excited that I even cried with emotion because in my mind I felt that I had achieved it.”

As a child, the sexual E7 learned to survive by inventing a wonderful reality, in which he took refuge, convincing himself that it was real and true. He was thus able to avoid the fear of not being loved, seen, when he was ill or sad, offering only that image of a happy and happy child that his parents could sustain. In this way he learned to feel great, and very ready to solve the lack, feeding that narcissism that sustains him in frustrating moments or relationships, supported by the juggling he manages in the most difficult situations and his ability to leave the other. another fascinated or confused, infected by the same fantasy.

In other words, he has developed the ability to affect others, influencing their way of thinking to lead them to act in the way that interests him. Expert manipulator in a world eager for illusion, this E7 offers happiness and that makes him attractive in the eyes of others. It gives off that fragrance of optimism where they are subtly seduced. His power of contagion convinces him of his worth and this self-conviction has, in turn, the power to fascinate.

“I've realized that I respond to things I don't know by making up the answer. I speak with great confidence and charm, without knowing that I am really making it up. I myself believe what I explain.”

It builds a mental bubble that supports the credibility of the chimera that tells itself. And it also operates as a filter for eventual frustrations. A painful situation is transformed into something funny, wrapped in politeness and gallantry.

More than convincing, he spreads his points of view through his own conviction. Well, the enchantment, the spell, is not only given through the word but with his whole being. The suggestion means an adequate staging that includes the body. The sexual E7 is a talkative mime that moves quickly from one side to the other; This captures the attention of others and makes it difficult for them to think calmly. Speak with ups and downs in the tone of voice, adapted to the content of the speech. No detail escapes his incisive gaze; he knows at every moment where the other's attention is. The face gesticulates with grimaces, winks, tics...

The more credibility and appearance of solidity that person has in a dream, the more it will fulfill its double function of analgesic and repressing anger at the limits and difficulties that every relationship entails, to avoid confrontation and conflict. The sexual E7 is a strategist who happily leaves the other with his problem, without feeling the responsibility or the need to define himself within relationships and the facts of life. A skilled escapist from commitments and complications.

Its multi-possibility position makes it easy for it to take the most exciting, beautiful and pleasant option at any given moment, maintaining the viability and credibility of a fantasy that it adapts to external circumstances that may threaten it.

Along these lines, the constant flight forward and never going back is characteristic of the sexual Seven. As soon as a fantasy is threatened with dismantling, it reacts by covering it up with another illusion, with an even more grandiose invention. Faced with a lie that can be discovered, another bigger one, that surprises even more. It leaves no cracks where frustration can sneak in.

This combination of a wide range of points of view and speed in handling causes a mental invasion, in himself and in others. There is no time to process each one of the multiple options with which the sexual E7 strafes. It's not a brainstorm, it's a downpour. There are so many thoughts that he prevents himself from flowing and feeling life as simpler. As for your interlocutor, and given the speed and number of arguments that are coming at him, he does not have time to think or generate counter-arguments or resistances, and he soon finds himself so involved in the fantasy of the sexual Seven it's hard to get out.

“I remember, in my youthful pranks, that with a friend we would sneak into nightclubs pretending to be reporters from a fashion magazine. We entered with a spectacular camera, with a super flash with which we left everyone dazzled, taking a lot of photos. When we got to the owner, we told him a story that his club had been chosen for a report, with which he ended up inviting us to drinks and others. It was a whole process of managing the owner and the environment in every way, at the word level, with the movements to take the photos from certain angles and places, in the interview, invented, with gestures of interest and astonishment, of tell you stories and anecdotes about the magazine and our work, etc. It was about capturing his attention on many fronts and in a very fast way so that he did not even have time to think about what was happening. Sometimes we got so involved in the paper that we even thought of founding a real magazine. Other times we had to improvise a quick exit because the situation got difficult. What gave us the most pleasure was, when leaving the club, laughing knowing that the camera had no film.” (ENRIQUE)

The sexual E7 is an enthusiastic character, possibly the most exalted in the entire enneagram. In fact, this burning passion is one of the effects that, as if it were a drug, he seeks in his greedy consumerism of life experiences. When the excitement level drops or becomes difficult to sustain, he jumps to another stage where he finds a new source of illusion. This variability makes it inconstant. He starts activities that he does not finish and is as creative as he is unstable.

“It's hard for me to finish things, because I immediately start new ones. Although I read frequently, I haven't finished a book for years, no matter how good or interesting it may be. There is always a book even more interesting to read that I will start but, surely, I will not finish.” (ROGER)

Although in a supposed state of permanent joy, being something built in fantasy, that euphoria is brittle. In other words, people of this character have frequent ups and downs in mood, even though they are always seen in high spirits. There is a tendency to be manic-depressive, although it is difficult to perceive the depressive aspect since, when he touches discouragement and feels down, he withdraws and disappears from the world, behaving like a schizoid. It only shows the euphoric aspects. The sexual E7 defends itself with joy from its own potential for sadness. Paradoxically, this flight from any discomfort condemns him to chronic anguish.

 For psychological maturation a certain amount of suffering is necessary, but the sexual seven does not think so: “How can suffering be good?". He is so afraid of pain that he defends himself by inventing a future pleasure, based on possibilities that are not real. This state of perennial illusion, longing for an ideal world of permanent happiness, condemns him to chronic dissatisfaction in the present, generating a background anxiety that distances him more and more from himself.

In its projection towards the promising future, the sexual E7 does not stop building happy fairytales.

“For me, it is the mind that takes me out of suffering. I am not able to be in it consciously for very long. I project. I am always projecting. When I touch on something that dissatisfies me, a love block or a professional disability, I resolve it in fantasy. I see myself dominating everything, seducing everything, so as not to remain in pain. And I agree with the denied and very painful childhood. There is a lot of projection of falling in love, of the other loving me without limits. But I am disappointed, almost with a programmed clock. There is a stage of enthusiasm, of total infatuation, and then a vertiginous fall to my limits and to those of love itself.” (ANONYMOUS)

In his fantasy world, he will have what he wants and there will be no frustration. In reaction to discomfort, he plans endlessly in a state of potentiality. It is a chronic hope of something good, happy, fantastic... Future happiness is invented. In planning, he is able to handle desire and aversion at a high volume of intensity.

“In the future that ideal may appear which I never have in the present. So the future is always better than the now. Sometimes it's hard for me to value everything I already have in the present, and I worry and make an effort to achieve that perfect future that never comes.” (ROGER)

The sexual E7's passion for imagination carries with it an attraction to the magical and supernatural, especially the occult, mystical and spiritual worlds. He is interested in the mysterious, the metaphysical. The abstractness of these territories makes it difficult to delimit, concretize and verify, something that, ultimately, would mean a limit for his overflowing fantasy.

The sexual Seven is also a fan of tricks, riddles and everything that has some secrecy and even miracles. He even tends to harbor the belief that he has some kind of special and magical gift that attracts people, a conviction that triggers his contagious autosuggestion. The normal world is unsatisfactory for him and he explores the limits of knowledge, the esoteric... It is common to find him as an astrologer, tarot reader, yoga or meditation teacher, psychonaut, magician, hypnotist...

“I have a very strong attraction towards abstraction. I studied mathematics and now I dedicate myself to studying and painting abstract oil painting.” (ROGER)

“I know more than you, I am smarter, faster and my ideas are more original than yours, and to maintain this illusion I set a very high bar for the other person, scrutinizing him to discover where he fails, and so on. I place him internally in a situation of inferiority, and therefore myself in one of superiority.” (CARMELO)

In summary, the basic motivation of this character is to escape the pain and frustration that come with living. He defends himself with humor from his discontentment, deluding himself, tries to prevent any future discomfort. Now, since the future is unpredictable, what better way to guarantee yourself a promising and wonderful outlook by making yourself happy and content? Thus, the sexual E7 creates in his fantasy a platonic, virtual and unlimited world that he adapts at will to achieve well-being.

To a certain extent, this approach would be adequate since the ultimate intention in everything we do is to seek happiness and well-being. However, the sexual Seven takes this attitude to such an extreme that, since suffering is inherent in existence itself, he sees himself in the permanent need to escape from reality as it is, which prevents him from real adaptation to the world and maturation.

CHAPTER 3; INTERPERSONAL STRATEGY AND ASSOCIATED IRRATIONAL IDEAS

By VICENTE LAFUENTE AND ENRIQUE VILLATORO

Each of the characters in the enneagram employs its own adaptive strategy, with its particular cognitive defect that we call fixation. This interpretation of yours of reality connects with passion and sustains it. Many other convictions about life are derived from this nuclear strategy, which are also not in contact with the current reality of the person; are crazy or irrational ideas.

An irrational idea is a rigid and unrealistic belief that is part of the fundamental values ​​and identity of the person, who has lost the awareness that it is a subjective construction and lives it, on the contrary, as an absolute truth. It gives meaning to their experiences and provides reference to their behaviors and relationships with themselves and with others. These irrational ideas are generated in childhood, when the priority is adaptation to the environment. In adult reality they continue to have the same influence as children, which limits our range of adaptive responses. Although our environment has changed, we do not have an updated version.

Self-indulgence is the name given to the E7 fixation. And, although all those with a sweet tooth can be very indulgent with themselves, it is possibly in the sexual subtype more. Forbearance is a facility to forgive offenses and judge the mistakes of others without severity. It would seem more like a virtue than a fault. However, in E7 this apparent benevolence is tricky and manipulative. Due to excessive use, because he uses it for everything, and for its purpose: to give himself permission to always do what he wants and forgive himself for any failure.

In the sexual E7, indulgence is at the service of not feeling guilty for having hurt or not having fulfilled a commitment. It serves the false narcissistic image of someone who believes they can do anything and takes pride in avoiding sadness, helplessness, and the sense of failure. Guilt is attributed to the vicissitudes of life or to others. And if there is no one to blame, simply forget about the goal to be achieved or the people you have hurt (through the defense mechanism known as denial) and turn your attention to the next scenario.

Self-indulgence also uses the defense mechanism of deflection, which devalues ​​any unpleasant stimulus so that it fades and doesn't touch you deeply. The sexual E7 is a great teacher in devaluing what he cannot achieve or the people who reject him or feel that he cannot seduce or win.

Permission is granted for all kinds of pleasure designed to satisfy his hedonism and, in parallel, he avoids any frustration that might make him uncomfortable. He justifies that it is okay to give himself permission to do whatever he wants, not only ensuring that others do not get too upset but also that they like him and seem nice.

Such an attitude carries serious consequences when it comes to educating. The sexual E7 projects onto children its constant need to be meaningful. This mechanism makes it difficult for him to give limits and rules to minors, telling himself that the most important thing is freedom and child autonomy. It is difficult for him to contain the rage of a child in the face of frustrations, just as he does not know how to contain his own. He deceives himself by convincing himself that love is giving permission, when he is simply avoiding the opposition of the other and justifying his own freedom by granting others permission without limits. Here you can see the basic defense of the narcissistic personality, which does not accept rejection or authority.

In other words, the sexual Seven is capable of living in the world without formally complying with rules or requirements and, furthermore, with the self-confidence of not being noticed much, so that his behavior is not only not interpreted as a threat but that pleases others. It's like being able to mix fire and water without one going out or the other evaporating. An art of trickery and mischief.

Once the fantasy of pleasure is activated, it becomes unstoppable, like a snowball in free fall, and the only way out he sees to discharge such a level of excitement is not to contain it. The indulgence in seduction, for example, would be more or less like this: I like this person so much, I like him so much, so much, he is so special, so luminous, so beautiful, so, so... The sensation is so enormous that I can bear it and I have to tell him, I have to kiss him, it doesn't matter if I have a partner, right now it doesn't matter, life has to be lived, I have to be faithful to what I feel... And so he throws sticks into the fire, bigger and bigger, to justify the desire to skip the limits, imposed or agreed upon. From fantasy he passes to mirage, and from there to dream and almost hallucinate, being able to experience fictitious and invented scenes as real in order to justify any desire in order to get rid of anxiety.

Self-indulgence in the sexual Seven makes use of the ultimate carpe diem (the time to take from the world what interests you), throws in cheap philosophy and concentrates on the present, forgetting any commitments that you have previously assumed. Self-indulgence allows you to ignore his past and his possible loyalties under the pretext of an alleged kindness to himself, and he combines this with indulgence, which helps him not to look to the future or assess the real consequences that his actions will bring, or to forgive himself if he has already perpetrated them.

It is for this reason that the sexual Seven is usually an unfaithful person, given to having love affairs, which he forgets as soon as another person appears who dazzles him, with whom he can suggest himself again and restart the process.

Leniency uses a wide range of arguments because it is in its nature to justify any action. The reasons that a sexual E7 can use to support their actions are infinite and endless. His powerful rationality is loaded with justifications and counter-arguments, extremely lax and adaptable theories according to the context, but always inclined to row with the most favorable wind and, of course, in favor of his interests. Quackery is the clearest manifestation of this narcissistic behavior.

Likewise, the sexual seven is managed with the broader and more flexible moral and value system. This way you can avoid guilt and remorse while feeling consistent and even good about yourself. As the zen master says, if you want to control a cow, don't keep it in a small barn, it is better that it graze freely.

The sexual E7 is a "granter of indulgences," like the popes of Rome who marketed forgiveness to their parishioners. If he gives others permission to break the limits, he will be able to do it too; here is the strategy. Forgive what the other does so that he can do the same (if he wasn't already doing it). In the mafia style, it establishes complicities based on concealment. In this, it resembles the conservation subtype, with the difference that it does so in a more strategic and hidden way, while the sexual one exhibits it as a talent, in a narcissistic way.

To this end, he uses his gift of words and his speed in stringing together ideas to cajole his victims and lead them to his field; always with a smile. As if he were a representative of Dionysus in the Earth, or Satan in the desert, cunningly tempts, knowing how to play the key of each one and using his personal charm. This giving permission to the other is a way of neutralizing their possibilities. open criticism in the hope that they will not be held accountable for their actions. It is an anarchist attitude, where everyone can do what they want and nobody interferes. In this absence of restrictions, you can abuse trust and let others abuse yours as well. Of course, all wrapped in a halo of supposed happiness and pretending that he does not know or dare to confront the abuse. In addition to condescending, in a slightly more cunning and even perverse process, he can manipulatively incite the other to give himself the same permissions as him.

“I had a very modest and puritanical girlfriend who, on the one hand, made me feel like a very good person but, at the same time, when she wanted to smoke a joint, she made me feel immoral and lustful. Under the argument that being smoked we had better sex and we merged more successfully, despite her resistance, that she also smoked.

Later the same process was repeated with cocaine. On the one hand, I felt a certain remorse for seeming addicted, but on the other, it quickly passed by the time I had drugged myself and achieved my goal.

Years later, after we had separated, I ran into her and she is She was quite addicted to coke and made the joke, real, on the other hand, that I was a pervert because she started using it with me. I no longer use it and I feel really bad.”

You can also fool yourself into postponing the management of your desco, telling yourself internally: “Next time I won't do it; just one more time.”

"I remember that as children we would sneak into the neighbor's house to steal figs. With friends we justified that action with the argument that, once, we had heard him say that when figs fell to the ground they attracted rats to the house. Although sometimes we laughed thinking that we were tree rats, the favor we did him always prevailed. Like we were better than real rats.”

Aware of the moral doubtfulness of their behavior, the sexual Seven can self-impose, by way of penance, a compensatory system for the permission that is given: "I do this that I know is wrong, but in return I do something good in this other sense." Obviously, the balance between fault and compensation is decided by him unilaterally, with which justice ends up being no less doubtful.

In the Italian commedia dell'arte, this character can be recognized in the Harlequin, who is called "servant of two masters," and who is usually wear a multicolored suit, testimony to his changing opinions. Or it can also be justified with the argument: "As the Others do it, I also have permission to do it ». In all these compensatory situations, it is first identified with a consistent and firm authority, with a reasonable father or with an adequate normative system but, just as he rebels against the authority and the father, he will end up rebelling against his own internal authority to finally do what he wants to. You can even justify yourself with something as childish as thinking that no one is going to notice the trap, just like a child who hides under the covers convinced that no one sees him.

“Once my mother asked me how much fruit I had eaten. I told her two apples. She gasped, telling me it was impossible because she had only bought one. I surprised myself wondering how she could have known.”

At the origin of this condescension could be the benevolence that the mother had when dealing with her son's faults. His permissiveness, which did not set limits by breaking the child's rules, was interpreted by him as a gesture of love. The child felt special and decided to skip them. It will end with a permanent demand to the mother: "Show me that you love me and let me do what I want." Self-indulgence, giving oneself permission to do what one wants, therefore refers to an expression of love, initially from the mother and then from him, as an adult, towards himself, while setting limits translates as heartbreak.

We find parents who even suggest to their son how to avoid the sanction.

“When I was seven years old, I stole some money from the teacher who had left her purse in class. She found out and told my father. Later, at dinner, my father gave me a speech about how one person shouldn't take another's money, without speaking directly, and at the end he told me that sometimes people borrow money, but forget to say so. . I was relieved that she hadn't punished me, but the consequence was a subtle sense of guilt that remained with me, and at the same time the learning that I could lie and save myself.”

There are also often absent parents behind a sexual E7 who themselves lead a life of deception or cheating on institutions. The child learns that being better than others is knowing how to avoid punishment and that the rules are only restrictions and not protocols necessary for coexistence. This lack of values ​​makes it impossible to take an adult position against a norm when one does not share it and wants to fight against it, as would someone who wants to assert himself maturely.

“I was born the seventh of a family of seven and that led me to become the king of the house, being extremely pampered not only by my mother but by the rest and by the entire neighborhood. This led me to believe the center of the universe and that everything in it belonged to me. To make matters worse, I was educated without limits and over-protected by my mother and with an absence, although not physical, from my father as far as education is concerned. I soon realized that with a little crying I could get what I wanted, and I did.”

“I am the youngest of four siblings. I was Mom's protégé, her most beloved son. My father represented the highest authority. I got everything I wanted by seducing my mother with my humor and my ideas. Afterwards, she talked to my father and almost always convinced him, so in the end I got my way without directly confronting the authorities.”

 Below we group the most common irrational ideas and beliefs in a sexual Seven into four blocks. Some coincide with other sweet tooth subtypes, all, let's not forget, with indulgence as a common factor.

Hedonistic. Seek pleasure and avoid pain

• Without pleasure there is no life.
• Life is a party without limit.
• I was born to enjoy.
• Why be wrong if you can be right?
• There is always a positive side of things. Everything's fine.
• Better invented life than real life.
• Better to avoid the pain; It does not work.
• If I suffer, I die.

The sexual E7 puts all its cognitive machinery at the service of avoidance. As far as possible, touch the pain. With his mind wide awake and controlling, he scans without pause and, at the slightest threat of suffer, avoid getting hurt by diverting attention to another place pair with some of his escapist strategies. With a clear vocation for yeses, and given to few noes, this Character of exacerbated optimism always seeks the positive side of any experience, no matter how hard it may be.

“If I get to work in August instead of spending my vacation at the beach, I'll sell it to myself in such a way that working the busiest month of the year seems like a great plan. «There is more space to park», «there is less workload», «I take advantage of the afternoons in the pool», etc.”

It's all good for a sexual E7. Even in situations of deep pain, such as the death of a loved one, she is capable of turning the tables and using fantasy to decorate it with pink. With his meek horsemanship he is capable of setting up a trap that is as perfect as it is cloying. Anger, frustration or tears are not welcome. Neither their own nor others: whoever comes with those is a danger, gives "bad vibes", and is subtly left aside, expelled from the paradise of happiness. The inner world of the sexual Seven is like the feeling of having smoked marijuana: a light and superficial joy that covers the deep feeling of emptiness.

Rebel. No limits or authority

• It is no use limiting desires; You only live once.
• If you put a limit on me, it's because you don't love me.
• Happiness consists in doing what you want.
• I am the authority and I do what I want.
• If something is good, more will be even better.
• I can suggest you to get pleasure.
• A river uprooted, gain of fishermen

The desire of a sexual E7 cannot be limited. He believes that any of his desires (which he interprets as a need) is completely legitimate and should not meet barriers. He relies on self-indulgence to jump the imposed limits, or seeks the support of accomplices to get away with it. Almost any means is to get the object of desire.

Thanks to his capacity for suggestion, in his fantasy world the limits of his pretensions are extended from his partner, from friends... although not so much in large groups. It differentiates him from the other subtypes to handle better in short distances from you to you.

“In the couple, I always insist on taking the limits of sexual life a little further, with sexual fantasies, partner swapping, orgies... Everything step by step and in a calculated way, pushing the will of the other in a subtle and seductive way, always attentive to her reaction so I can lift the pressure if I sense she's getting upset. I am an expert in tightrope walking on the edge of the precipice, although it is not uncommon that this exceeding the limits and playing with fire leads me to burn on more than one occasion.”

Traveling the world, seducing anyone, trying different jobs, experimenting with drugs, doing spiritual retreats, snacking on various disciplines, going out to parties, meeting lots of people, reading all kinds of books... Endless experiences worth being lived and that are available to anyone who wants it.

“Since I was a child I have always felt called to great things. The lack of ability to deal with worldly events paved the way for me to take refuge in a fantasy world, in which my difficulties were overcome by intellectual qualities, which became protagonists.”

Although it is a trait common to all E7, sexual is one of the most rebellious and unsubmissive characters in the entire enneagram. He is not a friend of authority, who is the one who can put those limits on him profoundly rebellious, convinced of the crazy idea that ``I know more than him" or "I would know how to do it better".

However, he is also unable to present himself to others as an authority, except when he wants to impress. He usually takes refuge in the large group, instigating an acrimony towards authority from within, taking advantage of his fine ability to detect inconsistencies. He knows how to prepare each one to help him in his personal struggle to destabilize the established hierarchy, generating confusion and even chaos if necessary. It is in this veiled way that he puts into play his own way of being competitive.

In general, there has not been a reliable and consistent experience of authority in his life, but rather a threatening and potentially harmful one. The bad relationship with the father, or his absence, or the contempt he felt towards the father figure, is at the root of this attitude. As he is fearful and insecure, he also seeks, ambiguously, the recognition of authority. He is in search of the absent father and that approval and support of the father friend that he did not have.

“We are servile, but servile in the sense of winning over the powerful. In order not to confront him, we do what we are told, but there is no loyalty in what we are doing. We are not opposed directly because we are afraid of authority, but we are opposed in a hidden way... an ambivalence about it.”

In any case, he is convinced that he can do what he wants because he has not lived through limits that indicate otherwise.

“I was educated without limits, over-protected by my mother and with an absence, although not physical, of my father as far as education is concerned. The lack of limits gave rise to believing that I was the center of the universe and that everything in it belonged to me.”

The fight with the father is thus the basis of his hidden rebellion. What he cannot see is that, in this underground war, and hidden under the skirts of his mother, he loses the opportunity to come face to face with his father and clearly earn the right to be a grown man.

Condescending and permissiveness

• There are no obligations, no wrong or guilt. It's okay, it's not that serious.
• There is permission for everything.
• Forgiving everything is a magnanimous attitude that speaks to the world out of the greatness of my heart.
• I will not be lacking, I need everything to live, I have to.
• In case something fails, I always have alternatives.

One of the maxims of this character is that everything can be postponed except pleasure. Indulgence minimizes negative consequences and maximizes possible benefits, at convenience and through fantasy. And the “nothing happens” is the fixed tagline that is automatically activated when a painful experience occurs.

Although it is a great unknown, guilt is one of the staunch enemies of sexual E7. It can leak out in the form of anguish, anxiety, and even nightmares. In order not to assume it, he develops the ability to point fingers and look for blame in any situation, sometimes bordering on paranoia. Most of the time, he carries out this signal with elegance, using seduction and suggestion to drop the responsibility on anyone else, even though he also goes into childish and indiscriminate tantrums.

On the other hand, feeling accused is one of the worst situations, and when he feels cornered he is capable of undertaking his defense with a strong attack, sometimes hitting blind spots. Anything so as not to take responsibility for the pain caused.

“When a situation turns ugly, I pick up my spurs and disappear from the scene; I don't want bad vibes or conflicts. On the other hand, when it comes to enjoying myself I am a faithful friend: there is always time for another joint, another beer, another deep talk until dawn.” (VINCENT)

 Egocentric. feels special

• Me, me and then me.
• I have something special/magical that attracts people. I am an oracle, I'm lovely.
• I have to be funny and fantastic for them to like me.
• I exist if I dazzle, if I seduce, if I show beauty.
• If I don't show myself, I am not here.

The sexual E7 has a unique ability to divert the focus of attention to some topic that has to do with him or with some area of ​​life in which he has something to say, probably taken from the latest book that has fallen into his hands. hands. If he doesn't know much, it doesn't matter, he makes it up, as long as he's the center of attention.

The interest shown by his interlocutor is the most precious mirror in which to contemplate his own reflection, and there he becomes the enchanting charmer and seeing the other enjoy his conversation and company tastes like glory.

His narcissism leads him to deny not only pain and frustration, but even signs of exhaustion, even when they are more than obvious.

“I define my narcissism as a stationary engine, because my desire to conquer has never been based on hard work or the opportunity to obtain a result through collaboration and help from others, but rather on my abilities to jump over obstacles and have the world produce for me, as a result of my kindness, of my ability to turn everything I touched into gold.”

CHAPTER 4; OTHER CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS AND PSYCHODYNAMIC CONSIDERATIONS

Talkative

The sexual E7 is a particular form of quackery. He tends to talk a lot, even more than the other subtypes of the Seven. It is a loquacious and talkative character, who does not stop occupying the space with the word. It really does have a lot of struggles—you could almost say an inability to be quiet, in a chatter that is defined by its superficiality, thematic dispersal, and inability to go deeper.

Verbal incontinence, together with the speed and mental effervescence that it possesses, turn the talk of a sexual E7 into a bombardment of words that ends up devastating in an almost hypnotic chain of light ideas that, one after another, end up being heavy.

The underlying motivation is to release anxiety and fill the inner void and the interpersonal space with words. It is also a way to control one's own and others' emotions. What is important is not so much what is said but the expression itself (language in phatic function). It's pure oral incontinence. If a sexual Seven is asked about what he just said, he may have a hard time repeating it, because he doesn't even listen to himself.

“My mother already told me when I was little that I didn't shut up even under water. One day I was even tempted to try it, to try to speak under water... and I think I succeeded. With my brothers and cousins ​​we played precisely to say things to each other underwater, and I was famous among them for being the one who did it best and almost always won. My mother laughed and corroborated it; I felt important and loved and thought how important it was to speak well.”

Grandiose, exaggerated 

He is a character with delusions of grandeur, who looks at life in a big way, who makes excessive plans that he later cannot achieve... But that grandiloquence and exaggeration hides the need for a look that will rescue him from his low self-esteem. He confuses being admired with cultivating his self-love; hence, he measures his personal worth based on how dazzled others are.

His narcissistic self-inflation attempts to compensate for his schizoid inner emptiness and less-admittable feelings of unworthiness, insecurity, and guilt, of which he is often unaware. Deep down, he reassures himself and self-indulgences so much, through the recognition of others, that it is not surprising that he is defined as a "enchanted charmer."

Exhibitionist

 By exhibitionism we understand here that particular way of constantly attracting attention practiced by the sexual E7. Both his attire (garishly colored, sometimes with feathers or exotic accessories and, in general, not very discreet) as well as his way of moving and speaking denote an intense activity aimed at becoming the center of attention. It is like a peacock, only with a peculiar way of understanding elegance, which is not exactly what the canons command, but rather that of a mountebank or a buffoon.

Invasive

His verbal incontinence and his exhibitionism make the Seven sexually invasive. With words and gestures, he occupies the mental and even physical space of the other. Is capable of diverting attention or the focus of the conversation by making parallel comments, introducing new distracting incepts, with jokes that change the mood or simply blurting out some superficiality out of context Interrupts conversations, either directly or with encouragement sideways as a whisper. He is an expert destabilizer of meetings or conversations that do not interest him or in which he is not the center of attention.

He sneaks into parties where he hasn't been invited, shows up unannounced, takes places or privileges he hasn't earned... Of course, once he manages to be attended to, he doesn't easily let go of the place of centrality, food of his narcissism.

Impertinent, cheekiness

It combines freshness with a shamelessness that reaches rudeness. He is capable of approaching and confronting the source of power so equally, with such daring, that it borders on irreverence. In his approaches, he is usually very direct and self-assured, even limiting the unpleasant effects of his impudence with jokes and various complications, putting Vaseline at every step.

However, under his apparent friendliness and sense of humor, he has scathing and corrosive words. In the irony he hides his competitiveness and even contempt and, aggressively, he exhibits his dialectical skills to ridicule his opponents with devastating weapons. His impudence comes from the incontinence of his desires, which they do impulsively, straight to what they want immediately. It is a staging of their rebellion and indiscipline. Either by A or by B, the focus is directed both at destabilizing the other and at attracting attention. Depending on the fear that he has of the situation, and depending on the strength that he grants to the other, he will use the style of covert rebellion, guerrilla warfare type, or the most open and daring, sniper type. It is common that, in a conference or meeting, he interrupts the speaker, asking some incisive and far-fetched question that nobody understands. It is possible that the subject does not interest him too much, but he will abuse the word as a way to show off to the group.

The impudence of the sexual Seven can be such that he dares to preach what he lacks so much, that is, being ethical and honest. It is not uncommon to hear him giving advice or moralizing, from idealization, about what is correct. To remember here that the E7 suffers a direct influence of the moralism, rigidity and perfection of the E1. As the preacher Groucho Marx teaches: “The secret of life is honesty and fair play; if you can simulate that, you've done it."

“Clown" with little sense of his ridiculousness

He can approach social situations with ease, aided by his low sense of the ridiculous as well as the courage to use himself as a caricature. He is especially witty at making fun of himself. He has little shame and makes fun of his own faults or defects as a way of taking iron from them. He is adept at parodying his own life.

 It would seem that the sexual E7 does not know how to be anywhere other than the joke. Always sharpening everything, the sweetener, useful in so many moments, ends up cloying. The abuse of humor makes him invasive, impertinent and inadequate in many moments in which that attitude does not apply.

Self-referenced

Fate admiring himself through the fascination he provokes in others is a springboard to feel above him, with aggressive and haughty attitudes. The more admiration you receive, the more you come down and feed the belief that you are "special" and unique, superior.

Such is the degree of self-referentiality that the center of attention and denies the value of others, reduced to mere providers admiring admirers, a silent public that gives him the egoic pleasure of capturing your interest.

Dreamer with magic thinking

It is usual for him to practice various esotericisms, parapsychology or exotic religions, and to surround himself with an aura of accentuated new age spirituality or practice healthy lifestyles or anything else designed to attract attention while giving himself airs of transcendental maturity.

Ultimately, he does not stop being a dreamer. Someone who needs to spend a good part of his time in the fantasy worlds he cultivates, disconnected from reality, oblivious to problems.

Pseudo-empathetic

Although he does not lack empathy to identify with others and tends to be kind, humane and even emotional, his difficulty in connecting with a genuine interest in others is enormous. The sexual Seven is a person with great affective disconnection towards those who return to him, an aspect that, although he is not very aware of it, is one of the most painful for him. In the long run, he feels alone and isolated, since he does not establish real contact but through his self-image. And although he is inflamed by his abilities and triumphs, deep down he himself is aware that he has no real achievements and feels internally fraudulent, quite insecure and fragile.

Selfish 

Like all E7, the sexual subtype can also be defined as selfish. The priority is the satisfaction of one's desires, everything else is left behind in the order of priorities. He does not see the other; only his own navel. And, of course, he believes that he doesn't need anyone to be well, that he can only handle the vicissitudes of life... Without being the most tricky of the sweet tooth (title held by the Seven conservation), he is also a slave to his own desire and shows no scruples when it comes to going for what he wants. Once he succeeds, there is also no remorse for the forms employed, like the child who, unable to contain his frustration, went for the candy at all costs.

Fraudulent 

Self-indulgence serves as a justification for fraud. The sexual E7 can tell himself and others any kind of story, with the most unlikely alibis to justify his dubious behaviors.

 He lives in a kind of chronic fiction, entertainment and permanent comedy that ultimately allows him. do what you want and when you want. And, unlike the Conservation Seven, he tends to believe his own lies, self-suggesting them.

Rabid

A mental character but with an emotional tendency denied in the background. In his day to day, hysterical tantrums are not uncommon, moments in which his understanding is clouded and he behaves like a small child who, not being attended to, explodes.

This feature also has to do with the general susceptibility of the E7. These are people with such a high sense of their personal importance that anything offends them, and in the case of sexuality, this jeopardy reaches the point of hypersensitivity.

Anti-hierarchical escapist

They tend to establish non-hierarchical, horizontal relationships, either with the subordinate or with the boss. It establishes a colleague, a closeness, a complicity that, apparently, facilitates camaraderie and trust. Their managerial style is condescending, giving permission for everyone to say and do what they want, but delegating much of the responsibility for tasks to the subordinate. Ultimately, he tends to hang himself, both procrastinating on his tasks and abusively relying on his co-workers. Something similar usually happens in their personal relationships:

“I establish open relationships with my partner, so that I myself can go with any other person I want. I also encouraged them to smoke joints and addicted them to feel calmer and not have to give explanations every time I did.”

Clueless

In addition to escaping from his responsibilities, he is absent-minded, a "freak" who usually lacks grounding and the ability to get organized in the practical things of life. It is not very well known where his head is or his existential priorities; what is clear is that his thoughts are not of this world.

Childish optimism

He is an optimistic, lively, fun person... at least on the surface. He has already been designated "the clown of the enneagram" for his immense ability to laugh and make a joke out of any situation. In fact, most of the great comedians are sexual E7s.

Optimism and humor are not only at the service of highlighting the humorous side of situations, but also affect the cheerful spirit of the sexual E7, in its liveliness and joy. Optimistic ingenuity is the lubricant that allows the sexual Seven to glide through existence without the friction of living.

The sexual E7 has remained in that early stage in which the child laughs at anything. There is still no broader understanding that anticipates the sufferings of life and, in the face of any face or stimulus from the environment, the child returns a smile. The hope and joy of living is such that it is only possible to smile with dedication and enthusiasm.

Impatient, impulsive and intolerant of frustration

Although he anticipates a lot and acts from the mind, he is often carried away by his impulses. The sexual Seven has a low tolerance for frustration and wants to be one step ahead of reality itself, like a capricious child who, when he wants something, wants it now.

In permanent movement, jumping from one space to another both physically and mentally, he is usually nervous and quiet, with a lot of physical agitation and difficulty staying in one place for a long time. Internally it is also changeable and variable, easily alternating ideas and arguments. Corporally, they are jumpy people, with zigzag, sharp, run over movements. They find it difficult to sit or stay in the same position for a long time, they have difficulty stopping, being at rest. This constant mobility even makes him frequently change his profession, address, partner... Restless agitation is a mechanism to avoid contact with the inner world, where he could connect with discomfort. It's like surfing the waves of life's discomfort, tiptoeing through situations.

Behind the impatience and speed is not wanting to get lost or give up anything. The sexual E7 believes that if it stays in one place (external or internal), or simply slows down, it will have to give up fantastic possibilities in the world's great market. Stopping would also imply attenuating the initial excitement that the new arouses and sustaining the boredom that the stability of the known entails.

Hypochondriac 

Avoiding suffering and repressing pain leads to hypersensitivity to any sign of physical discomfort, which soon turns into constant worry. The sexual Seven has not received attentive and adequate care and has not found an attentive listening on the part of the adults who had to protect him. Let's say that, also in this sense, he has experienced abandonment. Furthermore, by taking on a minstrel role to alleviate his mother's sorrows, he had to hide his own. This lack of care and the fear of death itself cause, in the event of any physical symptom, to enter a state of diffuse anxiety that can turn into hypochondria. This indeterminate form of care on one hand reveals his deep fear and on the other, an attempt to take care of himself.

Hypochondriasis increases at the moment when, not having the ability to work through their anxiety, it produces psychosomatic symptoms and a vicious circle is entered.

CHAPTER 5; EMOTIONALITY AND FANTASY

By VICENTE LAFUENTE AND ENRIQUE VILLATORO

Emotionality and fantasy are fundamental aspects of the internal functioning of a sexual E7, and intimately related. He lives the different emotions under the influence of fantasy, which in turn feeds back on the emotional energy generated. And he confuses emotionality with fantasies of emotional content.

Emotionality 

Claudio Naranjo explains that the Seven is the most emotional of the intellectual characters and, in turn, the sexual subtype is the most emotional of the sweet tooth. In the diagram of the psychology of the enneatypes, the sexual E7 is the emotional one on the left side of the enneagram star. This means that it combines a high intellectual component with a not insignificant emotional nuance. Therefore, in addition to understanding experience and life, the sexual Seven needs to feel it and be passionate about it.

This intense character likes to live at a high volume of arousal and energetic activation. Especially on a mental level, where the will to artificially generate joy is put above everything. Internally, the sexual E7 feels like a very sensitive child, who fears deep intimate contact as much as he longs for it.

Suggestion is dreaming to repress the perception of pain. The experiences with idealization and the fuel of this abstraction of reality is emotion, which incites and directs fantasy.

At the same time that he is feeling the emotion, the sexual Seven is telling it to him live. He is putting words to it, like the announcer of a game that broadcasts life live. That is to say, more than feeling directly, he thinks about what he is feeling, in that irrepressible impulse to put words to everything, to narrate (to himself) reality.

Here it connects with the horror vacuum mentality of our culture (what the Orientals have rightly described as the crazy monkey mind). It is relatively common for a sexual E7 to explain to you in great detail the experience of an emotion, with the corresponding fixation of the facts in the version that best suits him and turning the experience into a story, rather than directly feeling the affection. He is a character specialized in interrupting romantic or special moments, in which the experience of the moment and the fleetingness of the subtle are more important, with some inappropriate comments, honoring his status as a talkative parrot.

Describing the emotion while living it is nothing more than manipulating the experience. On the one hand, it allows to exalt enthusiasm when it is pleasant, and on the contrary, to minimize it when it is not interesting. Putting cognition to the affective is, therefore, a filter with which he distills the pleasant emotions, which are the ones that interest him. To a head triad type, the uncontrollable nature of the emotional world is frightening. He experiences it as potentially dangerous due to the vulnerability in which it could leave him. Intellectualizing life, on the other hand, is a form of control that gives a certain feeling of security.

Idealizing not only enhances the experience but also an emotional activation with it. Unlike the social and conservation subtypes more controlled, the sexual E7 is emotionally very active (hence a certain similarity with the E2). But don't be fooled by appearances: your emotion is triggered from your head rather than from the experience itself.

Idealization is, therefore, in this character, a powerful defensive tool that acts as a regulating filter of the sensations of the emotional world. It amplifies pleasant emotions and minimizes unpleasant ones, manipulating the experience to make it more fun, kinder, sweeter. To get her away from the routine, from the gray everyday life, from boredom, from the feared emptiness.

With his idealization of emotional experiences, the sexual Seven appears as someone hung up on life. It is on the vine, flown, in another world, disconnected from reality. Although he is a passionate and intense enneatype, he is not so passionate in the expression of emotions. He appears rather distant, lost in the clouds, and instead of sharing his feelings, he substitutes genuine emotional contact with companionship, seductive affability, and the creation of suggestive atmospheres.

The sexual E7 has specialized in self-activating joy, a symptom of happiness and the most stereotyped emotion of the subtype. It is not uncommon to see him caricatured in the character of Peter Pan, the eternal child: hands on hips, wide smile, sparkling eyes, feet a few centimeters above the ground... Just as a sexual E7 perceives life or, rather, how he intends to live it: full of opportunities and new experiences, full of adventures and full of joy, good vibes”, “good vibes”, cool... Joy is therefore their predominant emotion. He tends to tell himself of his life happier than it is, taking on the role of light joker, always with a joke on hand to avoid moments of intimacy or solemnity that bother him so much. An example is your tendency to whistle, hum, or engage in some sort of sound, internally or externally, in times of stress, boredom, or simply, a bland walk from the parking lot to work, adding music to the gray routine of everyday life, due to its difficulty in sustaining a reality apparently empty of content.

The second most common emotion in a sexual Seven is anger. But how is it that a person apparently so connected to joy feels so angry? This character, in permanent flight from frustration, is paradoxically very sensitive to it. in the sense that the negation of something makes it even more present. And given that a response to frustration is the explosion of rage as a defensive reaction to try to set limits, it is not uncommon for the sexual E7 to make somewhat childish manipulative actings.

These toddler tantrums end up plunging the sexual Seven into chronic dissatisfaction and anger, which increases with age, until the epitome of fun and good humor becomes a grumpy old man.

Now, both the sensation and the expression of rage are partially blocked by its antagonistic character in the face of joy, with which he feels so identified. The sexual E7 will try to avoid being seen angry, although there will be times when he cannot contain himself, because he prefers to withdraw from the world at the slightest sensation of discomfort, anger or sadness, so that his cheerful and happy image is not questioned. .

It is precisely in this withdrawal that angry expression is most common. The closest people know well: parents, partners or children of this subtype, that it is in the domestic sphere where they show their irritability the most. In less trustworthy or less secure environments, he does not dare to be angry, but he does show rebellion and, often, with a true sabotaging desire.

In the intimacy of the home and in the security provided by his relatives, the sexual Seven can take off his mask, his humorous antics, and finally show his hidden face. He gives free rein at home to his frustration, to the irritation that has been swallowed up outside. permission is given to appear cold or monosyllabic, taking off the fancy dress costume, in a strange version of the warrior's rest (in this case, the clown's).

Children can be easy targets for your irritability when your manic side is expressed in a negative way, especially since they are direct competitors of the sexual E7 in its more capricious childish side. This relationship with children is, in fact, and although it is not usually directly recognized, one of the most common reasons why a sexual Seven comes to a therapeutic consultation.

The perfectionism of the E7, aligned with the perfectionist E1 according to the internal psychodynamics of the enneagram, is a second reason why the denied anger of the sweet tooth emerges more frequently in the warmth of the home. Just as a sexual Seven is lax about boundaries and rules outside the home, where self-indulgence is more evident, in his home he can transform into a demanding and controlling tyrant, attentive to the smallest detail, with the trigger easy at hand. time to scream or raise your voice in the face of the smallest frustration. Patient and kind outside the home, frustrating and insufferable inside the house. Fun outside and boring inside.

And just as life is painted rosy when everything is going well, it can become a catastrophist when its plans go awry. Fantasy is here placed in favor of negativity and amplifies it; he becomes paranoid and sees everything black, until he becomes blind with rage. The sexual Seven now becomes mentally obsessive: he revels in anger, frustration, and how attacked he feels. He visualizes himself expressing all his anger, losing himself in internal self-talk that will never come to fruition because of the fear he has of confrontation. This negativity that he feels and the explanations that he gives himself of the situation will justify his aggression towards the other, his rebellion and his greedy compensations destined to “balance himself”.

Sadness is another double-edged emotion in this subtype. It is relatively common to see a sexual E7 weep, grieve, and even cry with a sensitive movie, an emotional song, art or some nostalgic situation. But by identification, not because he is in contact with his own pain.

Melancholy, stirred by an external stimulus, does not necessarily put you in touch with your pending emotional issues or with your most genuine affectivity. In fact, if the situation begins to move you internally, your alarms and defense mechanisms will be activated to escape from the present, blocking the sensation. He even uses these situations of perceived bitterness to compare himself, because of how well he usually feels and how lucky he is, compared to the misfortune of others: "How lucky I am in life and how well I am," he seems to say to himself internally.

“When I entered the Gestalt training I had never done any therapy or self-knowledge course. In addition to curiosity, I started because my partner was also going to do the training. I remember that, in the first presentation round, people talked about some stories and conflicts in their lives that surprised me enormously. Inside, I thought: “Poor things, how much they have suffered and how lucky I have been, with a happy childhood, I am very well”. At that time I was heavily addicted to cocaine, without a job and quite lost in my life.”

The current movie or book that is a source of sadness also becomes a stimulus for suggestion and immersion in the emotional world of the protagonist. If it's a sad fantasy, the sexual E7 will take care of giving it a happy ending. For this character it is easy to get carried away by nostalgic stories, navigate abandoning oneself to melancholy, but living all of it on loan, always from the outside and without touching the fiber of pain itself. There is something pleasant in this melancholy crying; They are sweet tears, easy to hold, even to amplify, while the personal, real and deep pain is safe and kept under lock and key.

The empathy of the sexual Seven allows him to feel the sorrow and anguish of the stories of friends, patients, relatives or students. Of course, with the same condition as before: that this feeling of sadness does not threaten to touch their own misfortune. Being an opportunistic and self-interested character, this version of empathy is not to tune in with the other but is manipulative.

Conqueror strategist, like a good Seven, puts at your service any tool at your disposal to make the most of the bond and the situation. The sadness that he can show can, therefore, respond to some strategic interest, be part of a game of seduction.

“During a workshop, faced with an emotional situation within the group, the therapist told me: "Your eyes get glassy while your fangs are sharpening."

The sexual E7 is also suggested with fantasies of self-sacrifice, imagining himself in painful situations as a way of showing himself to the world with the aura of a martyr and a savior hero. Obviously, these stories have a happy ending, of triumph in which he gets the benefit of being idolized, sanctified as a superhero. All this, in the security offered by the world of ideas, where his dreams have little or no contact with reality.

It is both costly and restorative for a sexual Seven to get in touch with deep sadness. When you finally manage to touch it, to open it, you will discover that it is a deeply liberating and healing experience. In order to promote it, a therapist, family member, or friend of a sexual E7 will have to arm themselves with patience and avoid a lot of quackery, ironies, unexpected turns, and elusive seductions, until they finally realize all the demand to "be okay" that is self-imposed.

Fear - the last of the four basic emotions - is the most present in the day to day of a sexual Seven, although in a little way visible. Being the basic emotion of the triad of mental characters of the enneagram (E5, E6 and E7), the sexual Seven is not aware of the enormous fear that underlies the appearance of joy and optimism in his life. He denies the fear and buries it deep, but as soon as he scratches, it will come out strongly and he will feel how his tentacles paralyze his work.

Ultimately, fear is nothing more than an anticipation, an attitude in which the sexual E7 is a specialist. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that fear is at the origin of so much anticipation, in a micro/anticipation system that feeds back. Extremely childish when it comes to dealing with adult life decisions, sexual Sevens often commit themselves with gleeful nonchalance to tantalizing challenges, imagining the benefits of such challenges without appreciating the risks, efforts, or consequences. Thus, frequently and suddenly, once the time to act has arrived, fear can erupt with all its power, including somatizations and panic attacks.

Suggestion and fear are an explosive mixture. The sexual E7, with active physical fear, can be a great hypochondriac, a great skittish person who, at the slightest symptom, begins to activate catastrophic fantasies, suggesting himself with the fear of getting seriously ill. Obsessiveness can also be activated here, with repetitive thoughts about the origin or repercussions of these symptoms. Ultimately, in his attempt to control and secure himself through thought, he ends up provoking pathological fear, in a neurotic feedback loop.

 At the bottom is the fear of death. For a narcissist who believes he is so special, above good and evil, imbued with an infantile omnipotence, death is an unattainable limit to suggestion. It is impossible for him to face his own death or, simply, he treats it with apparent denial or unconcern. For a sexual Seven, death is an unapproachable source of limit, of fear and nonsense, which he will hardly dare to consider.

By not knowing how to face fears in an adult way, it is easy for the sexual By to escape by transferring his responsibilities to another, trying to foist his problems with seductive manipulations or taking refuge in some symptom or excuse.

Other times, he simply acts crazy and forgets what he had previously assumed, making it clear that he is someone who can be counted on very little, uncommitted and fraudulent, throwing the stone and hiding his hand. Self-indulgence serves as a balm against possible remorse for his attitude of "passing" or moving away from what does not interest him.

“I remember my first shifts and my almost contemptuous way of dealing with them: "If all the doctors have done them, it won't be so difficult." Or the decision to have children, so young and so brave, until my first daughter was born and I had my first anxiety attack. It is a feeling that everything "is sucked", until the first complications arrive.”

As life shows him that there are crises and bad decisions, the sexual Seven can become more and more noisome.

There is also another fundamental fear, although denied, in the face of authority. It is the fear of being denied the privileges garnered through his childish character, of being found out in his dealings, of being put on the spot.

As for guilt, of those with a sweet tooth, the social subtype is the most susceptible to coming into contact with it, but the sexual one also experiences it, from an infantilized place and not as a figure but as background.

Since his fixation is self-indulgence, guilt and fear do not appear from the first moment, but as he advances in his process of self-knowledge, a sexual Seven will immediately run into his fraudulence and his propensity to cheat and deceive, both towards others as to himself. In this way, turning aware of his elusive and manipulative tendency, it will be part of his path to health to come into contact with the feeling of guilt.

It is a fact that it is difficult for him to admit his cheating when they are pointed out and exposed. When this happens, his narcissistic game of perfectionism, the demand not to fail, turns into guilt. As a character who lives with fantasy intensity everything that affects him, he can even recreate himself in pain, laying the foundations for a new depressive cycle.

Also somewhere this character (regardless of their sex) may harbor a secret feeling of guilt for being the father's place and having tried to win him over through maternal favors.

The hidden ambition is, finally, another source of guilt for his attitude as an infantilized adult who shows himself to be more of a child than he really is. A regressive attitude that makes it difficult for him to make that necessary transition from boy to man, from girl to woman, which would be so legitimate and healing.

Fantasy

Undoubtedly, fantasy is one of the outstanding aspects of the sexual Seven. Practically his entire character structure is based on the escape from suffering and the search for pleasure. Something that, although adaptively seems logical and consistent, since nobody in their right mind wants to suffer, in practice it supposes an unviable utopia. Existence implies pain. And suffering, ultimately a wise indicator of appropriate behaviors, helps to grow.

But the person of this character wants to trick life to run away from what frustrates and hurts. To this end, he escapes from the reality that does not interest him and builds a parallel universe at will. Knows how to tell each other distant fictions of what you are living in the present. He skillfully manipulates the facts, making them up in the way that is most beneficial to him. Fantasy is a capacity that requires a highly developed potential for mental representation in this character. Now, fantasy and lies are not so far away. Telling things in a suggestive way borders on the artificial.

Autosuggestion helps you believe your own lies. Fantasy also involves a high degree of infantile regressivity. Children do not know the limits marked by existence or the structuring experience of maturation. The sexual E7s are childish personalities, big children who have not wanted to mature. And one of the advantages of this infantilization is, precisely, being able to use fantasy as a pain-avoidance mechanism. A sexual Seven who has not gone through a profound process of psycho-spiritual maturation does not quite understand, let alone accept, that disappointment and frustration do not kill but rather teach.

Since childhood, fantasy has been his great companion in adventures. Relying on his internal world, the sexual Seven child takes refuge from a paradoxical reality by going within himself When the external situation is complicated or makes him uncomfortable: conflicts, shouting, scolding, sad moments, boredom, emptiness, discomfort. He develops, hand in hand with fantasy, that internal security space where he isolates himself and protects himself. The fundamental issue is, therefore, to go into the cave when things go wrong, a tendency that he will repeat throughout his life, in clear connection with the psychodynamics that unites him with the E5s.

The apparent extraversion of the sexual Seven hides the secret of jealously guarded feelings. In reality he is shy, someone internally reserved and withdrawn, who presents himself to the world in a very expressive and, apparently, spontaneous and open way. When the child withdraws from the world, his maturation process slows down, which keeps him childish and favors the lack of limits and of contact with reality which, in turn, fosters fantasy in a self-reinforcing cycle.

Fantasy is the protagonist in seduction, a core issue in this subtype. Suggestion favors that almost any gesture of that person that attracts you is enhanced and amplified, being able to reach obsessive desire, where looking at her realistically is very difficult and instead projects an idealized figure. And the fantasy is already in charge of putting together a plot with a future made of beautiful plans, a setting with the right light and that ambient music that enlivens falling in love. This house of cards, built in such an artificial way and in which the sexual E7 believes wholeheartedly, will have him when it falls, as the first victim.

Delusions of grandeur are common in such a narcissistic character, who easily visualizes himself in the future as a great teacher in any area. They serve as fuel to start with great force and enthusiasm so many disciplines that attract you: meditation, yoga, running, some martial art... any activity, to which he will arrive with excitement and attraction and from which he leaves, shortly, with boredom (disconnection), because the engine of fantasy only pulls for a short time. When any activity or relationship begins to require effort in the medium term, falling out of love arrives and he already sets his sights on a new one, thus beginning, once again, the cycle of enthusiasm and disappointment, like a hamster on a wheel.

Even so, with the support of autosuggestion and fraudulence, he often feels competent in those areas that he has just abandoned without having made much effort. It will not be unusual to hear your opinions, sometimes with convincing arguments, on matters about which you have little information. And he will give courses and workshops and conferences. He will even write manuals on knowledge that he has touched on the side. His attitude of showing himself to the world as an expert in areas that he does not know the most basic of makes him the stereotype of the sorcerer's apprentice who, like Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, usurps the role of the master and launches spells that he later doesn't know how to handle or stop.

“When I arrived in Barcelona I didn't have a job and I needed to have one. Among other things, they offered me to teach a basic computer course, a subject I had little idea about. Without thinking twice, I said yes. The next day I bought a computer book and a computer where I studied and practiced the subject I was going to teach the day before. It wasn't all that bad, since they continued to offer me other courses on safety and hygiene at work, accounting, payroll, management... I said yes to almost everything they offered me. The director of the school himself was surprised at my variability of knowledge. I, inside, could not deceive myself and I was so anguished that I did not sleep at night.”

There is a tendency to try to guess what the other is thinking, without much empathy towards what may actually be happening to them. There is also a poor quality of presence, withdrawing from the conversation and the relationship at the slightest opportunity to be distracted. The usual thing is that, in a dialogue, there is no listening on his part, but rather a constant chatter. In the few moments when you leave room for the other to talk, you'll probably be thinking of your next "brilliant" argument in the meantime. Fantasy occupies almost all available psychic energy and there is not much left for others.

Within what we could define as his "onanism mentals", this character often prefers to be with himself, with his fantasies and delusions, than in the "boring" world of personal relationships, especially if they do not constitute a source of interest, excitement or novelty... or he is not the protagonist. In large groups, he will do his best to be noticed through humor or, directly, through slapstick. If the expected case is not done, the usual thing is that he isolates himself to take refuge, once again, in fantasy.

In small groups or in the intimacy of the I-you, where he feels safer, he will display his invasive self-confidence and a happy and light rhythm to take the lead and become the protagonist and the center of attention.

CHAPTER 6; CHILDHOOD

Even if they do not remember it or are not aware of it, the sexual E7 is a person who suffered in childhood, and to such an extent that they learned to panic about pain and not want to feel it again. He neither wants nor, on many occasions, can touch suffering. The logical no que fer to suffer or to suffer in the case of the sexual Seven has developed to the extreme that the threshold of pain has been so low that it stops fulfilling its function; because for an adequate adaptation to the environment it is necessary to experience a certain degree of suffering and learn to deal with it.

The sexual E7 tries to build a bubble of illusion that defends him from suffering, and becomes so strict in that defense that it ends up turning against him and he has to withdraw from the real world in order to survive the slightest emotional ups and downs, since the slightest inconvenience becomes unbearable. Such an attitude is based on a childhood of emotional withdrawal that ends up being channeled into the world of fantasy and the substitution of reality for plans and projects that are often abandoned without fulfillment. Schizoid behavior is gradually replaced by a new way out into the world that is, at the same time, an escape from oneself.

That is why the sexual Seven becomes the caricature of Peter Pan. A shallow boy who never grew up, who was tied to his fantasy world and is unable to take responsibility for his actions or provide emotional support. Something that translates into a disengaged and overwrought adult, who lacks grounding, a firm sense of reality that has been displaced by fantasy and suggestion, in order to smooth out the rough edges of life. Already as a child, then, the sexual E7 learns to drug himself emotionally.

There are three key elements of the context in which this character is built:

Lack of limits. The sexual Seven is not hardened in coping with frustration, he is not tough enough to deal with daily difficulties and inconveniences. Since childhood, he has been spared the obligation to produce this hardening, since no one has put limits on him or, if there have been, in the family itself he has received the teaching of how they can be avoided. Little trained in resistance to frustration, the child gets what he wants, in any way: the end justifies the means. The lack of frustration has prevented him from growing stronger, resulting in a capricious and spoiled child. This lack of limits can respond to one of these two factors:

a) Aversive, harsh and difficult environment in which he has suffered a great lack of attention, support and recognition. In this context of lack, painful, wild, the child experiences it like a jungle where everyone has to find life as best they can. There are no clear rules, no limits, and it would seem that the only law that prevails is that of the jungle: survival!, and that everyone manages as best they can.

“Don Ernesto is a grumpy and lanky bastard. It is Don Camilo, his father, the director, who manages to hit me with a brutal slap in the face in front of my mother without her complaining. Day in, day out, it rains, slaps and blows to the head, the rule on the hands and nails, arms crossed, humiliation, studying as something terrifying. The fear in the flesh.”

“Once, when I was about four or five years old, my parents bought some very nice desks for my two older brothers and one for my sister. They didn't buy me one with the justification that it was small and I didn't need it yet. As a consolation, my older brother left me a small drawer in his desk to put my things. One day we had a big fight and he, obviously stronger than me, kicked me out of his desk by force, pulling out the drawer and dumping all my things on the floor. I felt humiliated and it was the first time I remember touching vulnerability and helplessness more directly. From that helplessness and with my ears down, I put my things in a corner on the floor under the window. He was afraid because, even without having a place of his own, he also had nowhere to go. I think it was there that I understood that in direct confrontation I had everything to lose, the fight had to be more strategic, based on skill and cunning rather than force, it was a kind of permanent guerrilla warfare. I remember repeating that saying "better morning than strength."

b) An environment of laxity in which he is mother's favourite, a sensible, pampered, capricious child who often gets what he wants without being hindered. Parents are perceived by the sexual E7 child as ambivalent figures without a clear definition of authority. The mother is usually closer in terms of the basic tasks of food, health and care, while the father is usually an absent or discredited figure in the family environment, sometimes even by the mother herself. A seductive mother who presents the father as an ogre. This relationship between the parents may be colored by a certain competition between them, which is manifested in education, in the rules that are set at home. Faced with this inconsistency in the criteria to be followed in a normatively ambiguous environment, the child becomes a skilful opportunist capable of taking advantage of the option that suits him best at any given time, and he develops the ability to get away from what does not interest him.

“I was born the seventh of a family of seven and that led me to become the king of the house, being extremely pampered not only by my mother but by the rest and by the entire neighborhood. This gave rise to believing that I was the center of the universe and that everything in it belonged to me. To make matters worse, I was educated without limits and over-protected by my mother, and with an absence, although not physical, of my father in that regard. I soon realized that with a little crying I could get what I wanted, and I did. than to education.”

Symbolically, it is a happy but effectively poorly nutritious breastfeeding; hence his confident and optimistic but disconnected and superficial personality.

Identification and fusion with the mother. Generally, the sexual Seven has remained attached to the mother, who tends to adopt a permissive role, while at the same time taking pains to make the child feel special and to make him feel excessively pampered and capricious.

“My mother was my world, I merged with her. I did not differentiate between "I and the world" as an external instance that demanded action from me. I got everything from the world (that is, from my mother) without acting, with a simple gesture. My mother took care of me for too long. At the stage where the baby becomes a child (eighteen months to three years) and experiences the impulse to differentiate himself from the mother, to know the world, to assert his own will and autonomy, I experienced it very badly. My mother and her caretakers were very present and I was held back in my discovery of the world. I relate an image that can be significant: I can now walk and I see things around me that attract me. I walk determined to look for a ball... I feel a very strong inner impulse, I want to take the ball and show it to my mother... I start to walk excitedly... Suddenly, I feel my mother's arms that grab me by the armpits and they stop me sweetly. My mother takes the ball and gives it to me herself.”

Another possibility is that the mother is ambiguous. On the one hand, they can be very affectionate and, on the other, they cut off contact and leave without a reason clearly identified by the child.

“She was the authority within the house, she represented both the norm and limits to be followed as well as the warm and loving focus. It was the reference on a day-to-day basis, given that depending on the mood of the day, one had to regulate one's behavior. I had the sensation of a certain state of alert in front of her, since she could be both warm, affectionate and permissive as well as hard, dry and extremely hurtful.”

This double attitude, flattering at times and frustrating at others, has special influence in the sexual sphere. It is as if the mother issued a double message regarding sexuality, without there being a clear guideline in this regard.

On the one hand, she can be permissive and even flattering that her son seduces, attracts and even is daring in sexuality. She encourages the child to take sexual risks, is reinforced with specific comments and sometimes even conveys the feeling that she herself may unconsciously put herself as an object of distrust in front of her own child. Let us remember that the E7 trait in general, but especially the sexual subtype, is one of those that went the furthest in Oedipus, the one that ended up closest to the mother, in many ways. Obviously, this closeness is the result of seduction and permission from the mother as well as the absence of a father who sets limits.

But on the other hand, those same more eroticized behaviors of the child can be penalized with repressive comments and rejection behaviors that can even lead to humiliation.

“My mother had an ambiguous behavior regarding the approaches that I could have with her. Sometimes she was cuddly, she hugged me tight, she gave me very effusive kisses and she even bit me with great passion on various parts of my body. We tickled each other and I loved it. I even remember that sometimes she would let me touch her breasts while she smiled. Once I started the tickling game and when I touched her chest she got very angry and physically rejected me. He told me it was dirty and filthy. I felt very humiliated and I didn't understand why sometimes yes and sometimes no.”

Absence of reference father figure. There is no clear father figure who sets limits for the child. Deep down it is as if he had been abandoned by his father and the only way out is to throw himself into the arms of his mother. With some frequency, the father is of a mental nature: E7, E5 or E6, from which a certain unconscious identification with him could be deduced. In other cases, this character constitutes a reaction against an authoritarian father (for example, an E1), against whom it seems better to practice a soft rebellion.

The image of a hesitant father will generate insecurity and suspicion in the face of any future hierarchical system, at the same time that it will favor a chronic rebellion in the face of any regulation that begins against the father, often supported by the mother. It is the lack of trust in the paternal authority that turns him into an indomitable, rebellious character, with the courage to approach authority as an equal and even with insolence.

The inconsistency of the authority and the fear and distrust that they cause feed their paranoia, in an attempt to anticipate and prevent what may happen. The constant anticipation, unlike what happens to the fearful E6, has in this case a tint of escape towards the illusive fantasy and, ultimately, to an imaginary world in which fear does not exist and there is only happiness.

“Until adolescence I have no stronger memories of him [the father). Precisely at that time, when I needed him most, I discovered that behind that image of good impression that he gave, there was a great component of suggestion, of falsehood. On several occasions, lost in my personal and professional location, he encouraged me with professional plans and projects, but at the moment of truth he retired and was not there

Under his suggestion, I was planning to set up several businesses (a gym, a nursery and a pub) but it always ended with his reproach that I had not put in more effort and was not responsible, when the truth was that I really did not know what to do.”

With some frequency, that fearful and ambiguous father figure is replaced by another second level male figure: a grandfather, a... who becomes the reference. Deep down, the boy needs to find a male figure who, on the one hand, gives him that confidence. recognition and support that he needs from an adult man and that, in parallel, save him from his mother. Let us remember that this character has been defined from the character analysis as passive-feminine, in the sense that the man has identified more with the values ​​of the mother, while in the E7 woman there is an identification towards a seductive woman. male who has often taken the place of the father. This substitute masculine referent is the figure that gives the boy that confidence and acceptance that he did not obtain from his father.

“I often went to my uncle Enrique's house, a very open person and with whom I felt very recognized. He gave me space and spent a lot of time with me. He was also a bit of a rebel, in the sense that they allowed. It gave me permission to do things that my parents did not allow me to do.”

“Money is scarce and mom has to go to work (she teaches dressmaking), dad is rarely home for the same reason, so the first five years of my life I am pretty much looked after by my grandfather. He teaches me to draw, takes me for walks and to play. He is the classic grandfather, with his big hands, his immense permission, his sweetness and his patience. My love for him is the love of a little child. It belongs to me, it's mine.”

The sexual Seven has been a child who, from a very young age, already stood out among those of his age for being more alert, quick and intelligent. He understands right away, and almost effortlessly reaches what the environment demands of him. Stands out for cunning. Or for his ability to cheat, manipulate and lie if necessary. However, he is also often hypersensitive, fragile, sickly, attached to maternal care and phobic to the aggressiveness of the outside world.

“I was very funny, ironic, told jokes and made people laugh. Once, when I was eleven years old, I imitated a number by Pepe Viyuela, who was doing a clown show on television, where he tried to open a folding wooden chair and sit on it. That's where my fame as a clown and buffoon began. I did it so well that it was accepted by people, they asked me to do it over and over again. They finally wanted me, so I exploited it to the fullest. My self-confidence, my creativity, the spark, allowed me to be accepted, it was what saved my life in school. He cheated, lied, cajoled, flattered, seduced, ironized, he was the favorite friend of the mothers and fathers of my friends. People no longer saw only me as a failure behind huge glasses. That's how I created the character.”

He knows how to win over adults with sympathy, grace and flattery, in a strategy promoted by the mother (and sometimes also by the father), who laughs with the child, transfers his admiration to him and reinforces the exploitation of his talents.

“The teachers told my father, when they made him go to school because he was doing some mischief, that I was a smart kid, and I must have been, since I heard a song twice and I already knew it by heart. I soon discovered that being funny and likeable attracted the attention of others. So it didn't take long for me to become a character that attracted attention and this made others count on me.”

He is also a restless, curious, nervous child. It's easy for him to play alone, creating his own world of illusion. Fits in imagination games; with a doll a story of fantastic piggy banks.

“I could spend hours and hours setting up imaginary scenarios with little plastic soldiers or Playmobil dolls. And it irritated me that my older sister's hands would dislodge them, making me furious, sometimes threatening them out of me. The feeling was of an oasis in the desert.”

It is as if this ability to play and be alone is being lost as he grows older. Loneliness, which at first is not painful, with the passage of time begins to seem like it, and more and more difficulties arise to be alone, it being common for adolescents to turn more outward, towards people, while away from the inner world.

As it grows and the external world demands more and more, the character will be consolidated. Focuses on cunning to achieve goals with as little effort as possible. Or into the trap.

“To compensate for the low self-concept I experienced at school, I used magic and gossip, lied about my achievements, feats achieved... I made up all sorts of qualities and experiences: lived, seen in others, fabled or read. I was hooked on these lies because they had the desired effect: they gave me the attention I needed and didn't just see me as a child glued to limiting glasses. I invented a parallel reality where there was no pain, only success and glory. The impulsiveness of lying was such that I didn't have time to process so much creativity and, of course, they discovered me quickly. Then I was overcome again with such shame that my body and, above all, my face burned.”

It is not uncommon for even a willful mental decision to change one's way of being to appear. It is in adolescence. As if, at a given moment, the sexual E7 child realized that his way of being in the world is painful or does not satisfy him fully. As an adaptive strategy, and as a cognitive decision, it begins to strive to change. The transformation goes in the direction of enhancing cognitive skills, such as telling stories, humor, falsehood, imagination...

“I have decided to be different and model my character to win friends. I no longer want anyone, not even my parents. I decided not to go back to being a pringan. I decide, without knowing it, to be an E7 and win over all the staff. When I arrive at La Salle school, the course has already started and I don't know anyone. The children speak strangely (Mallorquin); I am a foreigner. So, I am the first of the class, the smartass and the plugged in. I paint the blackboard decorations and the virgins in May.

When that stops being commercials, I become a scoundrel. In recent years, I have gotten ahead by falsifying the grades, deceiving my father, the friars, and the whole world. I only think about how to cheat and be funny.

At this point my sense of being me, my identity, becomes totally malleable. I become adaptive to circumstances, a chameleon. I adopt identification as one of my favorite mechanisms. Depending on who I am with, I can modify myself, mimicking the qualities of the character that I know he likes. I design the character and act it out. I think I identify myself precisely through disidentification. I am what I want to be according to the circumstances. I take in my own way the paternal introject: «Either you adapt or perish», and the maternal: «Wherever you go, do what you see».”

“Little by little I stopped lying, thanks to the feedback of my closest friends, also from the family, who no longer wanted me to tell them all that string of lies. I no longer had to invent anything, they loved me as I was. That embarrassed me and I began practicing with great effort another way of relating. The truth is that it was hard for me, because my life seemed bland to me, so I didn't lie but I did the things that I imagined could make me respect among my peers and relatives.”

But what is the wound that causes this character? He is confident and fearful, although he appears to be quite the opposite. On one side this feeling of an aversive, threatening and frustrating environment not only occurs in the family environment but also at school, or with friends... which reinforces the acrobat who dedicates himself to calming down in aggressive environments. The sexual Seven becomes a born survivor, develops strategies that allow him to survive at any cost in a dangerous context.

“The insults that my classmates hurled at me for having glasses were experienced with pain, they lowered my self-esteem and made me feel worthless, as if my whole being were just hateful glasses and that occupied everything. The contempt that they made explicit to me, as well as the injustice experienced when someone broke or damaged my glasses, generated an immense rage in me, which, since I could not express it by defending myself physically against the aggression, turned into fire in my body. I could feel the heat rising and burning my face. Then he would explode with rage, like a volcano, insulting and throwing gestures right and left, which caused even more laughter among the companions, who observed the disproportionate scene.”

The emotional ambiguity of the family environment causes in the sexual E7 child not only an affective lack but also an insecurity and a chronic internal devaluation, based on the belief of not being valid or worthy of being loved. The sexual Seven's self-esteem has been damaged since childhood.

Growing up, this child will try to alleviate this low self-esteem by seeking validation through seduction, security in cunning and intelligence, which will open an internal schism between feeling and thinking.

This lack of love, which makes him feel and believe that he is not "lovable", translates into a great mistrust of affective ties. with which he lives in a permanent escape from emotional commitment. She doesn't trust anyone and is afraid that, in the end, even her partner will hurt her.

“My difficulty in assuming a committed relationship can be explained by the appreciable improvement in my sexual experiences with women with whom I did not have a committed relationship.”

Paradoxically, what he shows is the opposite: since he was a boy, he has become accustomed to projecting the image of being a happy person. He becomes a clown reinforced by the environment. And it is difficult to see a Seven sad, not because he is never sad, but because when he is experiencing unpleasant sensations he withdraws from the world, he becomes schizoid. Let us remember that both the sexual E7 and the conservation E7 are manic-depressive characters.

“When my grandfather died, I was stunned by mom's pain and I don't know about mine. My pain is that of a small child, deaf and strange. I know physically. This is going to be the dominant trend in my life. Of all negative emotions I learn by deduction; are invariably summed up in a dull and strange anger with which I am isolating myself and that sooner or later I somatize. Shortly after grandpa died when my brother was born, I fell (running down a road) and broke my mouth and nose.”

The mother's selfishness manifests itself in various ways. There are those who were abandoned; some had to take care of their mother's serious nervous problems (depression, psychosis, etc.) without being protected by their father, who left them at the mercy of their moods; others were overprotected and became the object of the mother's love and redemption from her frustrations...

The sexual Seven child also does not dare to directly confront the authority of the mother, because he fears her or does not feel strong and confident enough. This submission generates a fury that chooses to swallow and play covertly. Finally, he becomes aware that adaptively it is more profitable and comfortable to enchant the mother (and the authority), even at the cost of falsehood, and then do what he wants.

The sexual E7 learns that ties can be manipulated depending on what he needs at any given moment, at his own whim this movement of seduction and attraction to later abandon and withdraw is what he will repeat as an adult in his relationships It is a unconscious revenge against the mother, repeating the same treatment he received from her, the ambivalence of «now I take you and, when I have you and you open to me, I leave you».

“I have always looked for the stereotype of Nancy and that has led me to miss many encounters with wonderful girls because I always saw something in them that I did not like. I think deep down it was fear of commitment, of losing my freedom or some problem related to my mother, to whom I was closely linked until her death.”

CHAPTER 7; PERSONA AND SHADOW: WHAT IS DESTRUCTIVE FOR ONESELF AND FOR OTHERS

By persona we mean the mask that one builds to show oneself to the world and relate to one another. The shadow is what it hides from itself (and to itself), consciously or unconsciously.

In the sexual E7, the shadow is denied and blinded by the light. It shows how bright and beautiful life is. It is common, in therapeutic work groups, to hear comments of admiration towards the E7 in the sense that, even knowing that all the characters are neurotic, it would seem that this was the one that suffers the least. Or, at the very least, that this neurotic form is better adapted to a more pleasant or comfortable life (which is obviously not true). This false perception occurs even more with the sexual E7, the most optimistic and humorous.

Chapter 4 has described its main characteristics, and next we will delve into what is hidden behind the cheerful and jovial appearance of a sexual Seven: its shadow.

The first aspect of self denial is pain and suffering. Any type of impediment to achieving what you want at all times becomes a source of discomfort from which you feel the need to flee. The fantasy bubble immunizes him against discomfort but it also weakens him because it prevents him from developing resistance to discomfort. He defends himself so much from what he hurts that he is not strong enough to sustain the discomforts of maturation. Highly vulnerable, when real difficulties come, he cannot deal with them and escapes back into the protective bubble.

His apparent chronic joy contrasts with a hypersensitivity that makes him very touchy and suspicious. A minor misunderstanding is enough to open the crack of frustration. His sulky little-child outbursts reveal the shallowness of his joy and the inability to contain aspects of himself that might break the dream of a life without limits or difficulties.

The compulsive search for well-being and satisfaction (whether in fantasy) makes him a devourer of experiences, an insatiable oral who does not know how to stay deeply in the pleasure with which he fantasizes. Since he does not indulge in pain, he does not indulge in pleasure either, and ultimately ends up becoming chronically dissatisfied.

The mistake is that he seeks happiness in what he will feel, as an avoidance of present suffering. This makes a happiness complex that is not based on simplicity, which is where true contentment is found.

The fear of feeling pain is the nuclear shadow. The fear is not knowing how to get out of there, to fall into an abyss that surpasses him and that could lead him to an experience of impotence and loneliness: a cold world. Depression is the monster that hides behind his perennial smile and movement: the feared possibility of the paralysis of fear and the hicks of loneliness.

It is not uncommon, then, that, delving a little into his inner feelings, he parks a feeling of loneliness, and even sadness (if he allows himself to feel it, since all his effort is concentrated on escaping it) in an atmosphere of chronic sub-depression. The sexual E7 has atrophied the muscle of feeling in front of the hyperdevelopment of a rationality that makes him cold and distant.

It is paradoxical that a character who is looking for an audience for his cognitive display has such a low quality of contact with others. The consumerist greed ends up causing an incomplete contact, a non-relationship with the other. He appears to be very sociable and close when in fact he is the opposite: insensitive and distant, while pretending to be taken into account and the slightest insult can be taken with hypersensitivity.

It bases its entire strategy on keeping relationships on the surface because, the deeper it goes, the more risk there is of friction and the conflicts that are typical of coexistence. In his generation of an atmosphere of joy and happiness, the objective, conscious or unconscious, is that the other does not go into areas that may reveal dissatisfaction or criticism. In this way, he flees not only from the danger of feeling bad but also from the other feeling bad, which would mean having to make him happy (a task in which he feels skilled while everything remains on the surface, but which could lead him, badly, to deal with his impotence).

Although he usually has many people around him, he does not usually maintain quality relationships or deep contact. He shares fun and joy but, failing to build intimacy through a sharing of truth, in the end his relationships leave him with an indefinable void, which he has to fill by going elsewhere with music.

So much kindness hides, in short, the shadow of indifference, the lack of deep empathy. And this emptiness that cannot be satisfied with authentic love pushes him to constantly rebuild a mask, denying his great need to be welcomed and loved.

Hence, another aspect that he keeps in the shade is the loneliness he feels. If there is a cold in relationships, he does not have an internal place where he can warmly welcome himself. The avoidance of touching the pain causes him to freeze, turning his inner world into a place of helplessness and orphanhood in which he feels hopelessly lost and alone.

In a relationship, the difficulty for commitment stands out. This childish character finds it difficult to commit emotionally to an adult because, in reality, he is looking for a mother or father to take care of him. Behind so much seduction is the search for a mother who nurtures him, who gives him that emotional protection, who does not set limits or frustrate him, who gives him unconditional love allowing him to continue doing what he wants and, moreover, with a guarantee of fidelity. emotional. (One way, because he is not going to lend himself to fidelity easily.)

Obviously, in the relationship of an adult couple, this imbalance is unsustainable, so the other person is burdened while the sexual E7, with his not taking things seriously, becomes less and more responsible, freeing himself at the cost of the couple loads it and ha. As the relationship progresses, if his partner doesn't set limits on him, the sexual Seven becomes more and more of a parasite in the relationship. He hangs up on the idea that the other person takes responsibility for what he leaves out. He is trying to repeat the infantile pattern that he idealized: to be the spoiled child of a mother who protects him while he plays and does what he wants, worrying exclusively about himself.

This low quality of presence is covered up with indulgence in the form of puerile arguments which, by the way, help him not to reveal to himself or to the other a feeling of guilt to which he is not impervious. With his rationalization he reaffirms that guilt does not exist or any other dissuasive argument. And when it appears, he automatically rejects it and redirects it to the others with a new round of arguments, which generates quite a few conflicts.

Allowing oneself to feel guilt and assuming it would mean unmasking the idealized image of the good guy who can do anything. To assume that he has failed would open a deep narcissistic wound. Low self-esteem would be revealed and the harsh truth that he doesn't want to grow up or, worse, that he lives as if growing up were the most hellish sentence.

Also stopping to see the other or delving into a relationship is dangerous because it would be up to him to verify the reality of his idealized image.

The compulsion to experiment and what he calls "curiosity" or "love of adventure" hides an overflowing orality and anxiety to the void. The charlatanism or the continuous agitation from one place to another compensate for the lack of contact with the inner world, the real self-knowledge. With the noise that it causes, it hides the insecurity of not really knowing which direction to take, while it confuses the other so that they do not find out about its affective absence or the lack of consistent content. Although at first glance it may seem very interesting and rich in its opinions, as soon as it opens up a little it is discovered that there is not much, that it is hollow or empty inside.

Another aspect that the sexual Seven has quite in the shade is the connection with anger. Based on autosuggestion, he represses all the annoyance caused by the limits and difficulties that relationships imply. He does not usually express anger directly and clearly but through rebellion; either passive, resisting, or active, destabilizing the other. This tendency to avoid anger causes a buildup of disgust that, like a gas bag, threatens to burst into a fit of infantile rage. Before that external explosion, the rage will have imploded internally many times, because the confrontation is so panicky that it becomes hermetic. Suddenly he shuts down and becomes the most controlled and serious person in the world: he goes to E1 and becomes rigid. Faced with an upset, then, the sexual Seven does not usually express it. He neither asks for explanations nor says what is happening to him but remains silent, closing himself off, without speaking about it. But isn't he a charlatan? Good; here, the charlatan is internal. The external silence contrasts with the internal noise of your repeated and obsessive thoughts, which can last for days.

Internally he remains resentful and inside the most destructive thoughts appear. At that moment she would run away and break up with everything: she would leave her partner, her friends, her job... she would go far away from there. With resentment a mental cage is built around it. It is so big that it catches him, he struggles but can't find a way to escape or know how to break with his image of a happy person. Even knowing that he is harming himself and others, he finds himself at the mercy of the situation, tied hand and foot without finding a way out. Like their neighbors in the enneagram, the angry ones, sometimes the way out of this cage is an unexpected outburst of anger, usually at the wrong time or with the wrong people.

This irritability, which goes along with a voluntary social withdrawal, can hide a deep despondency. Let us remember that the sweet tooth (especially the sexual E7 and the conservation E7) coincide with the manic-depressive character of DSM-V. The sexual Seven primes relatively easily. Then feelings of sadness and emptiness appear. He gets discouraged and loses all interest. Even for pleasure. You are left de-energized, with difficulty concentrating and

recurring negative thoughts, sometimes suicidal.

The ease with which the sexual E7 can sink into discouragement when their expectations are not met is striking. In extreme degrees, it presents a tendency to bipolarity, given the crude alternation between the phases of manic optimism and depression. It is the deep shadow behind the exaggerated joy and enthusiasm of the exuberant sexual Seven. It is not easy for him to recognize himself in this state and his sensations, since his own character is articulated in fleeing from them.

“This process of transformation made me discover the way we sexual E7s have of covering up the anxiety that is depression. It seems strange to imagine an anxious subdued, without energy, almost similar to an Is. And yet, it is so. I feel now that, in the face of something frustrating, I give up instead of exploding. And that very ugly feeling, as a first and immediate resource, also leads me to want to dissipate it by doing or talking. Today I realize that the best thing is to be in that frustration for a long time, feel it and let it pass until it goes away.”

Another sexual E7 blind spot, quite obvious to others but hidden to himself, is his tremendous selfishness. First he thinks about his desires and then, depending on what suits him, maybe he can see the other.

 A skilful opportunist, he prioritizes his own interest, ignoring ethical principles to achieve his goals or obtain advantages, taking advantage of the mistakes, weaknesses and distractions of others. The sexual Seven's opportunism is accompanied by a lack of integrity. He manages to use means and strategies that border on fraud. It is difficult to be consistent with ethical values ​​and, at the same time, selfish. So the sexual E7 chooses to have values ​​that are flexible and adaptable to what interests him at all times, so as not to have to come into conflict with his narcissistically kind self-image.

This fraudulent permissiveness can go to such an extent that not even he trusts himself. Such is their variability and inconsistency that, little by little, their own self-esteem is undermined. An example is the very elaboration of this book. On numerous occasions texts have been requested from various sexual E7 as material. One hundred percent of the time they have said yes, but 99 percent of them never made their commitment.

During the Symposium on the Psychology of Enneatypes in Brazil, in 2012, in the meeting of the sexual E7 (we were about twenty-five people) they were explicitly asked to collaborate with a distribution of tasks that, at that time, was very coherent. A few days after the congress ended, they were contacted by email and practically none responded. Despite contacting them again, almost none of them sent any material, as ordered. Perhaps some sent a comment and paragraph with some reference.

“But to be honest, myself, as coordinator of the book I have also fallen into indulgence and self-justification. One of the justifications was that the others did not send the material on time. However, since Claudio commissioned it from me, back in 2010, until it materialized in what you have in your hands, I have gone through infinite phases to not get serious about writing it. Finally, it has been necessary to have a firm and immovable deadline to really assume the commitment, with myself, to finish it no matter what. I take this opportunity to apologize to my classmates, while also thanking them.”

Although he belongs to the fearful group, the sexual Seven is not aware of the amount of fear he has. Here is another shadow line. Apparently he is a spontaneous, uninvolved and expansive person who does what he wants. In fact, he seems affable and not easygoing, and sure of himself.

Much of that image is the result of autosuggestion. In reality, the sexual E7 is a shy extrovert, a rather insecure and fearful person inside, an instability that he overcompensates with a large dose of daring and outburst of doors. If he comes into contact with covered fear, it is easy for him to collapse or, at least, with a high degree of almost chronic anxiety.

Your irresponsibility to take charge of yourself in many ways has very self-destructive consequences. It is like a big child who does not know how to take care of himself or commit to his real needs, sometimes not even with the most, despite the great power that he confers to grant himself what he wants, he neglects almost vital aspects. More than satisfying his real needs, the sexual Seven avoids the frustration of his desires. He is not committed to his adult part, which implies responsibility and discipline, but to his younger part and to his drive.

Even so, he usually has a very intolerant superego, a rigid internalized father before whom, as with external authority, he rebels, becomes unsubmissive and undisciplined; and this is how he boycotts himself, neglecting and abandoning himself. He doesn't know how to make a nurturing father nor, therefore, is he a consistent and loving authority itself.

For example, in the use of money, he can be a spendthrift on a whim that he may want at a given moment, but on the other hand he is a little stingy in food, clothing, health, etc., and there he skips and gets stingy.

“...I prefer to give myself a treat that I like to eat for the whole day.”

 In fact, he sucks to spend both what he has and what he doesn't, I saw based on loans that, obviously, he is convinced that he will be able to repay one day. Sometimes he is supported by his partner, or by his parents... even by his own children. It usually hangs and becomes a burden.

“With money I often think: "Why save for tomorrow?" I convince myself that tomorrow God will provide and send me everything I need.”

If you are not aware of the toxicity of your neurosis, it gets worse over the years, the symptoms get worse. Like the addict, he needs more and more doses of autosuggestion and deception, whose effect is already less exciting. It builds internal anxiety until it finally triggers the very thing you've been avoiding for so long: chronic pain and discomfort.

In fact, he is a character with a tendency to addiction, to altered states of consciousness caused by substances or by magical worlds that allow him to escape. With his difficulty in distinguishing reality from his fantasies, he is as if asleep in a dream that he calls living. When, over the years, he realizes it, a feeling of regret arises and a drop in his energy and in his ability to act as a buffoon. The old clown overcome by neurosis becomes, in the end, a sad clown.

CHAPTER 8; LOVE

As a good Seven, the sexual one has overdeveloped erotic love; his admiring love is less active but not negligible; and the compassionate is the poorest and most deficit. Now, compared to the other E7s, sexual is the subtype that has specialized the most in erotic love. Its priority orientation is towards enjoyment. And a manipulative use of eros to get what he wants is characteristic, as we will see below.

Erotic love 

It is an enneatype connected with desire and that is linked from the inner animal and the reptilian brain. That is to say, someone who looks after their needs and offers a rather egocentric love: the love of the child, of enjoyment, of laughter, of sexuality, of play; which corresponds to filial love, more attentive to receiving than giving. Thus, the sexual E7 tends to seem like a person in love with life, passionate and sensual. He loves everything that generates bodily pleasure, as well as theater, music and the arts in general.

The desire for pleasure is lived more specifically through the mouth, being as it is a character very fixed in orality. Namely who not only seeks pleasure through sex and physical activity but also, for example, through food and talking for the sake of talking. She finds enjoyment in touching her lips, biting her nails, putting objects in her mouth, sucking on them... With that, she looks for a way to give herself pleasure at all times.

He is very greedy. In the mouth there is an irresistible desire to try everything, without overeating. In fact, it is difficult for a sexual Seven to fall into a compulsion to eat, and it is also rare to find a fat or heavy sexual E7. They are generally slim and slender, ready to leap from flower to flower like butterflies. And, although the most active love in the sexual Seven is erotic, in reality it is a false eroticism, a fantasy version, because it confuses true erotic pleasure with enthusiasm for novelty. What matters to him is the conquest.

This compulsion governs all the meanings of eroticism, that is, all the pleasures of life and not only the strictly sexual ones. While the sexual Seven appears highly erotic, he is, however, incapable of true eroticism: of enjoying relationships and situations. He is the premature ejaculator of the enneagram, whether he is a man or a woman, understanding premature ejaculation in a literal sense and also as a metaphor for the way he lives the experiences. He does not enjoy the pleasure in itself, but rather gets carried away by the excitement of the moment, which ends in a blast and gives way to boredom, sadness and loss of meaning. To the dreaded void.

A void that he will try to fill with a new emotion: new love conquests, new intellectual influences, new projects (often unrealistic, unattainable), new physical activities, new foods, new languages, new countries. Life becomes a giant supermarket full of goods of all kinds that fail to satisfy a hunger that grows incessantly, like a hole that inexorably widens the more you try to fill it.

“...getting hooked on pleasure believing that more of the same was going to give me more pleasure, until I once again became dissatisfied when I didn't get it.”

“The fundamental orientation of my need is pleasure. I am addicted to pleasure. Where there is no pleasure, I make it or invent it. I realize that I don't do things to earn money or prestige (that too) but to enjoy myself. I can't stand boredom. I can't stand emptiness or "little", and I always need more, and not the same.”

This predominance of erotic love has its origin in very permissive childhood experiences. A child who asks and asks and to whom everything is granted builds an omnipotent adult, who has a hard time differentiating between himself and the world, who feels like a big breast that is there for him, who has to get him what he wants. . Everything is easy and you just have to reach out and take what you want.

“...and I knew that pretending, acting out, manipulating, finally I would get what I Wanted.”

“I longed to be small for a long time, because I did not like the big ones.”

“I tend to "not need", and one way of not feeling the need is not to show it, so I never usually express my need. In the relationship I don't ask, I take. That makes me have very little respect for others and for the environment. like the world is mine, and things are there to take and people, to use them.”

Regarding the discovery and evolution of sexuality, already in childhood there appears a high tendency to arousal and erotic activation although, due to biological development itself, initially it is not linked to genitality.

“I started looking at pornographic magazines when I was eleven years old, with my older brothers, first stealing them from newsstands, then came the videos, the fantasy, because organically I didn't even have erections yet.”

“My experience of sex and pleasure, since I can remember, is similar to the force of gravity: a sweeping impulse that destroys everything. Around the age of ten, I already remember with pleasure the contacts of the hands with my companions during gym classes and mutual masturbations on excursions.”

The sexual impulse is experienced as uncontrollable, with the guilt typical of a society that criminalizes pleasure. The need for jouissance is so strong that he lives it in the mind, from the inside, and not outwards, as would be natural, nor at the service of contact, something that does not help communication.

“I went into an obsessive masturbatory convulsion that marked my sexuality, because sex for me was something mental and I had many problems understanding it from a carnal approach. So with all my potential in the hands of my thoughts, I went out into the world to enjoy and escape as much as possible, which I managed to achieve on a daily basis.” (GEORGE)

“I had my first formal girlfriends, the first disappointments, but almost always with a feeling of little satisfaction, not knowing how to satisfy myself or the other person. I really enjoyed relationships in fantasy more, in my head, making strategies to fall in love, imagining witty conversations, irresistible looks that ended up seducing the lady. In sex I was very concerned with doing it well, with satisfying the other person. If I gave her what she needed, she wouldn't leave me, and so my pleasure became her pleasure. If it gave pleasure, it was loved, which also created anxiety: “I have to do it right, I can't fail; if not, they won't love me.' Sometimes sex seemed more like a chore than an enjoyment.”

Much of the excitement that activates the sexual E7 is thus more fantasy than reality. It is mentally stimulated with the imagination, where obviously there is an agility and freedom that is not achieved by doing it live, with a partner.

“Imagine instead of sharing and doing. There is no frustration in the imagination. Shared sex does not exist. Lots of masturbation, lots of magazines, lots of imagination.”

Exposure to the other contacts him with the fear of rejection and with the phobia of intimacy, in which he cannot hide or falsify himself so easily. To the point of being able to delay, in some people of this character, the first full sexual relationship.

“At the age of nineteen I had my first relationship with a girl. It was a new area, because until then they had always been idealized platonic loves, but he had never even kissed a girl. I remember that I was scared and felt very insecure, thinking that at my age I was very behind. There was really fear of being rejected by them. I fantasized, afraid that when the girls found out that I had never been with any and saw my inexperience, they would laugh at me and leave.”

“As a teenager I was always a good bullfighter, but a very bad matador. I liked to conquer but then it didn't finish, I lost interest and soon turned my attention to another girl. I've always gotten along very well with them, but what is called sex, I only started having it when I met my wife, and that was at the age of twenty-four.”

“As I got older I noticed that fewer and fewer friends accepted each other's masturbation. X cinemas with pornography appeared. I became a regular (weekly) attendee of those rooms, in which I masturbated a couple of times. I didn't start having sex with women until I was twenty-two or twenty-three.”

The sexual E7 adolescent is more interested in falling in love, passion and conquest than having complete sexual relations or a relationship with a partner. He is usually very interested in self-satisfaction, masturbation... The erotic game of excitement is more attractive than the consummation of the sexual act. The goal of their sexuality is not so much to relate but to get aroused. Your motto could be: Maximum excitement with the least possible effort.

“The desire came from fantasy, and not so much from physical desire itself. I fantasized what it would be like to practice what I had seen in magazines for years. I fantasized that if I lost my virginity I would be more accepted among my friends and finally become a man.”

“One more step was to start mutual masturbations with other men in X theaters. The combination of pornographic images and someone caressing me was very pleasurable. The darkness, the anonymity, the speed and the movie, which I liked a lot, established these acts as the most pleasurable sexual practice. When he began a relationship with a woman, he stopped visiting the cinemas. Although I soon experienced that meetings in X cinemas were more pleasant than relationships with women. I now see that my visits to having sex with men there had a lot to do with the ease of pleasure. I can get pleasure without cost, without effort. There are no words. It's so cheap. With no obligation. And varied: you can be with whoever you want and reject anyone. Pleasure pushed me. Sometimes I felt an overwhelming urge to go. I remember the feeling of joy and excitement when I walked into the dark theater filled with warm hands eager to caress me. I had the feeling: "This is my kingdom."

All this excitement, however, is experienced with great guilt and remorse.

In his idealization of pleasure, he can fall into addictions of different kinds, focused as he is on enjoyment and experiencing "trips" of all kinds.

“At the age of sixteen, the debauchery increased and the non-stop living on the street with the best of each house. So I educated myself between alcohol, joints and all kinds of drugs. [...] At eighteen, life warned me through the body, how could it be otherwise for an E7, with severe hepatitis (almost a hepatic coma). I'm leaving home, I'm addicted to acid, it's much better than alcohol. I immerse myself in painting and playing the guitar. Since sex is complicated, even though I have friends, I decide to rent a house in the “Chinatown” of Palma. I make friends with some prostitutes with whom I learn and playfully practice all the things that occur to me and some more. They are very productive years of vice and debauchery.”

Erotic love is accompanied in sexual E7 by a clinical picture marked by two well-known symptoms, such as hedonism and early frustration. The search for pleasure leads him to take an irresponsible attitude, which prolongs leisure time, delaying duties and tasks, responsibilities as much as possible.

Frustration intolerance is well known to those who have lived closely with a sexual Seven. If the world is a big tit, any plan that goes awry awakens tremendous anguish in him and unleashes the Mr. Hyde that he has inside.

Compassionate love

Although it is a "sexual" character, in the enneagrammatic sense, that is to say, prone to intimate contact, to show itself in short distances, in the one-on-one, the sexual E7 fears emotional intimacy, where it enters the danger zone . His favorite intimacy is him talking, gently tricking his partner, while affective intimacy, from heart to heart, he lives with discomfort and activates his strategies.

A deficit shared by E7s in general is compassionate love. And even more specifically in the sexual Seven are observed difficulties for the development of this benevolent love, of tenderness, related to mother's love, which we share with the rest of the mammals and which has its anatomical seat in the limbic brain.

Such a deficit carries with it a lack of compassion, manifested primarily in their inability to stay in the face of human pain, to stop and feel, to genuinely support and seek support.

Faced with the needs of others, he leaves. A sexual E7 does not pay attention to the sick, deserts funerals, does not take care of children, the weak, the needy or the poor. He is not empathic, paradoxically, due to an excess of empathy: he identifies completely, he merges with the pain of others.

Although he seems incapable of feeling compassion and appears cold, detached, or absent, he is actually hypersensitive to pain and emotions, which he perceives as heartbreaking. The fear of feeling the pain, perceived as immense, is such that it moves away as much as possible, putting land in the middle as soon as it guesses an eventual contact with it. You feel too much, and in your autosuggestive fantasy, you anticipate that emotion intensely; hence his aversion to pain.

His typical attitude towards pain is to normalize it, to resort to light jokes, to laugh at misfortune, not to weigh it down. Getting in touch with that pain is, in fact, a fundamental part of your transformation process.

His life is marked by the crazy idea of ​​having had a happy childhood, a fantasy instilled in part by his family and that fits perfectly with our consumer society, a gigantic factory of happy babies who do not miss a thing, with toys and fun. for children from zero to ninety-nine years of age.

It is common for him to be fed as a child in his family environment with the belief of «how lucky he has been», in a home where «he has never lacked for anything» and sentences of the like. As if the pain did not belong to that realm, as if there had been almost no had been vetoed for him or her, whose rights did not include feeling pain or frustration. The feeling of the sexual E7 is that he has no right to suffer. "The world is full of pain, but in my life there is none, I have not even touched it" is his mantra.

It can be affirmed that the first interference with compassionate love arises from the force of erotic love, which contaminates it (with its manipulator) and blocks the capacity for surrender. The neurotic needs for total freedom and hyper-security stop even the projects of building a family. It costs me the family.

“It costs me that the time, to which I have always fought, is no longer mine. And that love that flows from me towards Ricard, my son, also saddens me. It saddens me to know that one day he will leave. I still feel stingy. I still don't dare to give myself up because I don't dare to hold the farewell. Love, if I do it, it hurts.”

“It's hard for me to commit: wedding, children... Crazy idea: Are they going to take everything away from me? If I ask lawyers and they assure me that, even if we know each other, I will have a flat to protect myself, it helps me to say yes.”

“There may also be a confusion between the experience of sex as something purely genital, oriented towards orgasm, and a more tender, shared sexuality, which is displaced in this subtype, the result of the same process of atrophy of compassionate love. Madness of thought and sexual energy as a substitute for tenderness. I confused sex and love, so when the passion was over I thought the relationship was over.”

Another important interference for the development of compassionate love arises from hyper-attention towards the outside, from the insatiable need for recognition, which falsifies generous giving.

“The continuous search for acceptance and love from my parents, giving up my aggressiveness, sensitivity, independence and energy, I later carried into my daily life, becoming a «love beggar», doing a thousand things and giving up a thousand others to achieve success. that they wanted me. Being kind, caring, attentive and not getting angry, being available and caring, was my strategy for gaining acceptance and love from others. Although deep down I was never satisfied, feeling false and suspicious of the appreciation and praise of others. But I was so terrified of rejection, of not being loved, that I didn't show who I was, for fear of not being accepted.

When someone seemed especially interesting to me, I poured all the power of my charm on her, flattering her, taking an interest in the topics that interested her, to get her full attention and be someone special to her. And if I managed to get that person to take me into account, I felt even more special. I needed reinforcement from the outside to be able to believe in myself.”

The strategic hypervigilance of the sexual Seven in order not to feel pain and get what they want is another added difficulty for the proper development of benevolent love. It leads him to bury his feelings, because in his eagerness to plan he can come to see the other as a rival who eventually tries to prevent him from getting away with it, so disconnecting from his emotions is essential. If you cut off your emotions, you stop the emotional resonance box with the other and can thus exercise seduction and develop your strategies coldly, without guilt or pain.

It can be deduced that an interesting way of working for this subtype are the experiences of generous giving, such as fatherhood or motherhood. A path of selfless love, sacrificed. tender and compassionate, that awakens the heart and opens the floodgates to be able to experience one's own and others' emotions, that leads him to discover true empathy and compassion.

“We have a beautiful son, Ricard. It drives me crazy and upsets some of my most ingrained habits (like not being able to waste time by saying nothing). I learn with him and with the different relationship that is established from his birth. Especially because of the as-ever-real feeling of selfless love that I feel. That makes me dare to hold the pulse with what I have committed to: family and work, fundamentally. As a father I begin to understand mine: their parental love.”

Admirationable love

To finish, it cannot be said that the sexual E7 fully lives this type of love of looking up, of adoration, of recognition, of respect, affirmative towards the divine and the mystery; this fatherly love that has to do with the neocortex and is exclusive to human beings. The origin of this insufficiency can be traced back to the relationship with the father figure. A father deficit is observed. A failure both to get closer, often due to absence, and to face him face to face, perhaps due to an excess of alignment with the mother.

“That was the first time I felt, or allowed myself to feel, that I recognized that I hated my father from the bottom of my gut. The relationship with my father changed after I allowed myself to admit that I had a lot of hate towards him, to take it out, to express it, even though I was ashamed of it.”

“The attachment to the figure of the father suffocated me. I realized that I could not detach myself psychologically from him; a ballast that, although I was in India, I had taken with me; the feeling that my almighty father wouldn't let me grow up.”

The sexual Seven tends to be suggestive also in admiring love, developing a great admiration for his figures of love reference, to which it positions very high and in which it places enormous expectations.

Since he generally feels more intelligent and sensitive than the people around him, he believes that he needs teachers capable of appreciating and improving his talents. His high expectations with all father figures (teachers, professors, institutions) are proportional to those he has for himself, implemented by an overflowing imagination.

The grandiose of such expectations ends up being too heavy a burden and, consequently, is compensated by a bonfire of disappointments: parents and teachers are systematically branded as inadequate, lacking, disappointing. The result is a strong feeling of frustration, misunderstanding and. Above all, mistrust. The seemingly rebellious attitude of the sexual E7 is his way of expressing disappointment and anger towards a father who is always perceived as unreliable and treacherous. A father who cannot be trusted, who does not support, who does not instill confidence in himself or in others, who does not encourage him to believe in his own ideas and in his work.

Behind his hidden defiance of authority, the wound is that of a sad child who has never felt truly heard or recognized by his father or father figure, which hinders his growth. Making fun of the authorities behind their backs is reflected in defensive self-mockery. Thus, he takes a sarcastic stance towards life, which leads him not to take or be taken seriously, and to take refuge in his imagination, even, in some cases, substituting fantasy for a reality that is uninhabitable.

Imagination distances him from admiring love, since fantasy becomes the projection horizon of his frustrated desires: and the more frustrated he feels in real life, the more he loses himself in the madness of projects, of political utopias , of the imaginary loves, or in the planning of trips, or closing in on sports, in the consumption of cinema, literature, philosophy, or in spiritual practices.

His expressive capacity to enchant interferes with the development of admiring love. He can appear committed to a specific cause thanks to an intense initial fervor, to the point of becoming the spokesman. Such enthusiasm, however, deceives both himself and the group, and hides a short-lived commitment. Another difficulty for admiring love stems from its fickleness, which is based on the neurotic equation of maximum recognition for minimum effort. The very awareness of being at the minimum effort leads him to project his self-criticism onto the authority, so that he often sees it with fear, or feels that he has done something wrong when he sees a police car or a boss approaching. who wants to have a conversation with him. He has the internal judgement projected and that makes it more difficult for him to give place to authority and look up with respect and affection, since the feeling of alertness is activated.

Beneath this fear there is a very hidden insecurity, barely recognized and even less talked about. The sexual E7 covers up what it does not know, what it does not know both cognitively and emotionally, where it is handled with difficulty; and in action, he has difficulty accepting his physical limitations and his clumsiness or lack of motor skills. That insecurity is sometimes covered up with a contemptuous attitude. On the other hand, the prevalence of erotic love also complicates admiration. The excessive focus on their own needs makes it difficult for them to put themselves in the place of the other also in the field of authority. It is difficult for him to put on the "father's" shoes, see life from his point of view and assume his approaches, his emotions and, consequently, his rules.

“I feel that I am part of a coordinated International to change society. I really believe it. There is a fair society model... You just have to imagine it, raise it and people MUST ACCEPT IT.

Sometimes I feel that my transformation process is an unacknowledged battle against others. The advances of others can impede their own. I am looking for a method (meditation, therapy, etc.) that is easy.

When problems appear, I don't ask myself what is wrong with me, but rather that I haven't found the right method.”

CHAPTER 9; HISTORICAL CHARACTER: FRANZ LISZT

 By RICARDO ALCANTARA

 A laborious and troubled existence Franz Liszt was a composer and pianist of enormous fame, who became famous for his great technical ability and for his tremendous talent, which exceeded the parameters of the time. The public adored him, generating an authentic "lisztomania", as the poet Heinrich Heine coined at the time. Liszt's piano concertos were all the rage. During his time in Berlin, women fought to acquire his pianist's gloves or his handkerchief, or the broken strings of his piano, or pieces of clothing from his suit, which they came to rip off, or cigarette butts smoked by him. Such was the fanaticism unleashed by Liszt, the first of the great concert pianists.

The son of Adam Liszt and Anna Lager, he was born in Raiding (Hungary; then Austro-Hungarian Empire) on October 22, 1811.

His parents lived in a simple house because their economic possibilities did not allow them to aspire to more. Despite the hardships, the family was not daunted by the difficulties.

The arrival of the child was a great joy for the parents, who closely followed the progress of their son. Franz was a frail, delicate boy who was frequently ill. As sometimes happens with children of this character, he possibly grew up with a feeling of disadvantage and a withdrawal more typical of an E5. He suffered from nerves and, on more than one occasion, he was afflicted with very high fevers that put his life at risk. His health, so precarious, greatly conditioned his childhood. He often missed class and therefore did not achieve a good level of schooling and had large gaps. The child Franz was educated in the Catholic religion. The church and the gypsies, with whom the family had a lot of contact, would mark the little boy for life. Music was very present in the Liszt house. His father played the cello and the piano, he used to receive musician friends and they ended the evening playing together. These musical gatherings fascinated little Franz. To the point that, at the age of six, he asked his father to teach him to play the piano.

The boy was an avid learner, and his father soon realized that he had already taught him all he could. The only way for him to continue to progress was to move to Vienna, which, along with Paris, was the capital of the musical world at the time. They settled there in 1822. As soon as they arrived in the city, Franz began studying with Carl Czerny and taking musical writing classes with Antonio Salieri.

Although the first months were especially difficult for the young and timid student, he adapted to the new disciplines and to the new life. He showed great musical gifts, clearly he was a special child. His father, afflicted by financial problems, regardless of his son's shyness, began to organize private concerts for him in the halls of the Austrian aristocracy, despite Czerny's refusal, who did not hesitate to warn him that Franz was too young. Everyone was impressed with the little interpreter, not to mention that he was not being respected for his childhood or his age.

Although it was requested and applauded, what marked the future of It was a kiss. At the age of eleven he had the opportunity to visit the small house that Beethoven occupied and play for him. When finished, the grandmaster smiled and nodded. Then got up and kissed him on the forehead.

Always aspiring to do more for his son, the father considered that they should take a new step in their preparation. In September 1823 they set out for Paris, where they arrived on December 11. They settled in front of the house of Sébastien Erard, director of the famous piano manufacturer. There began a close friendship of more than forty years with whom Liszt would consider his second family.

Nothing else in Paris, Adam set out in search of the best teachers. Very soon the young Liszt was known in all the salons of the aristocracy. He was noted for his early skill; it was unusual for someone so young to have such skill on the piano. It didn't matter who he was or where he came from or how he felt in this adult world. Adam Liszt spared no effort to make his son known. The press was quick to praise the young Hungarian pianist, "a little prodigy", "a charming boy". Franz quickly became the darling of all Paris.

Adam carefully took care of his son's career and began planning concerts and ambitious tours of other countries for him. Unable to forget the hard times of economic hardship, he was very aware of expenses, the cost of travel and clothing. He was not guided by greed but by prudence, to avoid taking a false step and reliving hardship. However, fierce criticism began to circulate. Czerny, among others, angrily reproached him for exploiting his son. And indeed, soon the young Franz, who worked tirelessly, because in addition to giving concerts he composed piano pieces and even operas, began to show signs of increasing fatigue. But the machinery was in motion and there was no question of stopping. His father's ambition ran over Franz Liszt's childhood.

At the same time, the critics applauded the art of the young virtuoso. L'Indicateur, when Franz was fourteen, came to say «There is nothing mechanical about him. The fire of his gaze, his attitude, his poses, everything shows that this soul is in motion from his fingers. The successes and the trips were unstoppable, and all this affected the young man more and more. He had no friends his age; it was impossible for him to take root anywhere, since they constantly went from city to city; his schooling suffered. All this collaborated to reaffirm the shy and introverted character of the musician, while laying the foundations for his later manic-depressive tendencies, typical of the character.

Franz sought refuge in composition and reading, much of it religious and mystical. Suggestive and imaginative, fanciful and spiritual, during the long hours of travel reading was a faithful ally that softened the harshness of the road and the loneliness he suffered. But the wandering and uprooted life bothered the young man, to the point that he wanted to end all that once and for all. Driven by his interest in religious life, he even suggested to his father that he wanted to enter it. Adam's refusal was resounding. "Your profession is music," he answered, forcing the young man to give up that idea. Franz obeyed his father's order without question, but his refusal only increased his anger at him for forcing him into a life he didn't want. She loved him and despised him in an ambivalent way. This constant way of not being seen by his father, of seeing his will forced, of not being respected by him, would also mark his way of being rebellious, anti-normative and unconventional, distrustful of authority.

Throughout his life, Franz would face great sorrows. On August 28, 1827, when he was barely sixteen years old his father died. He was unable to attend either the mass or the funeral.

Not even, days later, did he go through the cemetery or visit the grave. All this was too painful for Franz and he tried to avoid it; perhaps also because of the resentment he had accumulated against an emotionally absent and exploitative parental authority. He felt devastated, he felt the loneliness even more strongly. So he decided to return to Paris. Overnight, he understood that his childhood years were over. From that moment on, he had to take care of the affairs that until then had been handled by his father and financially support his mother. Tired of so much traveling and so many concerts, he considered that he could give piano lessons to earn a living.

The new occupation did not leave him much free time. He had to go from end to end of Paris to give his classes. It started very early and ended at ten at night. It was then that he began to lead a messy life. He began to smoke and drink excessively, looking for the intensity he did not find in the exciting ones. It was notorious that teaching did not satisfy him either. He ended up in a deep sorrow for leading a predictable and routine kind of life that he did not want.

Among her students was Caroline de Saint-Cricq, a seventeen-year-old girl from an aristocratic family. The young woman's mother, fascinated by the personality of the musician, favored the idyll, but a few weeks later she fell ill and died. The father, when he found out, did not hesitate to ban it, given the difference in social status, and fired Liszt with a stroke of the pen. Franz fell into a severe depression for years. His discouragement was so great that, on more than one occasion, he thought of starving himself to death. The desire to become a priest was reborn in him.

This time it was his mother and a parish priest who took the idea out of his head. It was not easy for Franz to survive the child prodigy and find the right direction in which to move forward. If emotional ups and downs were quite frequent in him, the alternation between manic and depressive, being able to go from a state of joy to a deep sadness, at this stage he could not get rid of depression, not even at times. Literary avidity was one of the pillars that kept him afloat: escaping into narrative was a leniency.

He also approached the circles of social-religious doctrine. Not without effort, having turned nineteen, Franz resumed his worldly life and reappeared in the aristocratic salons. He finally managed to snap out of his lethargy. A creative fever arose in him such as he had never felt. The depressive phase was followed by a maniac, a new stage in her life. He was aware of the growing role of the artist in society and was going to vigorously fight for art to stop being treated as a consumer good or status symbol. He felt unique, and he was ready to prove it to the world.

The lonely and introverted boy (typical childhood of E7) gave way to a seductive young man, easygoing and very focused on the outside. Franz shone, seduced and captivated in Parisian salons with his demeanor. Young, blond, slim, elegant, distinguished, he was the object of the looks and desire of the ladies of high society, who fell for his charms. At the age of twenty-one, he was the favorite of the most elegant ladies, fascinated by the musician, by his talent and his capacity for suggestion.

As time went on, Liszt became a well-educated, virtuous young man with an aristocratic and Parisian manner. He had elegance, grace in conversation and knew how to persuade. His purpose was to find a place in the social life of Paris, to gain recognition for his genius, and to become someone. At that time he composed little and led a dizzying worldly life, as if there were no tomorrow. There was an unleashed gluttony in him. Seduction was his best weapon; and falling in love, today with one lady and tomorrow with a different one, their way of life. And despite his social success, Liszt felt empty; a deep malaise that he couldn't define.

At the end of 1832, in one of the splendid evenings that Mile attended, he coincided with the Countess Marie d'Agoult. At that time she was married and had two daughters. She was a highly educated woman, with a careful education, who played the piano very well. Both Franz and the countess were shocked. From that meeting, the young musician began to frequently visit the beautiful aristocrat. They both noticed that something very deep was being done between them and they didn't want to avoid it.

Despite the difficulties, the love they felt gave them the strength to swear that they would love each other forever, on Earth as in Heaven. Liszt's innumerable mistresses were rumored in the salons of the time; however, after having met the Countess d'Agoult, the musician only thought of her. He felt that his Don Juan stage of countless adventures had come to an end. Over the weeks, the relationship was consolidated by leaps and bounds.

In 1835 Marie d'Agoult became pregnant by Franz, so the idea of ​​running away together became a matter of extreme urgency. The lovers had to leave Paris as soon as possible to avoid scandal. Preparations were made in secrecy and the couple quietly left to settle in Switzerland.

According to the social rules of the time, having a lover was not scandalous. What was reprehensible was leaving everything, position, family, reputation, for him. It was a fault that was hardly forgiven. Accompanied by his lover, Liszt isolated himself from society in Switzerland, where he produced a series of rebellious, audacious, transgressive works. Little by little he was consolidating himself as an eminently modern, individualistic, narcissus artist.

A feeling of incomprehension, of loneliness, grew in him; he did not feel comfortable in front of an audience that only expected a moment of fun and entertainment from him. He felt that art was something else. He found in poetry a model for music, which according to him should not only be used to flatter the senses, but also to express ideas.

At twenty-four years old, he was clear about the path he should follow to advance as an artist, despite the fact that on more than one occasion discouragement could be with him. Already as a child, instinctively, he repudiated artistic domesticity. Over the years, his rebelliousness led him to stand up. The idea of ​​being a sold musician, protected by the high aristocracy, feeling like a courtier who was treated like a monkey at the fair, annoyed him. Although he was aware that he could not totally break the rules of the game and antagonize the authority that maintained it, he was angry with her.

There were times when his rebellion played tricks on him. On one occasion, Liszt was testing a piano in the Erad showroom in the presence of the king and some of his family. At the end, Luis Felipe approached him and commented:

—Do you remember that you played at my house when I was still the Duke of Orleans? The musician nodded. The monarch continued:

--Since then, many things have changed.

—"Indeed, but nothing for the better," Franz affirmed, without losing composure.

The king was furious, to the point of erasing the musician from the list of candidates to receive the Legion of Honor.

Due to her isolation in Switzerland, loneliness began to take its toll on Marie, who became bored. I missed the artistic and intellectual atmosphere of Paris. Franz suggested that he write. She decided to write articles that she published anonymously in some newspapers and outlined others that Liszt would later sign. Blandine, the daughter of Franz Liszt and Marie d'Agoult, was born in Geneva on December 18, 1835. The mother's name was falsified on the birth certificate to avoid legal problems. Since she was still married, the girl would have been listed as the daughter of the marriage. The little girl was entrusted to a nanny. Months later, when the couple left Geneva, they left her in the care of a shepherd and his family, until she could accompany them on their travels. Franz never took much interest in his children.

During the Swiss retirement, he cultivated his facet as a composer. Away from the hustle and bustle of the world, he was looking for his own music. During one of his trips, he wrote a long letter to Marie: <«<A life as childishly agitated as mine now would be profoundly unpleasant to me in the future. My true vocation is solitude; I have felt it in the depths of my heart for a long time. This, without a doubt, was another of the great contradictions of the musician, since he soon began a hectic stage of long trips, offering concerts and evenings. To enhance his reputation as an artist, he allowed himself to be carried away by the whirlwind of the world; he needed to take first place among pianists. But on the other hand, it bothered him deeply to give up so much space to his vanity.

During these trips the couple remained separated, which fueled Marie's jealousy. She feared that success would drive Franz away from her, that it would end up pushing him back into the world she had given up to be with him. And it is that Liszt was still a complete seducer. The countess missed Paris and, although they feared they would not be well received, they decided to give it a try and settle back in the big city.

To their surprise, they were more welcome than they expected; their reputation was not as badly damaged as they might have feared. From then on Franz's activity was overflowing, as if he wanted to be in several places at once. He gave concerts, wrote and maintained a frenetic social life. He seemed indefatigable (perhaps he was experiencing a new manic phase?). Liszt was trying to regain his place in Paris and fight for new music.

If he never failed himself or contradicted himself in anything, it was in his fidelity to his friends. Nor in his audacity: He was the first to appear alone, accompanied by his piano, in a huge room like the Paris Opera, before a mixed audience. No one had ever dared to do such a thing. It was as if the concept "impossible" did not figure in Liszt's artistic career. He was willing to reform everything.

In July 1837 the couple set out for their new destination, Italy. It was a complicated journey, with very few like gods and many dangers.

The continuous movements prevented the Countess d'Agoult from taking care of her daughter. They visited her when possible; that is, little. On August 20 they arrived in Como, where they settled. For Liszt a stage of a lot of work began. Italy was an excellent source of inspiration. For her part, Marie was pleased to discover that free relationships did not cause any scandal there. That was a libertine society, in which Liszt's relationship with the countess did not bother others. After a period of retirement in which he composed tirelessly, Franz resumed his travels. He returned to giving concerts and recovered his intense social life. During the separation, the couple exchanged letters, in which he confessed how difficult it was for him not to be with her: "Just forty-eight hours ago we separated and I can no longer bear it."

However, the countess was not calm. She could feel the change in him. That poorly groomed and poorly dressed young man had given way to a man of great elegance and aristocratic demeanor, who took care of his attire to the point of spending more than an hour grooming himself. He spent a lot of money on his clothes, something that Marie recriminated him.

On December 24, the couple's second daughter, Cosima, was born. His mother's name was once again falsified on his birth certificate.

To increase his legend and continue surprising the public co, in a concert at the Ridotto Liszt played from memory, without sheet music, something that had never been done before. After Como, Liszt and the countess settled in Venice. He loved the city, while she found it overwhelmingly sad, to the point of being depressed. More than ever, the difference in character between one and the other was noted, which gave rise to strong and repeated discussions.

The musician began to notice, with concern, how difficult it was to share life with someone depressed. Despite the love he felt for her and the need he had to know her close, when relationship difficulties arose, the musician felt overwhelmed, unable to support the couple.

On a professional level, things could not go better for him; he earned huge sums of money every month and success was overwhelming wherever he went. The separation hurt them, but when they met, the discussions became more frequent and heated. She reproached him for his Don Juan fame. They were miserable when they were together and also when they were apart. He couldn't stand the fights, the recriminations, that tense atmosphere that had been created between them.

Their trips were getting longer and the meetings of the couple, more spaced. Liszt was greatly burdened by his wandering life, continuously from one place to another; he felt that his was a poor life of a mountebank. But, although he needed solitude to dedicate himself to composition, he understood that a virtuoso could not isolate himself from his audience and he resigned himself. Perhaps we can see in this the ambivalence of his character: On the one hand, the sexual E7 wants security and a comfortable life, and on the other, he does not maintain the limits of family life and flees jumping from one trip to another.

On May 9, 1839, Daniel, the couple's third child, was born. On the birth certificate, the mother's name was again false. Like his sisters, the boy was entrusted to a nanny. In November of that same year, Marie d'Agoult returned to Paris with her two daughters, ready to establish the family residence there. Liszt's schedule was increasingly tight, so the couple could barely share a couple of months a year.

The strong musical and social activity disturbed Franz's tranquility, so he used to resort to coffee and tobacco. If he was a virtuoso of the piano, he was also a virtuoso of sociability. Wherever he went, he was awaited with great anticipation. He exerted an enormous fascination on women. He missed Marie, but that didn't stop him from falling in love with other ladies.

In one of the frequent letters that he exchanged with Marie when they were separated, he expressed to her: «A single passion, a single faith remains firm in my heart: it is faith and the passion for work. In another, he was sincere: «A Despite all the tributes and displays of affection I receive, I live very alone. And in another: “I'm sorry; nothing, nothing will ever fill the abyss of my heart. But a ray of his eyes would warm me, revive me... rejuvenate me too».

In 1841 he was accepted into a Masonic lodge, in recognition of his many benefit concerts and humanitarian aid. He went through the grades, until he reached master's degree in 1842. Liszt was characterized by his generosity, which did not prevent him from thirsting for fame and money.

More than once, Marie had been on the verge of leaving him, of ending the relationship that caused her so much uneasiness. Liszt did not resign himself to it and, thanks to his power of seduction, managed to make her change her mind. He had the ability to always get his way. But the relationship was increasingly tense; she reproached him for his dalliances, her words distilled bitterness and mistrust. In November 1842 Liszt was appointed Master of the Weimar Grand Ducal Chapel in Extraordinary Service. These functions would lead him to spend three months a year in Weimar and direct certain court officials. For the musician, tired of so many trips and his itinerant life, running from one city to another after fame, money and glory, it was an extraordinary opportunity to have a fixed place for a few months of the year. There he could compose and achieve emotional stability.

His contradictory nature was more on fire than ever. Liszt wanted one thing and the opposite. He was desperate in a vain attempt to have it all and, failing to achieve it, his dissatisfaction grew. As he let himself be seduced by glory, especially sensitive to the flattery of the crowd that satisfied his vanity, he longed for simplicity. and humility of the artist who only lives for his music. He loved Marie d'Agoult, but that was no impediment to seducing other women.

Liszt's work was increasingly transgressive, as his life was reflected in his work, where his uncontrollable rebellion was evident. In one of his letters to Marie he gave details: «Yesterday's concert was good, I had a great success. The audience and the chicken coop have not understood anything; does not matter. On the other hand, artists and intelligent people (always in the minority) have been excited».

In April 1844, Marie, unable to sustain a relationship that was so destabilizing for her any longer, decided to break up permanently. Franz returned all her letters to the countess, but did not claim his own. The girls were left in the care of the mother. Liszt accused the separation to the point of finding no consolation. Marie was his point of support, a great reference for him. The break violently shook his inner world, but he never seriously realized that it was also a consequence of his actions and of the fantasy that continuing to cheat on her and being absent was compatible with maintaining the security of the marital relationship. Now loneliness punished him mercilessly. He felt lost, not knowing what to do next.

He tried to find solace through music, friends, and travel. In his will as an artist he tried to find the strength he needed, since he felt dejected.

Marie d'Agoult, under the pseudonym of Daniel Stern, published in 1846 an autobiographical novel entitled Nélida, in which she did not leave Liszt in a good light. He described him as a cruel and ruthless person, making it clear that the character he exhibited in public, cheerful and funny, was very different from the one he showed in the intimacy of the home; a double face typical of this character. For the musician it was a hard blow, which did nothing but hinder the little and bad relationship between them, which was limited almost exclusively to the issue of children.

Despite these ups and downs, Liszt continued to pursue his musical goals. It was very clear to him that the mission of the artist was to elevate men and unite them fraternally. He insisted on the spiritual and redemptive capacity of art and worked tirelessly on it. But behind these lofty pretensions was there perhaps some less laudable character trait? The fantasy of possessing a redemptive capacity is usually quite present in this ambitious and narcissistic character. Furthermore, Liszt's generosity was too much like that potent seduction typically used by sexual E7s to gain the benefit of fame and perhaps masks the dissolute side of his life.

As Lord Byron or the violinist Paganini did before him, Liszt preconfigured the modern artist who wants to make his life a work of art, with the implicit narcissism that such a purpose entails. Not surprisingly, Liszt's arrogance converges with that of his great friend Richard Wagner, and together they prefigure something of the anti-democratic elitism that was to so perversely influence political events in the twentieth century.

The "divo" pose acquires its maximum expression in Liszt. He had come from nowhere and, thanks to his natural gifts, conquered fortune and fame. He led an extravagant life and had a fanatical following. Like other stars that were to emerge later, he created "a human type characterized by arrogance, capriciousness, rudeness, outbursts of anger, transgression of customs and the hysterical enthusiasm that he breathed into his followers»." The elites, who in other times maintained their prestige thanks to isolation, now began to need the street, the masses, and some became popular idols.

Liszt was touched by a charismatic power. He was a tremendously attractive man, brilliant... Can we say that it was a characteristic of his essence or his ego? Or both at the same time, inseparably intertwined? As we know today. In the creation of a charismatic myth there is not only spontaneity or innate gifts. «There is a lot of artifice in their disclosure: they use Persuasion techniques, methods of psychological coercion and propaganda similar to those used in the sale of merchandise.» All of them, highly fraudulent characteristics.

But what made Liszt reach such a level of divisiveness?

One of the reasons why his concerts were so exciting and momentous was due to the fact that he performed alone on stage. To date, it was customary for several musicians to share the leading role. Franz preferred to be the only performer at his concerts.

Since then, piano concerts have never been what they used to be. Franz, true to his garrulous and narcissistic style, called them soliloquies.

He was also the first to position the side piano to the public with the lid open; This allowed the sound to be better projected around the room and the audience could see it in profile, as opposed to the traditional way in which the piano was placed vertically and with a closed lid, almost completely covering the performer.

And he was, as we said, the first to perform his repertoire from memory, without sheet music, "which is why many expert musicologists consider him the coolest pianist who ever lived."

In his divisiveness there was, of course, a lot of posturing and a certain contempt for his fans, who reached such a level of obsession that, after receiving hundreds of letters asking for locks of his hair, Franz bought a dog and began sending locks of his hair to her admirers.

Liszt's friendship with the anti-Semite Richard Wagner began precisely at that time, with an epistolary exchange that began in 1841, although it would not be consolidated until the middle of that decade. A few years later, in 1849, Wagner writes a letter to Liszt in which he confesses that he wished "to have as much money as [the Jewish composer] Meyerbeer, or I must do something terrible." At that time, not only did Wagner allow himself to be known as a furious racist in his essay (which he did not dare to sign with his real name) Judaism in Music, in which he attacked Jews in general and the composers Giacomo Meyerbeer and Félix Mendelssohn in particular, and claims to wish the Jews to burn up in a fire. Liszt also shines in writing about Jews and Gypsies.

In Of the Bohemians and their Music in Hungary, Franz Liszt, after a sinister and anti-Semitic ninety-page introduction devoted to the Jews in art and music (again the absurd Wagnerian arguments: dissimulation, cosmopolitanism, absence of creation and of genius, for the benefit of imitation and talent: Bach and Beethoven, geniuses, against Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn, talented imitators). he describes freedom as the first characteristic of “that strange bohemian race.

The Lisztian brain, eaten away by the concept of race and by anti-Semitism, debates whether or not to save the gypsies; If anything differentiates them from the Jews, he says, it is that they do not hide anything, that they have neither a Bible nor their own will; gypsies are thieves, true, because they do not bow to any rule, like love in Carmen, which "never knew any law."

Wagner was angry with Liszt for a fully justified reason. Already in his sixties, he fell in love with Cosima, Liszt's daughter, who was married to Hans von Bülow. Liszt sided with her husband, even though his daughter's marriage was unhappy and made her so unhappy that he considered suicide. In fact, Cosima found happiness with Wagner, but Franz was not even aware of all this. He was completely unaware of his daughter, and had not cared in the least for her. The worst thing is that the German composer had to endure, from then on, the moralistic lecture of a Liszt who was now playing the good guy, the spiritual, the reborn, when he had been a satyr and a skull all his life.

Wagner has since dispensed contemptuous treatment of his other great friend. They were both very famous, great figures of their time, used to being the center of attention and, when they met, they both talked at the same time, stepping on each other and competing to be heard. Each in their own way, they were two ravenous personalities. Wagner, from his tendency to hate; Liszt, from his imposing narcissism. This does not mean that they continued to be, basically, great accomplices. So, by 1872, they were reconciled. Despite the immense fame he had garnered, Liszt felt tired of so much work and disgusted by the difficulties in his sentimental life. His frenetic career as a virtuoso had forced him to put aside his facet as a composer and he missed it. He earned a lot of money, but unable to set limits, he spent more than he earned, so he often found himself in financial trouble. His friends had to help him to get out of trouble.

It was the year 1847 when Franz, after finishing one of his charities, met a wealthy Ukrainian princess, Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein. She was a young brunette, with an intense look and an unattractive physique. At that time she was married and Catholic. But falling in love was stronger than her religious convictions.

Convinced that it was fate that had brought them together, she was ready to ask for the annulment of her marriage in order to marry Franz. He did not mind leaving everything to unite his life with that of the musician and help him realize his dream as a composer.

Carolyne gave her unconditional support. Franz realized that it was the long-awaited opportunity to leave behind his wandering life, to get out of the trap that he himself had made. On September 18, he gave the last concert of his career. In Weimar, and together with Carolyne, he was going to start a new life of recollection and work. The long-awaited moment had come to dedicate himself body and soul to his work as a composer. Although she did not give up her efforts, Carolyne was unable to get hold of her separation papers, placing the couple in a very uncomfortable position in Weimar society. This caused in Liszt a deep feeling of bitterness. In 1859 his son Daniel died in Berlin of tuberculosis, a fact that contributed to his sadness and discouragement.

Finally, in 1861, all legal matters having been resolved, the long-awaited wedding was announced. It was scheduled to take place in Rome on October 22, Liszt's birthday. At the last moment, the Church objected. That meant a big setback for Franz. Shortly after, the princess definitively renounced her marriage to the musician. The 1860s were disastrous for Franz personally. In 1862, after the death of his daughter Blandina, he settled in Rome to lead a very retired life, devoting himself to the composition of religious works. In 1865, in a Roman monastery he prepared himself to receive minor orders. First he received the tonsure and, three months later, the following three orders were granted to him, an essential requirement to be appointed abbot. From that moment on he will be known as the Abbé Liszt, although he never really became an ordained priest.

It seems that the death of his children put a vital limit on him and the need arose in him to go deeper into himself. The closeness to religion marks a maturity, no doubt, although the life he continued to lead was not so withdrawn. In the 1870s Liszt led a "triple life," as he liked to say, between Rome, Weimar, and Budapest. He traveled at least 6,500 kilometers per year, an enormous amount if we take into account his advanced age and the state of the transport network at the time. Once again, the voracious and insatiable Franz tirelessly indulged in exhausting activities.

In 1881 he suffered an accident when he fell down the stairs of a hotel. During convalescence, all kinds of ailments manifested themselves, his mood fell and depression, desolation and hopelessness invaded him again. He already felt close to death. "I carry a deep sadness in my heart, which from time to time must burst into sound," he had once said. Five years later, in 1886, he died in Bayreuth, site of the famous Wagnerian festival.

CHAPTER 10; FILM AND LITERARY EXAMPLES 

A CINEMATOGRAPHIC EXAMPLE

Lope

Director: Andrucha Waddington

Year: 2010

Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio (Madrid, 1562-1635) was one of the most important poets and playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age and one of the most prolific authors of universal literature. His life was intense and passionate. He was not only a famous literary man already in life, but also a soldier and an inveterate womanizer.

In the film Lope, director Andrucha Waddington shows us an ambitious and passionate young man who defies moral rules and is torn between two women (in his real life there were many more). He returns from the war, after participating in the battle of Terceira Island, and the film starts with him lying on the ground, battered, ragged and with a bloody face. In contrast, the voice is reading an optimistic letter to his mother, in which he tells her of success and victory in battle and of the great booty he has achieved.

Later he is seen arriving in Madrid when a man from the crowd calls out to him in a defiant and threatening tone. He suspects that Lope has been with his wife due to the details of a poem he wrote about her, commissioned by the alleged cuckold. At that time it was customary to order poems to seduce women and the trickster did so. Soon we will see Lope's ability to avoid uncomfortable situations. Faced with the accusations of the deceived husband, he not only escapes with puns but manages to trick him until the man himself smiles.

Attention to detail of seduction not only with the word but with the body, the hand and the look. Lope, really skillful with dialectics, not only doesn't make it clear if he has been with her or not, but he turns the situation around by dazzling the mocked.

In another scene, before going to see his beloved mother, Lope asks a friend to lend him a suit belonging to the Marquis he works for and even a horse; all to appear successful. He also gives his mother a handkerchief and even shakes a bag so that it makes noise and seems full of coins. His brother discovers that what it actually contains are nails. When he tells him: «I see that you were not exaggerating in your letters», Lope's fraudulence and his capacity for suggestion become apparent.

Shortly after his mother dies, and since Lope is an arrogant man with noble pretensions and without money to pay for a lady's funeral, he asks a moneylender for it with the intention of not appearing poor, and he invents a family coat of arms. Now it is his sister who discovers the deception of the shield, but Lope manages to hire some actors to go to the funeral and it seems that there are more people crying for her. Shortly after, he is forced to sell his mother's belongings to pay off the loan. He lives beyond his means and, in reality, he is already thinking about the next woman to seduce.

Lope decides not to return to the army. The Madrid of the time is much more exciting than military life, although he doubts which way to go in life. One of the most exciting things about its reden in the capital is that the theater has become a flourishing mass entertainment. Lope is interested in the world of the scene. He decides to write a play and present it to Jerónimo Velázquez, the leading theater impressionist of the time.

Lope arrives at Velázquez's house, where he meets other writers who are also waiting to be received. After making them wait, Velázquez's secretary tells everyone to leave the works there because he will not be able to attend to them. Everyone leaves except Lope, who resists and, insolent and haughty, confronts first the secretary and then, in a hurtful way, Elena, the daughter of Velázquez himself. But at the last moment he turns the situation around and gets his daughter to intercede for him after being dazzled by his verses. Here Lope's rebellious, persuasive and narcissistic character is clearly shown, as well as his lack of limits. We also see his opportunism, taking advantage of the opportunity presented to him with Elena to persevere in his goal. He displays his skills of seduction and charlatanism without sparing even the insult. As in the previous scene, his ability to transform difficult situations and redirect them towards his own interest stands out.

Velázquez hires him not as a writer, but as a copyist, and commissions him to copy someone else's work. Lope, however, not only does his job but also introduces important retouches in other people's works, even in those of Cervantes!, for which he achieves overwhelming successes and wins more and more the favor not only of the director but also of the audience. his daughter Elena.

However, the job is not enough for him to pay the debt for his mother's funeral and Velázquez, lending him money, saves him from the thugs they send to collect from him. He offers him a deal: he will have to write five quality works for him. At that time, Lope had already become famous in Madrid and his verses are famous, so it is very good for the businessman.

In the next scene, some time has passed and Lope has already given Velázquez the work that he had to copy. This, together with the actors, is rehearsing the work in the theater itself. He is upset because some arrangements, introduced without his authorization, he does not like, to the point of wanting to cancel the rehearsal. At that moment Lope appears and Velázquez confronts him. Our protagonist, instead of accepting it, confronts Velázquez insisting on the improvement that they have meant for the work, at the same time that it is discovered that it is not that he has introduced some changes but that, practically, he has changed it completely. Through the suggestion, his arguments and insistence, little by little both the actors and Velázquez himself are becoming convinced of the value of Lope's work. The latter presses harder and harder until Velázquez finally admits, very annoyed, that the work that Lope has radically changed is his. Even so, the teacher gives in and Lope gets his way: Velázquez agrees to represent her as Lope wants. Right from the beginning of the scene, the rebelliousness and insolence with which this character is capable of approaching authority and breaking the limits stands out. The impudence, irreverence and invasiveness typical of the character are evidenced in the impudence of his treatment towards the teacher Velázquez. Lope is a born salesman, a snake charmer who barely listens and interrupts impatiently. His ability to persuade with words, especially thanks to his optimism and body movements, make him gain ground little by little until he achieves his goal without too many scruples. In this case he usurps the master's work and makes it his own. Not long ago they did not let him enter the master's house and now he is able to get the master to perform his work for him.

The mix between the drama and the humour of the scene stands out. Precisely one of the characteristics of the sexual E7 is to see his life as a tragicomedy. Lope de Vega has debts, conflicts, but he writes the best comedies, he builds smiles where the world hurts. Revolutionary in his way of writing, he transformed the theater of the period precisely with that ability to mix the tragic and the comic.

Following the custom of the time, and to earn some money, Lope writes verses for the Marquis de las Navas, who wants to seduce Isabel de Urbina to be his wife. Coincidentally, Isabel and Lope are childhood friends, in addition to meeting in a hospital where they both help in Christian charity and have already had certain seductive approaches. Lope has discovered that the verses he sells to the Marquis are for Isabel, but she still doesn't know anything.

The Marquis de las Navas proceeds to recite some verses to Isabel. While he does so, Lope, positioned in such a way that Isabel is aware of it, silently vocalizes those same verses, given that he has written them himself. At the end of the marquis, Isabel invites Lope to recite a sonnet. Although he initially resists, he finally improvises a really ingenious one, to the point that Perrenot, a friend of the Marquis, accuses him of having them prepared and of being a seductive charlatan. Lope, defiant, draws his sword to, but he does so by composing another verse as ingenious as the previous one, to mock the aristocrat Perrenot.

His charlatanism, ingenuity and mental agility are evident in this scene, in addition to Lope's insolence and daring in the face of authority. His capacity for suggestion stands out again, not only with words (those extremely creative and brilliant sonnets) but also with a staging that magnetises. At first he is reluctant to speak, with an apparent respect for the Marquis. Then take the opportunity to ignore it. And while he recites, he moves around the room, interacting with the audience and making them smile.

Especially interesting is his gesture of sustained anger when he is accused by Perrenot of being a charlatan and the speed with which, at that moment, he prepares his fascinating defense: First with the surprising and threatening way of unsheathing his sword, to end up writing with it the Perrenot's name as he recites the final verses. A true master of suggestion and enchantment!

Elena, Velázquez's daughter with whom Lope has an affair, has found out that the writer has another with Isabel. Lope denies it, despite her description of her own illusions, until Lope himself invites her to get on the bandwagon of her fantasies, escaping together. Elena refuses and Lope is forced to admit that he wants it all.

Then he goes to talk to Velázquez, Elena's father. Alli defends his love for her, but Velázquez refuses to let them go and they fight bitterly. Elena sides with her father and decides to stay with him. And Lope leaves disappointed, realizing that Elena rejects him to marry the aristocratic Perrenot for money. Soured, he begins to write satirical verses against Elena. Velázquez, indignant, breaks relations with him, although he will continue with his plans to represent his work.

Despite having it prohibited, Lope contemplates the success of his work from a hiding place on the stage itself. His innovative pucs ta on stage and his agile text brought him great success. At the end, and before the entire audience, Lope appears to denounce Velázquez's manipulations and publicly humiliates father and daughter with great impudence.

Denounced by Velázquez, and persecuted by the bailiffs, Lope prepares to flee with Isabel, already converted into his new love, towards Portugal, where he will try to embark to get rid of justice. However, he is stopped before getting to sea. Tried for attacking the honor of the Velázquez family, everyone fears a harsh sentence, but Elena's intervention in court, behind her father's back, means that the sentence is exile from Castile and from the court, a light sentence. who will also enjoy Isabel's company.

A LITERARY EXAMPLE

Aureliano Segundo

(One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez)

Gabriel García Márquez gave humanity this wonderful story about the Buendía family and the hidden land of Macondo, creating a magical world that has fascinated readers from all over the planet. In the city of Macondo, far from the world, the patriarch of the Buendías founded a unique dynasty together with his wife Úrsula. Gabo intermingles the vital trajectories of this family with the South American history of the 20th century, with its times of peace and war, including the agricultural exploitation of the United States, its dictatorships and the disappeared.

Within the wide range of characters we find, halfway through the novel, Aureliano Segundo, twin brother of José Arcadio, both sons of Arcadio Buendía and Santa Sofía de la Piedad, great-grandchildren of the patriarch. As a severe and authoritarian father, as can happen in so many people of a sexual nature, even as a child Aureliano Segundo had his head full of fantastic ideas without any contact with reality, which he abandoned after a short time. Thus, at the age of twelve, he discovers, fascinated, the room of Melquiades, a gypsy alchemist friend of his great-grandfather, long dead, whom he sees in visions and speaks with him. He gets into his books, tries to decipher them, is dying of curiosity, like a sexually shy and slightly schizoid Seven, with extravagant and esoteric interests.

Over time it becomes more and more boisterous and jovial and is filled with more and more fantasies. He tries to dedicate himself to fishing for gold, just like his great-uncle, Colonel Aureliano Buendía, used to do, but he gets bored right away because it is a very laborious job; very sexual E7 that start new activities with zeal to get discouraged when seeing the cost of the task.

And as usually happens with men of this character, it is a woman who tears him out of his imaginary world inside Melquiades's room, since, by a happy coincidence, he feels attracted to Petra Cotes, who mistakes him for her twin brother, José Arcadio Aureliano Segundo pretends to be him to have her as a lover, behaving like a cheat by not undoing the mistake. He continues the deception to continue sleeping with her until the cake is discovered, after which he decides to stay by Petra's side until death, and she draws from him her most vital, expansive part, the joy of living in a continuous search for pleasure, in a novel where everything is big.

Since then, by the side of Petra Aureliano Segundo begins to have amazing luck. His rabbits multiply, his cows breed triplets, hens and sows breed faster than any in the county, and soon he is rich. He begins to organize parties where extravagance is the norm, bringing musicians and spending lavishly to the chagrin of his great-grandmother Úrsula. He carries out fantasies such as dressing up as a tiger in a carnival set up by himself, since for him nothing is impossible; suggestion and money lead him to an insatiable greed for experiences. On one occasion, as a sign of rebellion against Úrsula's complaints, he papers the family mansion with bills.

At one of his famous parties he meets Fernanda del Carpio, whom he brings wounded in his arms due to an accident and with whom he falls madly in love. She gives in to his charms, but learning that Aureliano continues to visit Petra Cotes, she flees back to her father's house. Aureliano does not give up in his efforts to marry her and goes looking for her all over the country. Another characteristic of sexual E7: falling in love and being capable of anything to win the day.

Since his marriage, he has supported two women leading a double life. On the one hand, he has an orderly and formal life with Fernanda del Carpio, with their children and a boring sexual intimacy, thus ensuring care and security next to a woman, like a child who looks for a generous mother in a partner.

On the other, he continues his relationship with Petra Cotes, in a life of Excesses, parties, meals and sex, all with the explicit knowledge of his wife. On some occasion, Fernanda tries to embarrass him by sending his clothes in trunks down the main street so that all of Macondo finds out about his lack of respect, but Aureliano Segundo's self-indulgence allows him to live it naturally, without ridicule of any kind. The price you pay, however, is not small. The double life and the excesses take their toll on his physical condition, putting on considerable weight due to his eating contests.

Another aspect to highlight is the relationship he establishes with his eldest daughter, Meme, whom he protects from the severity of his wife, allowing her to go out with American boys, covering up her night outings and laughing thanks to her. It is about the typical complicit indulgence carried out by the sexual E7 with the people around him, encouraging that rebellion to feel calmer with his own and generating ties wrapped in secrecy that protect his impudence and his ravings. After the flood that devastates Macondo, he loses all his fortune, just as Úrsula feared, and his lack of foresight leads him to ruin. But Aureliano does not stay in failure, he could not sustain it, and he does not assume responsibility for the ruin either. On the contrary, another narcissistic fantasy of having money and success is invented, managing above all not to feel deprived or guilty. From then on, he dedicates himself to chasing the treasure buried by his great-grandmother throughout the estate, without success.

His new fantasy doesn't work for him and reality becomes harsher and bigger than his inventions and imaginations. In the end, it is his turn to give up and sell the few animals he has left to cover the cost of his other daughter's studies. It is a sad ending, worthy of a sexual Seven, for whom living without awareness of the risk often leads to desperate situations and, above all, to harming others for the fact of doing so advance in life with their imaginary plans without taking into account the entanglements that it generates.

Also important in the story is the fact that Aureliano Segundo and his brother José Arcadio were exchanged at birth. It represents the idea of ​​a dual, split, fraudulent existence, which is related to the mythical theme of the "double" (or Dop pelganger: the ghostly double of a living person), which has some very interesting implications.

The philosopher Julian Baggini tells us:

The idea that meeting your doppelganger predicts something fatal is interesting, because it means that you are your worst enemy [...] Seeing ourselves from the outside would allow us to really get to know each other, but to think that we could see ourselves as others see us is terrifying.

And it is that the double puts us in contact with our denied parts, or with that of ourselves that completes us, or with our own egoic condition of kidnappers and their planters of our most essential part. This is the case of a sexual E7, in which the aspects of procrastination, denial of pain, fanciful distancing from reality and pain, fraudulence, etc., tell us so clearly of a supplanting of the essence by the ego.

This duality will haunt Aureliano Segundo all his life: His wife and her lover meet and agree to share him, and he also has a completely different life, divided, with each of his two wives. Which of these two lives is better for Aureliano? With Fernanda he loses weight, with Petra he gains weight...

With Fernanda he experiences sobriety, even depression; with Petra everything is maniacal waste... Aureliano Segundo dies the same day as his twin brother José Arcadio. Undertakers confuse their bodies, so the entanglement of childhood is restored on the day of burial. In the end, it's death restores the state of confusion in which Aureliano was trapped in life. We could say in this regard that the Goic deception makes it very difficult for a sexual Seven to know who he is and, of course, neither do those who live with him.

CHAPTER 11; JOKES AND VIGNETTES

Tent

Two friends are sleeping in a tent in the bush. In the middle of the night one wakes up and tells the other that he is an E7 sexual:

—Manolo, wake up, look!

—What's going on? -Manolo stretches

—Do you see? Tell me what you see? -asks the friend with voice little distressed.

—Well, a wide sky, with a beautiful full moon, the stars shining bright -answers Manolo.

—What else?" asks the friend.

—I also see the constellation of Leo, which is aligned with Saturn to the north, and the Big Dipper, which is rotating due to the very warm spring that we are experiencing.

—What else? What else?

--A shooting star that crosses the sky from east to west and, therefore, we should make a wish for the well-being of our lives and of the universe.

—But what else do you see? Something very important

--Oh, I understand! That sky is like our immutable and infinite mind, not stained by anything and...

—But Manolo, there is something more important than that now, something which is essential for us.

—don't know...- Manolo answers, a little stunned. --Well... our tent got stolen.

The monkey and the tiger 

An unemployed comic actor goes to ask for a job at a zoo. He talks to the manager and he tells him that yes, the monkey is dead and that position is free, but that he should dress up and go: “Uh, uh!”. The actor accepts with delight, he even gets emotional in the performance and rides a vine shouting: "Uh, uh!", with such bad luck that the vine breaks and falls into the tiger's cage. Frightened, the actor forgets his role as a monkey and shouts:

—Help, the tiger is eating me!

To which the tiger replies:

—Shut up, they're going to kick us out!

CHAPTER 12; TRANSFORMATION PROCESS AND THERAPEUTIC RECOMMENDATIONS

By CRISTINA BUSI AND ENRIQUE VILLATORO

The path of transformation of a sexual E7 is characterized by numerous critical problems that manifest from the beginning. A first obstacle is, in fact, the motivation for change. The entire character structure of the sexual Seven is organized to maintain an altered relationship with reality and an identification of himself as in love with life. Every stimulus is manipulated in accordance with this neurotic requirement, even dramatic events.

Given these premises, it is very difficult for sexual E7 to start her journey from the recognition of some kind of suffering in her life or from an active search for help. It is easier for him to request support to solve a specific problem without calling it into question from an attitude of individual responsibility.

“When the sexual E7 begins therapy, he will very likely go to ask the therapist to help him resolve issues such as the weakness of his will to put into practice his many invented plans, or perhaps his relationship with his partner is in trouble, since the E7 sexual has been receiving more than it gives, therefore being required to make changes. The therapist must also be on the lookout for "distraction sophistry," a type of defense with which the sexual E7 insists on taking the place of his therapist and thus becoming the ineffective therapist of himself, inventing only intellectual solutions to his problems. Through this resource, you will generate seductive and brilliant insights, as well as evoke seemingly profound themes with which you will question and answer yourself. Left to his own devices, he would create developments with free associations coming from his inexhaustible source of imagination.”

The motivating spring of the transformation process is often the same neurotic passion, that is, gluttony. The sexual Seven begins his hero's journey» as a new adventure in which he will participate with childish enthusiasm, with the intention of improving his life and making it even more pleasant.

“You need to focus on only one therapy; My tendency for years has been to go into many different therapies (rebirthing, yoga, meditation, Osho, NLP), but doing it superficially, not going deep. There is a need for earthly therapies, not abstract ones.”

Change involves progressive grounding and gradual disillusionment, as well as cohabitation with a less aroused physical state. In short, the reduction of the constant state of hypomania. Structural change requires long periods of time and a container that is sufficiently varied, polyhedral. For example, the path proposed in the SAT program responds to specific characteristics: it is flexible, stimulating and requires long-term individual participation, but at the same time has short and intense operational time scales.

In connection with a neurotic state, the sexual E7 can co begin your journey of transformation in absolute unconsciousness initial.

“The work with the enneatypes began to predispose me to empathy and understanding of the reasons of others, awakening in me an interest real. And it worked, albeit unconsciously at first, in the confidence that my limits and my neurosis could, if I observed and transformed them, be useful to others in a conscientious mission to develop a plan for the rehabilitation of society. This, which at first was just an exciting idea, has turned into a warmer, empathic awareness and, later, a form of compassion and love towards myself, and also towards my colleagues on the SAT, a way of opening myself with more heart towards other human beings.”

Therefore, the early stages of the process are organized in collusion with the character structure. To use a metaphor, the task is not to pop the balloon in the child's hands, but to gradually interest and involve him in other activities that are just as enjoyable, if less dreamy.

A first step is the recognition of the character structure, of the emptiness on which that apparent happiness is based. It is a very difficult passage because the sexual Seven experiences subjective well-being, is perpetually in a state of excitement, cultivates happy thoughts about life: feels and describes himself as a happy person.

It is not easy to leave this state voluntarily and intentionally, except through a progressive unmasking and the intuition of a further potential state of well-being.

“He will also complain about himself, probably for not achieving something, since the effort implies the pain that he avoids, and the success results in having to assume responsibilities. That comes at a price: having to abdicate your comfort zone and make sacrifices. He will only strive to do certain things, as long as it is what he likes the most, and he will tend to do that always, more and more.”

Confrontation in groups of the same subtype can be very effective in this first phase. The group's glue generates heat and clings while activating a mirror component. Like children in a summer camp, everything is a wink of smiles, glances, jokes, while prolonged verbal confrontation as an end in itself, regardless of external feedback, not supported empathetically, leads to physiological collapse. They all say "I", "I" and "I">, focused only on their ability to get the listener's attention.

“I was very attentive trying to check if the therapist was attentive to everything I said to him. I prepared some other verbal trap for him to see if he was really attending to my process. I was so aware of that that I neglected the most important thing.”

Like chirping chicks, they act from a need for attention, launching hyperbolic arguments. In this first mirroring process, where interpersonal strategies are amplified AND recognition needs are necessarily frustrated, a space of authentic motivation can open up.

“The work with the enneatypes, already in the SAT I, almost immediately gave me the possibility of going beyond the judgment. The people seemed to me the characters of a good play, in the best sense of the word, with their world now more understandable and motivations dictated by the neurotic lenses of their enneatype. Among them, and on the same level, I too was about to make myself known.”

A fundamental issue is contact with deficiency, with emptiness, with basic anguish.

“I have seen my seduction, the compulsion to sympathize with others as a form of unacknowledged selfishness, and I understood that I do nothing for others that is not always for my benefit. I understood what my fraudulence consisted of, which I had not seen before, and I also recognized self-indulgence as a form of self-deception. How my tendency to think positive, instead of wisdom, was rather an inability to contact the pain and stay in it.”

“The exceptional, the extravagant, pretending to be unique, has been at some stages of my life a true reason for being. Without that, I was convinced that no one was going to love me: friends were going to abandon me, women were going to ignore me... This attitude led to many mistakes, especially in my sentimental life. I couldn't take care of my feelings or those of others, I was only interested in fascinating things so that they wouldn't leave me alone.”

At this stage it is essential to create genuinely supportive links. It will be necessary for the sexual E7 to arrive equipped to this passage and it is desirable that he has begun to develop some existential competencies. In the first place, the possibility of coming into contact with one's own emotional world and differentiating it, through, for example, Gestalt therapy interventions or the exploration of oneself through theatre.

“It also helped me to be in contact with my fear, to listen to it and to be able to live with it, to recognize it.”

“Theatrical physical training helped me to embody myself, since I was a mental and intellectual character.”

“What helped me to replace the support of the world with self-support was to explore the emotions, hold them and feel a depth within me, when before I felt basically two-dimensional. Discovering a non-intellectual inner world aroused in me an incredible thirst for contact with myself.”

Another fundamental acquisition is a greater confidence in the own body and more articulate listening for subtle cues, as authentic movement practices encouragement.

“The bodily sensations of the sexual E7 always harbor chapters of your history, and when you immerse yourself in them, they can release emotions and feelings associated with the images of his rage denied and his pain avoided. The therapist will be attentive to go deeper and deeper into each emotion, amplifying them. He will also return to chest sensations, access images to them, should his client become distracted again, which is all too likely to happen when his quick mind interferes, interpreting himself or acting as a commenter. Fueled to seduce her therapist with insights.”

“With the therapeutic process I have opened myself to theater and body expression, working with biomechanics and the theater of the flesh of Ar taud. If before I knew how to use the body, technically and intellectually (I am a musician and mountaineering instructor), then I had to learn from scratch to listen to my body, its needs, desires and emotions.”

The practice of detachment through some forms of meditation favors progressive identification with a self that is broader than the character structure, an element that generates confidence in the possibility of experiencing containment, without being overwhelmed, in the face of depressive and distressing experiences that otherwise they would live as desperate.

“I have been able to explore meditation, which I already practiced regularly, in a new way and with more helpful prompts available, and integrate it more into the transformation process. By being able to practice Dzog chen every day, SAT V made me have a new experience about the nature of the mind, which I hope will help me to deepen this tool for me, which, given the mental nature of my character, seems to me fundamental, because it makes me enter the body and the present, in an inner calm that centers me.”

Only with this baggage can the sexual Seven surrender to a necessary, and for him devastating, fall to earth.

“The therapist's question must be addressed to the concrete level of the earth and not to the sky of the intellect.”

“Begin to see that the world is not just pink; that the black, the dark brown and blood red also exist. understand and experience that I am a very sensitive person. It helped me embrace my part as a girl and be able to accompany her now as the adult that I am.”

 It is an authentic and propitious expulsion from paradise, and only a sensibly anchored longing for liberation can bring this character into more authentic contact with its essence. At this stage, peak experiences can be helpful, both through some bodywork and the use of psychedelics.

“Physical contact has helped me a lot, working with dreams has also been important, there I defend myself less and give myself more. Bodywork has been very helpful, especially hyperventilating or trance-like rhythmic movements, Osho moving meditation, and work with sacred plants, of course.”

It is important that there is a balance between the Dionysian and Apollonian dimensions. The Dionysian has to occur in such a way that the sexual E7 can sustain an erotic potential firmly anchored to vital instances.

“...What I learned from this daydream was something concrete. Again, life put me in one of those dread-provoking situations that a sexual E7 would be happy not to confront. However, there was no room for it. Right where I was I closed my eyes, I felt that knot in my stomach again, I listened to these horrible beings, I let them unfold and, as in the dream, I fixed one of them and touched it for a few minutes. When I opened my eyes, I was already calmer and I felt like I had taken a new strength from somewhere else. Of course, everything went better later. Not avoiding that world, but recognizing it and facing it.”

“In addition, it coincided around that time that I met two American therapists who did experiential work with sexuality that I found very interesting and I also began this process of sexual therapy. I think this therapy was the one that helped me the most to contain desire and impulsiveness.”

The Apollonian dimension will be implemented as the possibility of structuring a broad, containment, stable and directed vision. The work of transformation in this character acts directly, almost by imprinting, eroding the character structure while creating new ways of processing life experience. Only through this meticulous work of restructuring are the bases created for a biographical revision, the recognition of painful facts and the necessary reparative process. At this stage, the sexual E7 may also intentionally access individual therapy.

“With a severely depressed mother with suicidal and paranoid mania, and an authoritarian, not very affectionate and absent father, I developed a character that has difficulty expressing its pain, because no one was there to hear it, and that partly turned into an inability to hear it.”

“For a long time I felt, at the end of the afternoon, like a tickle in my stomach that later turned into a knot and ended up flooding me. Every day. It was a feeling of great anguish, which depressed me a lot, made me very melancholy and made me think of all kinds of strategies and gadgets to erase it. After years of therapy and detours on the matter, I decided to tell it in one session.”

Going through individual pain is possible thanks to the development of compassion. It involves transporting this wounded core from forced self-arousal to a less intense and longer lasting pleasure, a mesencephalic and non-reptilian pleasure. The interventions of this period are fundamentally of a corporeal nature and in a warm, constant, welcoming and containing environment, of a maternal type.

“It helped me a lot when my therapist acted as a father figure and gave me the recognition and physical affection that my father did not give me. That for me was very healing. It has helped me to trust my therapist the moment he has expressed his difficulties and has shown himself more as a person than as a therapist.”

“As a client, what has helped me is the closeness, the compassion, that they confront me with love, that they recognize my pain, that they show me my demand, and the demand makes me difficult and rebels, the accusation without bond, when I notice the judgment , when I feel accused without love.”

“Discovering that I was envious of someone has been a relief: it has meant not feeling alone, because I have been able to recognize that there was someone in the world, someone better than me, someone I could admire.”

The final meeting takes place in the paternal passage, towards that broad and stable Apollonian vision that only a father figure can give and that manifests itself at a specific level with characteristics such as greater congruence, consistency, constancy...

“I believe that the commitment and perseverance in the therapeutic process were the basis of my progress. Until I committed to follow it regularly there was little point in starting. I like it and it helps me that they confront me in a clear and forceful way.”

“It has made it very difficult for me to surrender seeing the failures of my therapist, seeing his ego, because he reacted and put me above me, and it was very difficult for me to go through that stage. Of course, once achieved, a total dedication has been given to him, listening, taking advantage of each phrase and trusting his intuition and wisdom.”

The new balance supports a more virtuous global operation, oriented towards sobriety. It manifests itself with a greater rootedness in reality and in a more empathetic relational life, oriented towards the realization of a more stable and coherent life plan.

The sexual Seven is able, at this level of transformation, to recognize himself at a more complex existential level, which he has lost in excitement and enthusiasm and has gained in attribution of meaning, including others and based on a new capacity for integrate the "negative" aspects of reality.

“He did meditation retreats and worked with psychedelics and power plants. In the summer I continued to take the SATs, which I thought was fantastic. I remember one of them when, seeking his recognition, I told Claudio about all the therapies I was doing, and he told me that it was a good sign to have put gluttony at the service of self-knowledge but that, as in life itself, by doing so much to at the same time he should be assimilating little.”

“...it is my work that actually helps me to be a sexual E7: I work alone, each new book is a new challenge, repetition and boredom have no place, my task is done in silence, looking inward I work with emotions and imagination…”

As a summary, in the work with the sexual E7 it can be useful:

• reduce the inflation of erotic love through sincere and constant communication, with a commitment to a partner or with a vital commitment such as parenthood;
• giving yourself to generous non-self-centered tasks, such as some volunteering, as long as you don't use it to further fatten the grandiose idea of ​​yourself;
• constancy with a concrete transformation process, curbing their tendency to peck disciplines from enthusiasm or pseudo-infatuation as intense as it is fleeting.

“In this way, the less I seduced, the less I sought, one night the one who today is my wife appeared. Thanks to her support, her understanding and mutual trust we have a stable relationship. Neither great passions nor disappointments. I have understood that we are there, without being overwhelmed, seeing our inability to love, learning together and betting on commitment. We have decided to want to love each other. No one has taught us to love and we feel in kindergarten, with all the enthusiasm put into this exciting learning that is coexistence and loyalty to the other. We have already gone through crises of each and both.”

The three loves in transformation

As for the three loves, the transformation works in the opposite direction to the neurosis, so that the development of compassion and admiring love tends to equalize or, rather, to balance the presence of the three loves in the lives. of the sexual E7, pursuing on the horizon the dissolution of the hierarchy.

For a character given to getting lost in fantasy, contact with the earth, with the real size of things, is crucial. The three loves, when leveled, help you move towards a greater degree of vital coherence and a broader experience of authenticity.

Compassionate love is the first to be affected by the transformation, brought about by the face-to-face encounter with its pain. Feeling his wound, he learns to also feel the pain of others without being overwhelmed. Allowing yourself to feel pain is a return to earth, to the true dimension of reality, and it is also an important awareness, since you realize that feeling pain, both your own and others, does not kill you, which breaks with the crazy idea that pain is unbearable.

Making your pain visible and tolerable leads you to be able to make others' pain visible to a realistic extent, and pretending not to see it becomes unnecessary. This pretense is but one of the many strategies of this subtype, elaborated for fear of having his own pain revealed to him.

The way to learn and "do gymnastics" with compassionate love is to make commitments, to take care of others through small tasks, even if they are not very big, constant acts that require daily presence. Many of the sexual E7s find themselves ingrained in this type of love when they become involved in the care of their youngest children, the elderly, or the needy.

Particularly therapeutic are family ties since, not being related to the exercise of a profession or episodic acts of generosity, they demand a constant presence and confront you directly with your responsibilities. There you have a wonderful opportunity to experience benevolent love firsthand, loving someone without the fear of being betrayed or used. In this sense, for many becoming parents was perhaps the most significant event of their lives in order to reach a balance, stop their neurosis and curb gluttony, since it requires putting aside their own inconsistency and making a commitment to responsibility in life.

The experience of parenthood is an important vehicle that directs you toward a greater understanding of compassion. As if parenting is an opportunity to finally have the luxury of taking care of the inner child and maybe start to heal the hurt. It could be said that the sexual E7 has the capacity to be a good father, if there is such a thing as being "a good father"; although it would be more correct to say that having children can lead you to be a good father and, therefore, a better person.

As for the transformation of erotic love, acknowledging his own pain and getting in touch with his needs helps him, paradoxically, to experience true pleasure, so longed for and persecuted by this subtype. By making it unnecessary to avoid pain, the compulsive search for new challenges, both physical and intellectual, decreases, and the result is an increase in ability to enjoy the present moment and learn (finally!) to enjoy the small pleasures of life.

Especially useful for sexual E7 is the teaching that real pleasures are much smaller than imagined, but for that reason they are much closer at hand, they are more frequent and daily than I thought. Life stops appearing like a movie on which hypothetical pleasures are projected and becomes a real and tangible place, where there is pain but also small pleasures like breathing, enjoying a little chat with a friend or putting your partner to bed.

In sexuality, as in life, the sexual Seven learns to live the pleasure of the present moment, and stops confusing it with the continuous anticipation of the next moment, the constant imagining an even greater enjoyment. Another break and a great gift for this subtype.

In the couple, the balance of erotic love leads him to learn to live with the other, to know and respect their borders and those of others, to stay to the right, without overtaking or overwhelming, decreasing his constant and neurotic need to be the center, without melting or sharply cut the other.

The process of admiring love is given in a similar way to the previous ones. Accepting the pain as it comes, plus the pleasure of resting in the reality of life, in everyday things, such as lunch, dinner, the needs of the couple, the children... helps you resize his enormous expectations of himself and of others. Genuine admiration will come from lowering these grandiose expectations, and as you feel more normal, more human, you will also find more normal, more human teachers. In learning to become small you will also reduce the size of the teachers, who in turn will become true teachers. Only then are you ready to receive their teachings and allow transformation.

If at any time he thinks that he is worthy of the greatest teachers, through pain he will discover that he has to learn more than anyone, especially from children, from the ignorant, from the poor and the naive; even of animals and the cycles of nature. This is how it is when his inner chaos allows him to observe an order of things from which he had previously escaped.

Once again, the shrinking of the ego brought about by the encounter with his pain reveals to him how he mistakes true love for admiration for expectation. The first person you need to learn to truly admire, without expectation, is yourself. And it does so thanks to the path through the other two loves, especially through compassion. When, for the first time, he is able to feel compassion towards himself, he stops demanding himself and others. It is here that he can begin to trust himself, his authority, his abilities and his maturity, to assume the responsibilities that he had historically delegated to others, through childish tricks.

Only when he stops looking for a father and expecting (or demanding) from others his care, his encouragement, his help, can he then develop authentic, that is, disinterested, admiration. But this admiration arises from the recognition of his real dimension, which is infinitely smaller than he believed. The more he discovers the small, the more he discovers that the world is full of guides, teachers and referents.

SOCIAL 7

CHAPTER 1; THE PASSION IN THE SPHERE OF THE INSTINCT: HOW GLUTTONY ACTS IN THE SOCIAL

By LLUIS FUSTÉ

It is characteristic of the glutton's gluttony that he does not pay attention to the common,

but instead addresses himself to the most remarkable,

to the extraordinary.

CLAUDIO NARANJO,

Character and Neurosis

A social E7 is recognized because a part of his body is always in motion: a tapping pic, a drumming hand, an almost imperceptible movement of the jaw. Although the body appears to be fully present and engaged in one activity, one part, one detail, will carry the movement into another direction.

The general posture is relaxed, peaceful; his step is light, although dynamic. It could be said that he is a relaxed person, capable of responding fluently to different demands. Often lean (ectomorph, in Sheldon's terminology), muscular tonic and harmonic and inconspicuous physique, he moves quite agilely, with light movements and childlike gestures on the spur of the moment.

His face is often an expression of inner conflict: bright, childish, and lively eyes illuminate a face that, although smiling, is consumed by wrinkles of expression, by the suffering and the tenacity with which he elaborates each event through the thought, without living it. All of this can only be perceived through careful observation, because the facial mimicry of the social E7 is very varied. Absorbed and detached, or malicious and intriguing, he has a wide range of expressions that confuse and seduce the interlocutor.

The image and aesthetics of the social Seven express a comfortable and informal style, and are apparently of secondary importance to him. The look shows an effect of relative care set, in which the disheveledness is the result of a precise choice. The haircut, beard and scant make-up are an expression of a stylistic decision that gives priority to a controlled nature that cannot fall into neglect. The idea is that the exterior image represents the interior and, therefore, it must be clean, essential, pleasant, without frills, functional but not flashy. Deliberately far from the clichés of sexual seduction, the aesthetic choice of the social E7 also expresses his narcissistic desire to be liked without admitting it, thus taking care of his carelessness. The details will make the difference: a shoe, a color, an embroidery or a set of colors that reveals the search for originality.

The social subtype of enneatype 7 transforms the passion of gluttony into an apparently virtuous form of counter-gluttony by being good, disinterested and moderate with others, so that the neurotic core becomes less evident and more hidden than in the other subtypes.

The social E7, with its sympathetic, kind and seductive behavior, facilitates the interpersonal relationship until it is transformed into an intimate relationship, which is what he fears the most. It differs primarily from the sexual and conservation subtypes by a greater ambivalence regarding the passion of the gluttony.

She acknowledges her attraction to gluttony and judges it. Hence, desire tends to be frustrated and to adapt more to social norms. Their adherence to the norm preserves personal autonomy, the result of a compromise between rebelling against authority and pleasing the group.

The social instinct has as its fundamental axis the image perceived by gold and by oneself. Therefore the image itself will be the neurotic battlefield. In general, he tends to create horizontal relationships, using his identification with his ideal of a good person and his orientation to please the other using good humor and verbal expression.

Verbal seduction is also typical of sexual E7, from which social E7 differs by using its verbal intelligence in a more empathetic way. The objective is not so much to create joy and good humor, but comfort and pleasure, and with more intention of achieving depth in communication. In addition, the loquacity of the sexual Seven is oriented above all to the erotic object, while in the case of the social Seven the recipient of his seduction is the group.

His secret object of desire is not so obvious as it is camouflaged by a strategic intelligence that emphasizes his sacrifice and his service. The egotistic movement remains in a more private dimension, in which a greater greed and an objectification of the other is evident.

In the relationship with authority, the social E7 stands out for his lack of faith in it. It does not recognize, in general, an authority that it identifies with an incompetent parental figure and confronts in a passive-aggressive way, avoiding it or transforming it into a peer. One of his great desires will be to find a father figure in whom he can trust.

Among the subtypes, the social one is the one that most seeks authority, the conservative one is the one that most confronts it, and the sexual one is the one that questions it the most. Without authority, without order, the Seven ends up being an easy victim of jouissance. Since that which can protect you is not authorized to act internally. But unlike the other subtypes, in the social E7 there is more presence of the superego, a tacit and unconscious loyalty to the paternal, with a desire to discipline oneself, assume responsibility and carry out projects.

The adaptive movement of the social Seven is the superego control of the pleasure principle. Adherence to reality is the result of a tiresome internal mediation between duty and pleasure. The sacrifice of personal pleasure is compensated by a deferred ideal pleasure, which bears a strong neurotic and narcissistic stamp. In this way, the social E7 denies itself the possibility of moving in the world to fulfill its desires and needs (from which it distances itself by judging pleasure as gluttony in a generalized way). In this way, it creates the bases to prevent self-realization and feed the dependence on the recognition of others. In these terms, the social Seven presents traits of masochism, in the double sense of having difficulties to get in touch with the dimension of pleasure and of maintaining a persecutory superego of internal pressure.

Compared to the other subtypes, they control their public image more. He is more in touch with shame and is very sensitive to social criticism; hence, invest more in your skills. Similar to the enneagram Three, the social Seven tends to pursue multiple, secure paths of development.

The different combination between the social subtype and the other subtypes reveals a different balance: The social-preservation subtype is more active and pragmatic, reacts to rejection with emotional isolation and distance from others, and is in touch with a sense of guilt and shame. The social-sexual subtype is gifted with higher verbal and bodily intelligence, which it uses to keep attention on itself, to be seen and accepted.

Claudio Naranjo defines the gluttony that motivates enneatype 7 as the passion for pleasure or the passion for more and better. We therefore find ourselves with a character whose main motivation is to accumulate hours of more and better pleasure. An accumulation that, as we shall see, is produced both by the presence of pleasure and by the absence of pain. It is not only the avoidance of suffering but also the avoidance of psychic pain that makes this character ill.

It is an escape from life that uses different vehicles, depending on the subtype. In the case of the social E7, the effort is put into creating a self-image of an extraordinary person, which places him beyond the human. It is an image created from within, which needs some corroborating external clones and which serves as a hiding place for the threatening psychic pain.

The concept of more pleasure is nuanced in the social E7 by its search for relational enjoyment. It is, furthermore, a narcissistic type of jouissance, that is, associated with the image that the other gives back. The world is his mirror, in which he hopes to see the image dictated by his ideal self. The other subtypes of the E7, although also with a strong narcissism, do not reach the extreme of the social Seven in their dependence on the image that the group returns to them. Obviously, he will not be immune to physical and emotional delights, but his priority will be to provide himself with narcissistic pleasures in the social sphere. The need for recognition, appreciation and admiration from others is vital for the social E7. At the most neurotic levels, the noble gesture of giving contains the desire to receive something in return. In this case, you want an image. I give you, you give me back an image, a feeling. He likes the other to feel pleasure, well-being, fluidity, and thus arouse his admiration. A subtle and robust admiration, a look that says it all, that tells him that he is everything.

Gluttony is expressed here through the continuous search for stimulating and gratifying social situations in a neurotic sense, in pursuit of the admiration that it hopes to achieve from the idealized self-image that it plays out in social contact. That ideal ego is built mostly with the remnants of the mother's desire, as we will see later.

The other way to increase the feeling of neurotic satisfaction is to avoid pain. This healthy tendency of the human being becomes compulsive here. We must distinguish between the different pains. There is physical pain, which can be tolerated as long as there is a narcissistic goal, such as running a marathon. Then, the emotional pain, in the face of which he has few tools and with which he handles badly, since it turns it into proof of his existential incompetence: If something hurts, it is that there is something that I am not doing well.

And worst of all: narcissistic pain. It is the one you feel when the distance between your real self and your ideal self is evident. Common suffering among humans, in the social Seven becomes terrifying because it questions the very basis on which it has built its identity. Unlike the social E3, the social E7 is more aware of his fraudulence, of his intimate self so different from what he appears to the other. The social Three totally identifies with his image, while the social Seven knows something about his fraud, with the consequent invasion of guilt.

Narcissistic pain avoidance and narcissistic pleasure-seeking can take on a myriad of nuances. In the social E7, gluttony assumes, as we say, a specific form: the need to look extraordinary. And there are two fundamental mirrors: that of the world and that of the ideal self, that of the other and the intimate. Given the centrality of the mental experience in this character, sight is the main door for his relationship with the world. In addition, seeing oneself refers to the mirror stage, when the child looks into the mother's eyes and she gives him a reflection, made up of feelings and words, which he will later confuse with his identity.

In this case, the image returned by the mirror is a distorted reflection that emphasizes the positive aspects of the infant and excludes the negative ones. When the image in the mirror is that of an extraordinary, capable, enthusiastic, smart, good, funny, self-sacrificing self, the child receives a satiating jolt of energy, a substitute for love. And thus the neurotic functioning is sealed: As long as he sees himself close to that ideal self, he will feel calm; if it separates, it will feel anguish.

“I don't stop until I get that sparkle in her eyes. That shine that tells me that I have aroused admiration and desire for me in them. Once I conquered the person, I have already received my dose.” (TESTIMONIAL, ARACAJU SYMPOSIUM, 2016)

The sacrifice he makes of his gluttony works like a Trojan horse that hides in his guts the need to look extraordinary. This qualifier summarizes the spectral image it receives from the mirror. As an adjective, it defines what is outside the order or the natural or common rule. Therefore, everything that can add some extraordinary aspect to his image will be sought voraciously. Extraordinary trips, extraordinary knowledge, extraordinary experiences, extraordinary people... All the experiences that help you feel like a non-ordinary being (extra-ordinary) will be your priority objective.

In short, the one who is moved by gluttony in the social sphere is addicted to experiences that give him back an image of extraordinariness, thanks to which he can nurture the idea of ​​himself as someone out of the ordinary. And among them, the tendency to sacrifice stands out, which appears as a shortcut to acquire extraordinariness in the eyes of the other and of oneself and extract, from that experience, the feeling that life has meaning and is going well.

The story of the social E7 is that of someone who is not satisfied with an ordinary destiny. His gluttony always goes towards an extraordinary mission.

CHAPTER 2; THE CHARACTERISTIC OF NEUROTIC NEED

 By LLUÍS FUSTÉ

A need is that which is impossible to avoid, miss or resist. Human needs are eating, breathing, relating. They have the property of generating satisfaction when they are fulfilled. The adjective neurotic comes to point out that they are not our own needs but our alternative way of functioning, which we confuse with ourselves and which is born from the ontic of the darkening process.

How to differentiate real needs from neurotic ones? One of the ways is by his way of satisfying us. The neurotic, when satisfied, will produce a calming effect that will last less than when we fill a real need. Furthermore, neurotic needs produce craving, or an overwhelming urge; every time it is needed a higher dose for the feeling of satiety; and in general they repeat many of the addiction schemes associated with drug addiction. In short, satisfying a neurotic need is like drinking a liquid that seems to quench our thirst, but in fact, after a short time, we feel it even more.

We can list many neurotic needs that plague the functioning of the social E7. In this case we are looking for the most characteristic, the one that allows us to distinguish it from other forms of neurosis.

When the passion of gluttony parasitizes the instinct that we call social, which is what makes us innately tend to establish relationships with others, the motivation of gluttony is nuanced around the concept of sacrifice with which Claudio Naranjo describes. by way of synthesis, the neurotic motor of the social E7.

If I don't sacrifice myself I can't exist because I can't get love and recognition from others. I must establish relationships where I give more than I receive, so that others are always in my debt. I am a good being who sacrifices myself for others: if I show myself like this, others accept me, if I show my real interests, others will reject me. I feel weak with the confrontation of others, that's why I create the conditions of manipulation that allow me to rebalance the situation. If I am always available, the others accept me, and if this involves an effort, it doesn't matter. I sacrifice myself. (XAVIER)

Sacrifice is the specific modality with which the social E7 expresses its contragula. His compulsive search is not oriented to receive pleasure directly and therefore, it would not seem to be originated in gluttony. To the gluttonous pursuit of pleasure he opposes its negation, that is, the exhibition of the fable of the happy renunciation (contragula). In this way, the social Seven exercises what Naranjo calls the gluttony of recognition of his sacrifice and longs for others to see him as extraordinarily good, self-sacrificing... superior. And this is how the spiral of jouissance in which he gets trapped is described: he gives up more in order to feel better.

It is good to remember here the image of the Franciscans, a model of life that institutionalizes the worldview of a social E7 like Saint Francis of Assisi. In that order, renunciation becomes sacred. From the contragul it would seem that the counterpleasure, the sacrifice, is born. But could it be that in this sacrifice of what is proper to this subtype, this subtype finds its supreme pleasure, the confirmation of its superior, quasi-holy category? Well, it seems that the narcissistic pleasure of renunciation opens the gates of Heaven for him.

Is then the passion that commands the social E7 that of sacrifice? Not only. Furthermore, we find much more self-sacrificing behaviors and attitudes in other enneatypes; for example in some subtypes of E9 or E4. So the first caveat is not to use the literal meaning of the term sacrifice to understand the motivational bias of the social Seven.

How can someone experience sacrifice in relationships as a way to obtain more and better pleasure? Let us not forget that the character nests on the ontic obscuration. That is to say, about having disconnected ourselves from our own to connect with another way of functioning that helped us survive in childhood.

All character functioning thus implies a sacrifice of real contact with one's own being. It is in the infantile economy of love and lack of love that character is born. The person who functions with a Seven character places pleasure as his highest existential goal. And the social E7 recorded at some point that the greatest pleasure was to appear as the highest good in the eyes of one of their parental figures. The disguise that brings him love is that of the renouncer, the content, the kind, the generous. The sacrificed. His is a sacrifice applauded and encouraged by the interest of the adult. A pantheonized, visible, praised sacrifice.

The infant discovers the intense pleasure he feels when the significant other places him in that place. A place that we characterize as the highest good because it gives back an image of being extraordinary, of being that which completes the adult and makes him feel without fault. Adults, out of their own need and ignorance, raise him to a throne that does not belong to him. And the social Seven is going to want more and better of that enthronement: he throws himself into life in search of the repetition and multiplication of that experience in the mirror of the world.

“My mother stretched out on the bed and invited us to go kiss her. My little brother, a year younger, always in need, would throw himself on top of him and kiss his neck. And I stayed motionless, looking at the scene. Feeling my urge to throw myself on top of her slow down. Feeling superior for being able to control myself, for not needing that, for being older. Noticing the pleasure, the enjoyment, of giving up natural spontaneity. The mind dominating the body. I confirmed in Mom's look that I was an extraordinary being because of my ability to renounce.” (LUIS)

Sacrifice is an act used in various cultures as a way of relating to the mysterious. It contains an offering and a request; in short, an exchange. In the economy that follows simply from Judeo-Christian theses, sacrifice on Earth opens the gates of Heaven. The renunciation of a present and concrete good allows one to attain a future and ethereal good. The social E7 develops a passion for such relationships, with its neurotic and defensive idealism. He renounces, postpones or represses his needs in order to get a place in the pantheon of his interlocutors. And he can come to sacrifice himself completely, to lose all contact with his Being and his Needs, trapped in the game of conquering that look that confirms that he has completed the other.

What do you need to do to get that reflection? He is not very clear about it, but he knows that it is something related to resembling that which fascinates the interlocutor. It has to do with sacrificing what feels like own to obtain that momentary sparkle in the eyes that corroborates its extraordinary nature.

“In my day to day life, at every moment, capturing the state of the other is an automatic and permanent activity. The next step is to get on the right wavelength with whoever is in front of me. Then I modulate everything: my gesture, my words, my purposes, both short and long term; my bodily, emotional, intellectual resources. I achieve what I set out to do, which is extremely well, but on the other hand, I fade my spontaneous response. Thanks to this ability, I avoid confrontations, I avoid resistance, and I give the image that I want people to have of me at all times.” (ANONYMOUS)

 “It is very difficult for me to avoid the need that the other has. I feel like it's a call. Like the sirens in The Odyssey. The suffering of the other triggers my instinct to put myself at their service. I can't bring her to her pain, especially if she is a woman. I want to be that which heals her, that completes her. I want him to look at me with those eyes. With eyes full of admiration and desire.” (LUIS)

We are now going to try to elucidate what meanings of the noun 'sacrifice' can be useful to describe the swamp of social E7. The definition of sacrifice of the Royal Spanish Academy that best suits our case is: 'act of self-sacrifice' inspired by the vehemence of love.' First of all, it speaks of act. A way of acting in the relationship where one's own interests are quarantined and those of others are served by the impulsiveness of love. This act distinguishes the most developed beings in a society and, in the culture of Christian roots, is exemplified by the Jesus Christ of the Gospels.

Is this really how E7 social works? That one may refrain out of love to benefit another is not considered a pathology but a sign of personal evolution worthy of admiration, as all avenues of knowledge point out. The problem with this character is its sui generis definition of sacrifice, which amounts to: “act or simulation of self-sacrifice inspired by my thirst to see myself extraordinary.” That is his version of the gesture, and the one that makes him a neurotic mover.

Social Sevens want to be perceived as sacrificed to enjoy the benefits in relationship that we reserve for those who are worthy of one of the most difficult tasks for human beings: refraining from satisfying their own needs for the sake of fulfilling them. By postponing or denying them, the social E7 enjoys giving others an intimate sense of superiority. His sacrifice certifies his moral superiority, his closeness to the desired ideal, and his ability to avoid emotional pain. By emulating the stoicism of Jesus Christ he hopes to achieve the same look. That is the core of his madness.

“If someone shows me love without my having done anything to earn it, it is difficult for me to understand why I receive that love. I would even say that I don't believe it at all. I have to earn love, and it is based on sculpting that ideal image of myself and showing it to the other. However, it is recognition and admiration in the gaze of others. To feel true love, I should first dare to show my need, my fear of being rejected, the pain that hardly anyone has been able to glimpse in me... and then feel that the other wants to be there with me. Deep down, love never comes because I never let that dark side be seen and I live intimately convinced that whoever saw it would run away.” (VICTOR)

In its profane version, we find a man disguised as a good and accommodating boy. He sells an image of being non-aggressive, trustworthy, with which to sneak into the other's gaze and win at least his approval, to later present his other cards, with which to win more admiration. Many times he has been fixated on that good boy that mom and teachers liked so much.

A little man with masochistic overtones, but seasoned with a brilliant look that made him stand out. A harmless gelding sometimes attacks authority in a passive-aggressive manner.

Sacrifice is, in short, the passion for more and better pleasure distorts the relational instinct and results in the neurotic need to look extraordinary. Sacrifice, in its daily version, is expressed in behaviors that make him appear disinterested, understanding and good, someone who acts for the good of others, a benefactor of humanity. Giving space to the other, emphasizing their positive aspects, anticipating their needs or creating an atmosphere of happiness and good humor are automatisms to feed on an admiring gaze. The palliative effect of this pleasant look compensates for the frustration of desire, a price to pay in this type of exchange. And all this, in a discreet way and almost by chance, since he knows that idolatry is a social sin.

“Throughout my growth process, I have become aware of how I choose my relationships and what my motivations are in doing so. I have been realizing how I go to those people who, in turn, can give me an extraordinary image of myself. It is true that, once I have chosen who I am going to impress, I am available to alleviate any emotional discomfort I have. I've told myself all my life that there are people who are worthwhile and people who aren't (although I had never confessed this), but what I didn't see is that, in reality, there are people who I think can admire me and people who no... The gaze of some is like a drug; that of others, a danger to avoid, since it would put me in front of everything that does not appear in my ideal self.” (VICTOR)

There are many ways to be perceived as extraordinary in social relationships. The path chosen by the social E7 is doubly marked by his ideal self and by his character limitations. His gluttonous ideal self placed his goals beyond the Earth, close to the heavenly Olympus. It gives the self an impossible image of achieve, which will plunge him into a cycle of anxiety and will become all the more difficult to achieve due to his own character limitations: the search for more and better pleasure, the tendency to self-indulgence and comfort, the difficulty, in case of conflict, to using aggressiveness, the tendency to fantasy and planning, problems with commitment, fraudulence... All of these are characteristics that make it difficult to do extraordinary things and that must be hidden in the relationship because they would compromise being perceived as a impetus of existential superiority.

How then to be seen as extraordinary? How to look like a realized being? Making an internal movement of denial of his character, he "sacrifices" and hides his neurotic style and presents himself to the world as an anti-seven. Thus, its functioning in the intimate aspects will respond to the characteristics of the E7, and the social functioning will respond to an anti-seven behavior.

The search for more and better pleasure for oneself is transformed into a search for more and better pleasure for the other, or is rationalized with laudable social goals. Self-indulgence becomes giving the feeling of commitment; the difficulty in using aggressiveness, in pacifism; the difficulty in contact and managing emotions, in an image of joy and absence of problems; fraudulence, in honesty. A double negation operation that further disorients those who have to make their way back home.

In this way, the social E7 reproduces the double strategy that allowed it to survive the original wound of early exclusion from the intimate dimension: it sublimates the need for love in recognition gluttony, or it confuses it with the search for narcissistic pleasure.

The social Seven goes to the world in search of redemption because in private he knows he is tainted, far from his ideal self. And, guilty, he sacrifices himself to be able to feel for a moment the relief of something that resembles love. Intensely affected in interpersonal trust, it is precisely in the relational environment where he moves in search of repair.

Unable to access this potentially disruptive primary pain, the social E7 unconsciously activates the rigid defenses, isolating the feeling of pain within itself from itself. The demand that he makes of himself is to suffer voluntarily for the good of others, reiterating what happened during his childhood, with the crazy idea that one day he will be rewarded with a sublime loving pleasure.

His gluttony, therefore, is an expression of that compulsive and lacerating desire for inclusive affective recognition, for reintegration into a kind of loving symbiosis. He too seeks his place in the human circle.

The symbiosis is unrepeatable under certain aspects. And in these terms, the circuit that manifests itself is a monster that, given its neurotic nature, feeds on itself, laying the foundations for frustration. The ontological blindness, a necessary character corollary of the primary wound, maintains this alteration, reiterating with the sacrifice not salvation but condemnation.

“What advantage do I get by sacrificing myself? I calm down: it's not exactly Paz, but it's similar. I gain self-concept: I choose a strategy, I start it, I observe its results, I see that they are what I was after, I consider myself to be a good connoisseur of the human soul. I win in a strategic position: my enemies are few, very few, and a general consensus protects me from them. I win in the eyes of God, because I am good, generous, peaceful, fatherly. I win because I am not defending any position in this way, and often, with these strategies, unexpected issues, unpublished answers happen, and I am generally open to feeding on them.” (XAVIER)

CHAPTER 3; INTERPERSONAL STRATEGY AND ASSOCIATED IRRATIONAL IDEAS 

By LLUIS FUSTÉ AND XAVIER SUÁREZ

The fixation is the distorted cognitive nucleus that appears as a result of passion and that ends up serving to sustain it. From it emerge the basic mental contents of a character. It is the pillar that supports the character at a cognitive level.

The E7 fixation is defined by the word self-indulgence. Indulgence is the facility to forgive or hide responsibility and absolve; and self-indulgence is applying it to one's own motives and actions. It is the dike that supports the dam. In the case of the E7 social, it has two main functions. On the one hand, not limit yourself to your greedy functioning. And on the other, not to fall into the narcissistic tension produced by the difference between his everyday self and his ideal self.

Social enneatype Seven subordinates ethical values ​​to instrumental self-interest so that when the profit/pleasure aspect dissolves, behavior can undergo sudden reversals. When the tough times come, indulgence gives you good reason to break away from your goals. It's all good, nothing's wrong is the magical mental mantra that allows to legitimize the behavior and sustain character. The social E7 has the cognitive instruments to justify each action and relativize each behavior when the perspective changes or encounters a setback, so that their behavior, in their view, is never openly transgressive, manipulative or cowardly, but is truly ethical.

“I have discovered that when I have a difference or altercation with someone close to me, my vision of recovering the balance of the relationship takes over me like a wolf after prey. Every solution image that comes to my mind I break it down to see the chances of success. If the situation gets out of my control and I can't do anything about the reconnection, I get angry, but my avoidance machine turns on and I look for some other hungry activity that relaxes and entertains for the moment that holy wolf who doesn't want to be the bad guy. story.” (XAVIER)

Thus, indulgence allows you to relax, agree, put into perspective, not question your way of functioning and interpret reality for your own benefit. It functions as a stress reliever as well as a cognitive resource to sustain his neurotic identity. That is why it is their main obstacle at a cognitive level to be able to develop their full human potential.

Leniency is expressed not so much through open conflict with the rules, but by circumventing the norms of the context. Forgetting, unshared rhythms and actions, or uncommunicated route changes, for which there is always a plausible reason, are manifestations of this mechanism. These are all lies that the social E7 does not recognize as indulgence because it is the victim of a very underhanded form of self-deception. Self-indulgence works as a justification and defense mechanism against what doesn't add up, against what hurts, against what costs. It is a filter that does not let in existential pain, sadness, disappointment, grief. He saved him at an early age from a pain that he could not digest, from an emotional abandonment that was too

precocious to be able to assimilate it, or who lived too little accompanied to be able to integrate it. It is your cognitive way of minimizing the pain of living and trying to maximize the pleasure of being embodied.

Indulgence in the social Seven appears differently on the public level and on the intimate level. In the face of the public, it will be shown as a skill that he has developed, as a superior capacity, which allows him to be merciful and flexible with the mistakes of others. In reality, he cares little what the other does when he is not the protagonist. The position can be summed up in a whole that is full of apparently compassionate and intimately arrogant nuances. Evidently, he will fight not to be seen as indulgent but as understanding, as mature rather than detached, amoral or lazy.

Although in public he can keep his enjoyment at bay more than the other E7, when he is left alone gluttony appears with all its force and he loses the ability to set limits. Deep down, he knows something about his cheating, since sometimes alarm bells go off when he applies the magical ointment of self-indulgence to solve his problems. Although he tries to rationalize his behavior, he knows that he lacks the commitment to maintain certain limits in his intimate life. He is an easy victim of jouissance as long as he does not put his social image at risk. That makes him live with guilt, his difficulty in setting limits and makes him feel like a fraud.

When the other's gaze or his narcissistic internal game disappears, or the level of anxiety is very high, both his gluttony and his self-indulgence are unleashed, until he manages to turn off his deep feeling of anguish and dissatisfaction.

Thus, through logical and rational redefinition, it is possible for him to calm the turbulent waters to return to an apparent calm. Self-indulgence thus becomes a kind of solipsistic consolation: Some of the energy goes in the direction of admitting guilt, while at the same time searching for an explanation that is lower.

“Not bad, I did my best, my intentions were good, in the future I will be able to fix things, next time I will act differently, deep down nothing really irreparable happened, etc.” (TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO)

This form of accommodating comfort is a learned mental attempt at self-management in a context where inadequate maternal function deprived her of developing essential pain relief tools through empathic contact and physical restraint.

Rooted in self-indulgence, as if it were a trunk, the associated irrational ideas sprout. These crazy ideas are the specific cognitive forms that both passion and fixation take, and that appear in everyday life to sustain character. Related to their passion for sacrifice, they appear to habitually mind the following crazy ideas:

• giving up my desires makes me superior;
• If the group is fine, I am fine;
• I don't need;
• In life you have to accumulate good actions; in the end I will be rewarded.

In all of them we see how with the idealization and rationalization of himself he justifies his neurotic behaviors. Among the most important crazy ideas are those with which he protects himself from his original wound, the undigested emotional pain caused by abandonment.

Thus, the social E7 thinks that:

• if I feel emotional pain, I am doing something wrong;
• emotional pain can drive me crazy;
• it hurts, think of a solution;
• if you feel hurt that means you are weak and vulnerable;
• Grieving is stupid.

Emotional pain is his great enemy because he feels that it is dangerous and that it can kill him, as he must have experienced at some point. In addition, it is for him a sign of existential failure. Being so phobic to pain, you lose all those processes in which it is necessary to hurt and that is the toll to grow in this life. In all initiations there must be a death and a rebirth. Being so afraid of dying, of feeling the pain of loss, he is doomed to repetition and superficiality, and to postpone that duty that every human being has to do to enter the mature life. He believes that, like Prometheus, he will be able to deceive the gods, Life, with his cunning to avoid pain, when in reality he is a child who is fleeing from an imaginary monster. It will only grow when it is eaten by the snake.

“At some point I understood that I could be special because of the things I thought, because I had an original, kind way of understanding life and that I could help others to be better. So I took pride in that image of myself and became a great seller of advice, believing that I had the formula for making others happier in their lives and the world a more benevolent place.” (VICTOR)

We finally find a whole series of crazy ideas that support his way of seeing himself, inflated and dilettante, and with which he restores his internal well-being. As we can see, idealism is one of his favorite defense mechanisms:

• First I look for solutions and then it will be time to cry.
• Whoever thinks, God helps.
• Actually, the others are wrong and I'm fine
• I can find the solution.
• Only intelligence can be trusted.
• Tomorrow everything will be better.
• I can do great things.
• My mission is to harmonize the group.
• I am the solution to the group's problems.
• Conflict is not okay.
• Everything can be fixed. .
• I am able to manage in any situation. If I'm kind to others, everything will be fine.

All of them pretend to be recipes against impotence and disorientation that nest in someone who lacks the resources to deal with their emotional and relational life.

“Whenever I have abandoned projects, jobs or activities, it has been putting forward very high motivations, with which I thought I would leave others in awe. However, in the privacy of my planning, selfish motives were well known to me. This has often led to a tension between my true selfish motivations and the rationalization of my intentions as lofty or altruistic. This tension has almost always been resolved in favor of maintaining a self-image of being special, not worldly, not mediocre. It is as if having worldly motivations and expressing them would take away the admiring gaze of the other, which would connect me directly with loneliness and rejection.” (VICTOR)

CHAPTER 3; INTERPERSONAL STRATEGY AND ASSOCIATED IRRATIONAL IDEAS 

By LLUIS FUSTÉ AND XAVIER SUÁREZ

The fixation is the distorted cognitive nucleus that appears as a result of passion and that ends up serving to sustain it. From it emerge the basic mental contents of a character. It is the pillar that supports the character at a cognitive level.

The E7 fixation is defined by the word self-indulgence. Indulgence is the facility to forgive or hide responsibility and absolve; and self-indulgence is applying it to one's own motives and actions. It is the dike that supports the dam. In the case of the E7 social, it has two main functions. On the one hand, not limit yourself to your greedy functioning. And on the other, not to fall into the narcissistic tension produced by the difference between his everyday self and his ideal self.

Social enneatype Seven subordinates ethical values ​​to instrumental self-interest so that when the profit/pleasure aspect dissolves, behavior can undergo sudden reversals. When the tough times come, indulgence gives you good reason to break away from your goals. It's all good, nothing's wrong is the magical mental mantra that allows to legitimize the behavior and sustain character. The social E7 has the cognitive instruments to justify each action and relativize each behavior when the perspective changes or encounters a setback, so that their behavior, in their view, is never openly transgressive, manipulative or cowardly, but is truly ethical.

“I have discovered that when I have a difference or altercation with someone close to me, my vision of recovering the balance of the relationship takes over me like a wolf after prey. Every solution image that comes to my mind I break it down to see the chances of success. If the situation gets out of my control and I can't do anything about the reconnection, I get angry, but my avoidance machine turns on and I look for some other hungry activity that relaxes and entertains for the moment that holy wolf who doesn't want to be the bad guy. story.” (XAVIER)

Thus, indulgence allows you to relax, agree, put into perspective, not question your way of functioning and interpret reality for your own benefit. It functions as a stress reliever as well as a cognitive resource to sustain his neurotic identity. That is why it is their main obstacle at a cognitive level to be able to develop their full human potential.

Leniency is expressed not so much through open conflict with the rules, but by circumventing the norms of the context. Forgetting, unshared rhythms and actions, or uncommunicated route changes, for which there is always a plausible reason, are manifestations of this mechanism. These are all lies that the social E7 does not recognize as indulgence because it is the victim of a very underhanded form of self-deception. Self-indulgence works as a justification and defense mechanism against what doesn't add up, against what hurts, against what costs. It is a filter that does not let in existential pain, sadness, disappointment, grief. He saved him at an early age from a pain that he could not digest, from an emotional abandonment that was too

precocious to be able to assimilate it, or who lived too little accompanied to be able to integrate it. It is your cognitive way of minimizing the pain of living and trying to maximize the pleasure of being embodied.

Indulgence in the social Seven appears differently on the public level and on the intimate level. In the face of the public, it will be shown as a skill that he has developed, as a superior capacity, which allows him to be merciful and flexible with the mistakes of others. In reality, he cares little what the other does when he is not the protagonist. The position can be summed up in a whole that is full of apparently compassionate and intimately arrogant nuances. Evidently, he will fight not to be seen as indulgent but as understanding, as mature rather than detached, amoral or lazy.

Although in public he can keep his enjoyment at bay more than the other E7, when he is left alone gluttony appears with all its force and he loses the ability to set limits. Deep down, he knows something about his cheating, since sometimes alarm bells go off when he applies the magical ointment of self-indulgence to solve his problems. Although he tries to rationalize his behavior, he knows that he lacks the commitment to maintain certain limits in his intimate life. He is an easy victim of jouissance as long as he does not put his social image at risk. That makes him live with guilt, his difficulty in setting limits and makes him feel like a fraud.

When the other's gaze or his narcissistic internal game disappears, or the level of anxiety is very high, both his gluttony and his self-indulgence are unleashed, until he manages to turn off his deep feeling of anguish and dissatisfaction.

Thus, through logical and rational redefinition, it is possible for him to calm the turbulent waters to return to an apparent calm. Self-indulgence thus becomes a kind of solipsistic consolation: Some of the energy goes in the direction of admitting guilt, while at the same time searching for an explanation that is lower.

“Not bad, I did my best, my intentions were good, in the future I will be able to fix things, next time I will act differently, deep down nothing really irreparable happened, etc.” (TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO)

This form of accommodating comfort is a learned mental attempt at self-management in a context where inadequate maternal function deprived her of developing essential pain relief tools through empathic contact and physical restraint.

Rooted in self-indulgence, as if it were a trunk, the associated irrational ideas sprout. These crazy ideas are the specific cognitive forms that both passion and fixation take, and that appear in everyday life to sustain character. Related to their passion for sacrifice, they appear to habitually mind the following crazy ideas:

• giving up my desires makes me superior;
• If the group is fine, I am fine;
• I don't need;
• In life you have to accumulate good actions; in the end I will be rewarded.

In all of them we see how with the idealization and rationalization of himself he justifies his neurotic behaviors. Among the most important crazy ideas are those with which he protects himself from his original wound, the undigested emotional pain caused by abandonment.

Thus, the social E7 thinks that:

• if I feel emotional pain, I am doing something wrong;
• emotional pain can drive me crazy;
• it hurts, think of a solution;
• if you feel hurt that means you are weak and vulnerable;
• Grieving is stupid.

Emotional pain is his great enemy because he feels that it is dangerous and that it can kill him, as he must have experienced at some point. In addition, it is for him a sign of existential failure. Being so phobic to pain, you lose all those processes in which it is necessary to hurt and that is the toll to grow in this life. In all initiations there must be a death and a rebirth. Being so afraid of dying, of feeling the pain of loss, he is doomed to repetition and superficiality, and to postpone that duty that every human being has to do to enter the mature life. He believes that, like Prometheus, he will be able to deceive the gods, Life, with his cunning to avoid pain, when in reality he is a child who is fleeing from an imaginary monster. It will only grow when it is eaten by the snake.

“At some point I understood that I could be special because of the things I thought, because I had an original, kind way of understanding life and that I could help others to be better. So I took pride in that image of myself and became a great seller of advice, believing that I had the formula for making others happier in their lives and the world a more benevolent place.” (VICTOR)

We finally find a whole series of crazy ideas that support his way of seeing himself, inflated and dilettante, and with which he restores his internal well-being. As we can see, idealism is one of his favorite defense mechanisms:

• First I look for solutions and then it will be time to cry.
• Whoever thinks, God helps.
• Actually, the others are wrong and I'm fine
• I can find the solution.
• Only intelligence can be trusted.
• Tomorrow everything will be better.
• I can do great things.
• My mission is to harmonize the group.
• I am the solution to the group's problems.
• Conflict is not okay.
• Everything can be fixed. .
• I am able to manage in any situation. If I'm kind to others, everything will be fine.

All of them pretend to be recipes against impotence and disorientation that nest in someone who lacks the resources to deal with their emotional and relational life.

“Whenever I have abandoned projects, jobs or activities, it has been putting forward very high motivations, with which I thought I would leave others in awe. However, in the privacy of my planning, selfish motives were well known to me. This has often led to a tension between my true selfish motivations and the rationalization of my intentions as lofty or altruistic. This tension has almost always been resolved in favor of maintaining a self-image of being special, not worldly, not mediocre. It is as if having worldly motivations and expressing them would take away the admiring gaze of the other, which would connect me directly with loneliness and rejection.” (VICTOR)

CHAPTER 4; CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS AND OTHER PSYCHODYNAMICS

LLUÍS FUSTÉ AND VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO

There is also a feeling of having rights

because of how talented he is

that the best thing to be successful

is personal charm. and a deep conviction

CLAUDIO NARANJO,

Character and Neurosis

Narcissistic 

Narcissism is a central trait of the social E7. We do not deal with it here in its clinical aspects, which we will see later in the chapter dedicated to academic equivalences, but on the level of common sense, as an expression of egocentrism.

Narcissistic refers here to a self-referential tendency in the relationship of the social E7 with reality. As if the events, experiences and people implicitly subordinated them to his existential project.

“I am always at the center of everything I do. Almost everything I do in the end, I do for myself.” (CARLO)

It is appropriate to assume that the maternal function has been insufficient to install a bodily feedback system and has not facilitated contact with one's emotions. In addition, it has been accompanied by a positive expectation, a fantasy in which the mother imagines that the child can become an important and prestigious person. It is a narcissistic projection of the mother, of a substance more mental than emotional, which through a dynamic of identification of the child produces the basis for the process of idealization of himself.

This dynamic crystallizes, over time, in an automatism by which he only perceives the positive aspects, in a self-identification embedded in the superiority of someone who apparently enjoys life and does not need anything or anyone.

As we have described, the narcissism of the social E7 is hidden in a social dimension where the motivation of sacrifice stands out more. Good manners, facilitating the other or the repression of anger allow him to put himself in superiority. The idealization of himself and others allows him to separate himself from his inner world, so that his pain, which he perceives in some way in times of difficulty, is continuously avoided.

“In relationships I see a real component of dedication, a true relationship of bond, but also a subtle mechanism of manipulation veiled with the smile, kindness, party and optimism. I discover a food in being available for people to unload their sorrows and pains, where my narcissism is sustained when, when leaving the consultation or the meeting, the person will be with a smile instead of tears. (XAVIER)

The pain of rejection, feeling unacceptable and abandoned, their inner value or the idea that we should do nothing are at the base of the structure that organizes the social E7 and are constantly avoided through a brilliant and captivating behavior, imbued with omnipotent fantasies and the fullness of a false self that is actually its weakness. It is like a beautiful house built on unstable ground that, over time, begins to cause problems throughout the structure. Just as Narcissus gets lost, swept away by his own beauty, the social Seven gets excited when he displays his seductive and manipulative modality, living in an ideal dimension to every circumstance that could potentially be the one that determines his destiny and that of humanity ( grandiosity, omnipotence).

In short, the narcissism of the social E7 is manifested along two fundamental dimensions: self-referentiality and grandiosity, the result of identification with their ideal self.

Egotism

The difficulty of contact with the other translates into many behaviors of loneliness. The perception of a fundamental inadequacy coexists, an inaccessibility that resembles in certain aspects a social fo hia, the lack of contact with others and a certainty of rejection.

Helping through sacrifice is actually a narcissistic modality imbued with selfishness and exploitation of the other, unconsciously and with apparent disinterest. In the private sphere it is revealed in the most obvious ways where passivity expresses an expectation of care.

“There is an ambivalence in friendship and romantic relationships. On the other hand, I make an effort to make them correspond to my ideal (where I am good, a savior, and there is no frustration). And yet, not being able to open painful or problematic aspects (which do not fit into the ideal), I have a deep conviction that they are not true... When in reality it is myself who is falsified so as not to be rejected.”  (VICTOR)

Envious/intolerant to frustration

Envy, the central passion in E4, also appears in this structure, with the idea that others have an easier and more pleasant life, and can afford more things to satisfy their desire without doing anything, just like a child who has everything he wants without lifting a finger, in absolute passivity..

The underlying insufficiency, the narcissism inherent in the idea of ​​being a special person and therefore having the right to particular treatment, added to the envy of idealized people who have greater social prestige, and the attitude of going against authority, they make any frustration upset a precarious balance, in a self-destructive mix.

It is as if deep down there was an unacceptability of the present moment, which is structured from the compulsive desire to relive the excitement of vain drunkenness. It is a feeling of power that you feel when the passion of social sacrifice is realized: A very strong energetic charge suddenly gives you a deep sense of identity that, as if by magic, cleanses the weak and fragile parts and the feeling of pain.

“There are moments of euphoria that fade when I tell myself how fake I am when I don't accept the pain, when I don't accept confrontation and run away, when loneliness is so overwhelming and I abandon myself to inactivity and depression. Every time I notice with the inner work that runs through me is about running away and avoiding life by smiling, they throw me to a truth that makes me uncomfortable, assuming more of my not-so-colorful and festive authenticity. “(XAVIER)

He lives like this, in fantasy, as if the ideal of life had been realized. When contrasted with reality, frustration comes inevitably. Unlike the E4, which tends to self-frustrate to maintain constant pain and sadness, the social E7 avoids frustration through a constant of pleasure where it ends up entering a destructive spiral in which it challenges life.

“Before hurt caused by others we have the ability of the cat. Even if they throw us backwards into the void, we always land on our feet, and with arrogance we walk away from the situation that placed us in an uncomfortable position. We do not cry the experience of having been pushed, we translate it into the magnificence of an incredible flight, which confirms that we are capable of everything, and acrobatics is a positive learning, with which we mock gravity. And so we annul the painful and whoever produced it. Some call it passive aggression; us, simple reframing of reality.” (XAVIER)

Excessive 

As we will see later, this character uses his body in excess. Firstly, in sexuality, which is coveted since it creates a clash between tension and relaxation. Then, alcohol dependence, smoking, television, work... and anything else that helps you, through hypomanic emotionality, to modify what you find unacceptable or frustrating. He has to turn off the screams of a fierce narcissism inside him that reminds him that he is not what he should have become. And from there, the excess as narconization. As if in mania he could, for a moment, disguise reality to make it more like what he would like it to be.

This can create an uncontrollable compulsion that only stops when it's too late, when the body gives major signals of difficulty. His challenge to life has the flavor of an angry protest and demand for fair compensation for having failed, after the suffering experienced by becoming a benefactor of humanity, a great guru, a powerful shaman. It is the only way, only in this way, at high levels, it is possible to match the accounts with life.

Good and Helpful: Holy

The good nature of the social E7 must be understood as a strategy to get a look of desire and completeness from the other As often happens, he reproduces the game he learned with his mother. That look is a love with lowercase letters. A love conditioned to you behaving as I wish, to playing to complete me. In the social Seven, the excessive reliance on pleasure and the exaggerated avoidance of pain and frustration are sustained by an automatic scheme of seductive indulgence of the other to capture and receive attention. In a social dimension, this strategy is made explicit in being good and helpful, apparently sacrificed to the need of the other.

If the trap of the social E7 is complacency, it does not manifest itself in a general sense but only with those for whom it feels an interest and for a limited time.

Good and helpful in the enneagram there are several characters, but the only one who makes a career to be a saint is the social Seven. For this purpose, kindness and service to the other with an aggressive internal narcissism, which seeks extraordinaryness. Who is more good than a saint? Who is more extraordinary than a saint? The saint is one who has been recognized by the community. The social Seven is not only interested in being one in private, but wants to be recognized in the public square. The image of holiness is also suits this character as saints are also allergic to physical violence and genital pleasures.

Guiltiness

We will begin with the account of an episode in the life of Saint Francis in Assisi.

Something similar had happened to him before, during the winter of 1220-1221, when, forced by one of the frequent recrudescences of his illness, he had allowed himself to eat cooked meat. As soon as he felt somewhat recovered, he ordered his vicar, Pedro Cattani, to drag him half naked, pulling him by the neck through the streets of the city of Assisi, at the end of his preaching in the cate by a rope, dral. Arriving at the main square and the place where criminals were executed, he confessed aloud, and in front of a large crowd of people, the sin of gluttony he had committed.

We have already seen that being perceived as extraordinary is a vital neurotic need for him and that the map to get there is drawn from the information he has collected from the world. The ultimate goal of your existence is determined by your ideal self. Freud defined the superego as one of the three instances that form the psyche, the one in charge of supervising the ego. The superego is especially relevant in this subtype because the concept of sacrifice captures a particular submission of the psyche to this inner ideal. In the psychic life of the social E7 a fierce fight is waged between his ideal self and his real self.

The social Seven is the one who has the most contact with his superego of the three subtypes, since he has relied on it to point him to the place of the Holy Grail. This split inner reality will be a source of anxiety in relationships with oneself and with the other, knowing oneself double.

The internal movement is persecutory, with a high degree of guilt. It is the effect of renewed frustration, of the inability to fully realize oneself, of being in life. This trait resembles the Six characters, with the difference that the E7 has the ability to avoid and escape from the fear that can produce and with which the E6 constantly coexist.

In the related scene, Saint Francis transgresses (because he has real needs) and then makes a spectacle of his penance. Living guilt seems to forgive him in the eyes of God, and makes him feel superior. We find an aspect of jouissance: in the terrible guilt he feels fulfilled.

Hidden rebel, who devalues ​​authority

The social E7 will look anything but a rebel. At least not a dangerous rebel. But we must not forget that their relationship with their parental figures is tinged with manipulation, fraudulence and a secret feeling of being above them.

Thus, the general rebellion of the social Seven occurs with everything that limits him, frustrates him, makes him put his feet on the ground or contains him. It is a rebellion that will hardly appear directly, since he is terrified of conflict. For it to manifest, it needs a strong maternal authorization and a type of conflict in which the position of rebellion assimilates its ideals.

Paco Peñarrubia speaks of rebellion as a counterdependent reaction. From here we can specify two types: rebellion against the father and against the mother. It is an underground movement against the mother or father who have failed him, a way of returning the aggression suffered due to the confusion of roles.

The rebellious attitude, which has its roots in early childhood, expresses itself fully against authority in adolescence in an unspoken and silent manner. As with idealization, it has already taken root in the end of somewhere else to avoid what is frustrating and potentially painful in the here and now.

The social E7 harbors a feeling of rebellion against authority, a lack of discipline and the automatism of running away from responsibility, with the superficiality that this entails. It becomes strong so that it doesn't have to be nice anywhere, and it disperses through fantasies and new projects of unlimited possibilities.

Formal obedience (instrumental and aimed at avoiding conflict) and internal rebellion coexist in this character. Overt rebellion, understood as disobedience, is not typical behavior, because the social Seven lacks the assumption of obedience in terms of recognition of authority. In addition, he lacks the aggressive drive necessary to maintain a direct contest with authority. If he enters into conflict, he will never abandon the word and the correct channels to show rebellion.

The rebellion is internal and is connected to the concepts of aporia and chaos. It is a chaotic plunge into a realm without limits or boundaries, in a personal limbic interregnum where there are interpretable rules.

The social E7 can, then, accept a rule even though it does not share its meaning, devaluing the person who embodies authority. It is a veiled and angry rebellion, which does not reach adult and equal confrontation.

 In this very mental character, one of his favorite rebellions is the intellectual one. In her, the non-assumption of intellectual authorities, added to her difficulty in delving into concepts, generates a certain wandering and multi-knowledge at the service of her wanting to look extraordinary. It seems that he is more interested in impressing his interlocutor than letting himself be touched by the knowledge he acquires. The concepts acquired on the fly turn them into weapons of seduction and of rebellion The social E7 enthusiastically welcomes new perspectives, new models and, before even chewing them, making them their own and digesting them (letting the content feed them), activates the mechanism of rebellion through criticism to identify the weaknesses of the system and imagine the reasons why you can immediately spit it out.

From this point of view, all the ideas are good and none are convincing, all the systems are fascinating and none are exhaustive. Of each model, as of each person, it sticks, like a post-it, to a superficial characterization. Devotional gluttony for knowledge is what drives you forward, pushing, in search of perfect revelation.

He lacks the intellectual sobriety to be able to stop and (build knowledge in small steps, deepening, synthesizing. By becoming permeable to various types of knowledge, he limits his intellectual development. Everything that emerges again from the knowledge process leads him back to what he already knows, to sometimes with extreme superficiality and synthesis, and quickly rediscusses it in a critical way.This activates in the interlocutor the perception that the mind of the social Seven can contemplate anything and the opposite, in a kind of cognitive polymorphism.

“I am a teacher and, in fact, I have never stopped studying, but I have never delved into a single subject. When I start to master it, I feel like learning something new. This led me to be a know-it-all. So in fact, I teach and I have many options to impress the people who listen to me.” (TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO)

The deepening in the different models is done, in any case, with an attitude of rebellion towards the teachers; always with a clever wit, but never in an explicitly destructive way towards the person.

Intolerant of discipline/afraid of commitment

The social 7 has no choice but to become aware of his self-indulgence when he observes his lack of discipline. The only form of discipline that he knows is that which is expressed in the passivity of renunciation. In the field of action, he fails to plan and work on the basis of predetermined objectives. Follow the spur of the moment and instrumental goals to your visibility in the relationship. It manages to keep only the narcissistic motivation stable, but not to project itself in a dimension that is authentically oriented towards fulfillment, for which it is worth committing and maintaining the agreements. He is satisfied with his intellectual planning. This aspect makes the E7 social inherently unreliable.

Regarding trust, he does not believe in his own personal worth and therefore cannot get involved in an existential project. This basic position is confirmed by their inability to respect promises and keep agreements which, although supported by excellent justifications, does not allay the feeling of defeat and indignity. This model of neurotic functioning represents one of the mechanisms of perpetuation of failure at the social level of this character.

Planner/Idealist

The social enneatype Seven lives on projects and fantasies about how he can realize his dreams, confusing the imagination with the concrete act of realization and often remaining in the ideal illusion. It is common for you to start new projects with enthusiasm and then abandon them in the realization phase. This trend is due to two concomitant aspects. On the one hand, the difficulty of overcoming conflicts that would require the use of aggressive aspects, and on the other, that every realization implies frustration, since in the imagination more was expected from that project.

You often harbor a desire to always have plenty of options available to you and find it hard to make a real choice. Just as in affective relationships the social E7 feels caged, rarely in life choices has the feeling that the decision could be wrong, with all the suffering that this could bring. He returns again and again to the place of potentiality, where everything is possible and he does not have to deal with castration, his own limits and his own humanity.

The multiplicity of options makes possible decision making difficult. Not so much because of having to face the doubt but because he knows that in all the elections he will have to go through a certain degree of frustration. The lack of discipline and the difficulty in assuming responsibilities create the budgets to remain an eternal adolescent. Thus, long-term responsibilities become unbearable obstacles.

 Satisfying the neurotic need for novelty, to travel, to change jobs, to be interested in new topics or to open the hypothesis of going to live in another city are all tricks to always have a plan B (at a mental level) on the go. that allows you to fantasize about the possibility of leaving the model that creates certain difficulties when you get older. The game is beautiful when it does not last long.

The mental fugue in fanciful planning saves you from frustration and often prevents you from committing to the concrete in one direction. The resulting mental excitement is sometimes sufficient and fulfills a compensatory function for the ability to actually put oneself into play. It is therefore closely linked to the double objective of maximizing pleasure and minimizing the pain (frustration) that comes from the shock with reality.

Fantasy also represents the area where omnipotence and the grandiose identification of the social E7 can be expressed without fear to denials and serves the gods and not men.

“In conflict, showing the inside can be paralyzing. That is why being positive, bold, risky and with a sense of humor can become enviable; it is almost having the qualities that are needed in this world to be a great among the great. But it is such a vile trap that it plunges us into unimaginable depressions. In the same way that we can lift anyone's spirits, we self-destruct with that ingenious racial skill of limitless imagination. We can be the life of the party, giving the feeling of absolute joy, but inside we are that sad clown devoid of love.” (XAVIER)

Sceptical of authority

We have already discussed the social E7's compulsion to appear extraordinary. What is more extraordinary, regarding power, than to renounce it?

Social Sevens show their antisocial side to power in their lack of trust in authority and hierarchical structures, and in tolerating long-term commitments and taking responsibility. It is difficult for them to occupy positions of power, especially in explicitly patriarchal structures.

On a social level, however, she can create areas of influence through her work, taking advantage of her capacities linked to feminine values ​​of care and the transmission of knowledge. He does a good job as a family doctor, therapist, priest or teacher. Likes the role of teacher, guide or guru.

Masked competitiveness

Placing himself in the role of the anti-leader allows him to maintain an internal representation of superiority and make explicit an apparent detachment from competitive logics, with the advantage of not having to come into contact with aggressiveness and conflict. Even so, he has to feed the narcissistic beast that animates his neurosis, with which his competitiveness is voracious but never explicit. He must arrive with a he rewards home and if not, he eats away inside until he manages to activate those rationalizing and idealistic defenses with which he rewires his self-image.

If he can't win, he will create a subtle narrative where the important thing was not to be first but to be second. Failure dismantles his crazy idea that he can do anything and leaves him at the mercy of suffering again the emotional pain that bothers him so much. Losing casts doubt on the character; therefore competing and winning is essential.

Afraid of conflict

The social E7 reacts anxiously to conflicting movements of individuation in groups, and compulsively activates behaviors that tend to smooth out differences and deny conflicts. His idealism supports an idea of ​​shared power, typical of communities of life. It is a type of social structure that does not take into account the political-economic-social status of people to organize interactions. All masks fall and there is only one encounter between people, without the structural aspects contemplated in social relations.

The ideal of shared power, with its potential for organismic self-regulation, mutes his need to avoid conflict and allows him to avoid the pain of conflicting interests. Exotic trips, retreats in monasteries, infinite formations... seeking to be constantly in a ritual of passage, without participating in the structure of the world or facing the pain and repetition of everyday life. It is that being on top of the mountain, being well, feeling alive, feeling like brothers.

We can see this in the Rule of Saint Francis that, when he creates the Franciscan rules, what he wants is to avoid contact with the social structure. And one way to do this is to avoid contact with money and property.

The social E7 is ultimately more concerned with organizing hope than with generating a practical and reproducible structure.

Theatrical

A great theatricality, an innate comical vision allows him to draw attention to himself with the linguistic ability to amplify and extreme normal behavior, making it become paradoxical and grotesque with the creation of authentic characters. The social Seven has a natural comic tempo that allows him to enter any conversation, transform it into something funny, accompanying him to do everything with a naturally congruent gesture.

The long training in the pursuit of pleasure allows his mind to be constructed in such a way that he can find comic aspects in any situation, as if he were spontaneously capable of reconstructing it in humorous terms. It is a diversion that lives first in the inner world to later become the way to get along with others. It gives her a shot of energy that reaches its maximum in situations of seduction. This modality is evident in his talent for telling stories through quick and spirited associations, and is at the same time the matrix of an excitability that in some can become manic.

Hedonistic 

The social E7 identifies love with the permissiveness of its desires. Here again is the schizophrenia of the social E7, where one thing is inside and another is outside. On the outside, hedonistic permissiveness is covered by the label of hedonistic capacity. He shows his ability enjoy, which he uses to detect, obtain and consume pleasure, within his narcissistic display. He brags about his licentiousness and his ability not to get stuck there.

Inside, on the other hand, a hedonistic debauchery leads him, depending on his state of mind, to need huge doses of pleasure of all kinds in order to recover a minimal existential presence. This inner reality has more to do with the addiction than with the use of the pleasurable. Pleasure is the best medicine for his narcissistic pains, he believes. Or the one that works best in the short term, allowing you to go through the painful symptoms that your reality produces.

“We love to try everything, such as a dish that has an exotic and explosive combination of flavors that are exciting to the palate in the mix of its ingredients. Being able to intermingle a good wine with a talk that carries the exciting intrigue of merging the pleasure of eating, drinking, talking and, why not, the intimate interaction of bodies in action. We can never experience the best in this life; at this time novelties appear at lightning speed. What a curse, not having the time in this life to be able to indulge in the creations of this multi-cultural world. And understanding that this fantasy is impossible tears the adventurous soul. It is seeing freedom truncated, joy enslaved and not being able to give free rein to that passion. That is why we allow ourselves other pleasures that, although they are not as magnificent as those that are prevented from us, we do not get stuck, we continue creating. We allow ourselves to rejoice with what the moment and life gives us. We take from her what she offers, although sometimes we are torn apart by having opened our arms to the experience.” (XAVIER SUAREZ)

Seductive 

The interpersonal strategy of the social E7 is very subtle and hidden at the same time. We could define their way of relating as the expression of a basic ambivalence, in a mechanism of seduction and withdrawal.

When he is in the vicinity of the other, the seductive game of the social Seven intensifies, and he uses his best qualities: youthful, cheerful, teasing. As if he were in the service of the other, to change his mood and do him good, so that he feels good. make an unforgettable moment, creating an anchor with good humor and well-being. It becomes essential to surprise, fascinate, amuse, do anything that allows you to reach the other in an indirect way, and even better if in that false disinterest the other can get closer. It is never a straight process; choose the other without seeming to choose it. And since he has the etro in his head, he can strategically exploit any minimal opportunity to interest him and progressively approach him without showing interest.

On the one hand, the discharge of another has been delegitimized, because in the internal world of the social Seven, the experience of abandonment threatens any possible encounter. Desiring and the physical sensation of being rejected become contaminated, making the expression of desire unacceptable because it puts the person at risk of pain. The fear of reliving the old pain is at the base of their avoidant thoughts and behaviors. And the conviction of being able to ride it alone of not needing anyone crystallizes, over time, in a self-referential dimension centered on his internal world.

“I often use seduction to get what I want. Kindness, attention focused on the other and courtesy open all doors and create a good environment for communication.” (CARLO)

There is a strong similarity in this to the false abundance of E2. A magnificent idea of ​​oneself can be expressed in similar behaviors in both enchatypes. Now, the E2 contacts the other with an emotional sensitivity that allows him to grasp his needs in advance and satisfy them, and this is how he earns the qualification of great seducer. The seduction of the social E7 is more oral, above all, mental. He catches more with his words than with his energy.

We have a born attitude in seduction, and when we have a relationship, we can be indulgent if a possible gray hair could escape us. But as my love for myself matures, the need to experiment fades. That relentless search from bed to bed ends when I find rest in my own bed. (XAVIER)

Withdrawal or abandonment is very important for this character because social contact, even superficial, is dangerous. It can bring back a crack in your extraordinary self-image. So contact is a short game to gain a look that confirms your self-image. Anything else is too risky. Better to retire, since in solitude you can continue to decorate your self-image without the hassles of reality.

This defence, which he shares with schizoids, makes him like to go to his cave to relax by not having to act or serve the other. The world tires him because he relates to it in a neurotic way. On the one hand, with a seduction that seeks confirmation of his ideal image. And on the other, compulsively postponing the satisfaction of their own needs to serve the other. Exhausted and disappointed, he leaves.

While in the social moment sympathy and friendliness prevail, in the private he finds the place to recharge from the energy spent in society. An infantile regression prevails that hides the inability to manage one's own feelings, with a deep desire to be cared for or to abandon oneself to laziness and uncompromising fun. The intimate space with oneself is a refuge where the forces invested in the construction of the relationship can be replenished. It is a place of isolation and physiological recollection, a refuge from social anesthesia.

When I am in group situations, my energization is at its maximum. My interest is that others end up confirming my image of fun, friendly, jovial, «someone who knows how to live life». Seduction is generally more directed, in my case, at women beef. It is not a very sexual sedation but seeks confirmation of being good and special. However, as opposed to this compulsive seduction, there is an enormous need to withdraw from the handsome, since it is difficult for me to be with others if I am not at my best. Withdrawal allows one to be tired, absorbed or bored without the pressure of the gaze of others. Now, in withdrawal there is also the anxiety that I am missing something and the fear of retaliation from others for setting limits and giving me time to be alone. (VICTOR)

Abandoned

Sometimes the withdrawal appears when he has already achieved some narcissistic gratification. Other times, when he is exhausted by his inability to be authentically in the relationship. And finally, as a way of inflicting emotional pain.

Given that in his core scene of infantile pain there was an abandonment by the parents, real or felt, the social Seven is going to punish the other by abandoning him when he wants to avenge himself for some damage suffered. It is possibly his most aggressive way of attacking the other: abandoning him. Everything silent, swallowed, undigested in the relationship explodes in this action, often unexpected, in which he takes out all his rage in a passive-aggressive way.

Charlatan

The concept of charlatanism refers to the tendency of the social E7 to manifest its seductive capacity on the intellectual level through a skillful use of verbal intelligence. He can, in fact, present himself as a storyteller, almost a juggler of words, moving nimbly between irony, the use of metaphors and a taste for handling intellectual concepts.

In my first year on the job, I found myself having to invent a report from scratch in front of an audience of three hundred people for an hour. I had been sent by my boss to a company with the idea of ​​developing a questionnaire for research. When I arrived, to my surprise, they were waiting for a teacher in a training context.

When I began to understand the nature of my intervention, I thought about sending them all to hell, and in particular my boss, who had put me in a difficult situation, without explaining to me the context and the nature of what I had to do. But then I decided to accept a challenge, a challenge with myself, to prove my superiority. my value and, above all, to achieve the recognition of others. So I decided to improvise that speech out of nowhere in front of all the staff.

I imagined myself with the attitude of the university professor, who states ideas as if they were the result of years of research, not to explain but to explain in depth, using the tone of voice, pausing only in order to be convincing and believable. Looking back, from that episode in my life, I understood what fraud was. I was so convincing, after talking for an hour about nothing, that they asked me a lot of questions and inquired about my availability so that they could invite me on later occasions. I thanked them for their congratulations and told them that I would have to check my agenda because I had multiple commitments at the moment.

(TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO)

CHAPTER 5; EMOTIONALITY AND FANTASY

By DIEGO SAENZ

“What you need is to humanise yourself, to see the other as such and not as an expression of your unattainable models; All of these are dreams, fantasies created to avoid loving surrender, without guarantees or reservations. Feel (emotionally and sensorially) instead of thinking and imagining the transcendent love, the one that makes you touch the skies. That love, as a transforming force, exists, it is a real and known experience. The mistake is not accepting its gratuitousness and impermanence.” (FRANCISCO PEÑARRUBIA)

The use of fantasy is central to this character. Although it catches him less than his sexual brother E7, it is an essential element to maintain his inner peace and repair the narcissistic wounds that living causes him. In these fantasies he can live his ideal self, his ideal family, his ideal world, in addition to conveying what he does not dare to play in the world: his rawest sexual impulse and his aggressiveness. Let us not forget that he is a mental character with a strong energy charge, who does not dare to convey many of his impulses in the real world, and one of your ways of processing that energy will be through fantasy. Good examples of this are Jules Verne, Anton Chekhov and José Martí. They all tapped into their rich, energized fantasy in their stories. Most social E7s don't get that, and settle for using it to tell, sustain, and survive in reality.

I will now allow myself a few lines in the first person. Apparently, emotionality and fantasy were already weaving their first self-help networks from my earliest age, working together and aligned in pursuit of a single common goal: to achieve my own survival. What I can remember the most from my childhood are the states that I spent in desired solitude, achieving moments of transcendent plenitude. Since my father worked in the fields, in the summer we spent the three months of vacation with him and the rest of my family, and I remember sitting on some giant rocks (although they certainly weren't that big) that were inside a eucalyptus mountain, which also seemed giant to me, and from there I simply tried to concentrate looking at the leaves of the branches of the trees, trying to analyze the sound that the wind produced when passing between them.

 It was a routine that I did almost daily, trying to fill the void in my emotional body. And that was the way I found to survive my childhood, doing it the adult way. And since there wasn't much room for play or fun around me, I just settled in solitude not to be disturbed because I knew deep down that I wouldn't be in danger.

Meanwhile I fantasized about my own movies. He chose the actors, the music, the script; I designed sets, costumes and went over the scenes as many times as necessary, and I always did it all alone. I don't remember inviting anyone to see my "works" because I sensed that no one would understand them, and perhaps I was also afraid of being criticized. We already know what that means for a social Seven, who almost always experiences criticism as an expression of heartbreak.

Those recreational activities in the open air were true meditative spaces that managed to convince me that I could come to exist for even a chance of belonging and surviving in such a painful world. It was about coming home and that is why today I relate them to meditation, where we try to do the same thing in a way. I guess as a child I would miss my brave new world. I would feel by then that my peace and tranquility had been taken from me without even having been consulted. I seem to have traded my mother's womb for Earth's womb so I can feel safer again.

I felt my childhood in a certain way as an intermediate stage between sleep and awakening, between the unconscious and the conscious, and perhaps also between life and death. Sometimes I imagined that life was a joke in bad taste and I hoped to be woken up at any moment.

Later, in my teens, I maintained the need for seclusion and solitude, but now in the company of books and choices with gatherings. Hesse, Fromm, Goethe, Nietzsche, Master Eckhart and so many others. I also tried to read on my grandmother's piano the Chopin titles that she had forgotten before she died.

Back then, I sensed that at some point I was going to have to go out into the outside world and I wanted to prepare myself as much as possible. One good strategy would be to follow Leonardo's polymath model of Homo universalis, which is why I kept studying (something I've done all my life).

He was a devourer of books on almost all subjects. Actually I read everything that was put in my hands, and through my reading I traveled and fantasized, and visited all places at all times. I talked with the protagonists and many times they surprised me by changing the endings of stories. I also knew that I wanted to be a doctor, although in reality I always had the profound feeling of having been a kind of twentieth-century medieval abbot, who in addition to medicine and theology he would have studied all the sciences, both East and West. It would seem that the monastery seclusion of the abbey, far from bothering me, would experience it as something pleasant, since within it I ensured that I could maintain relational asepsis with the outside world, in addition to being able to count on all the time in the world to try to satisfy my narcissistic literary gluttony.

I finally decided to specialize in psychiatry, even though my romantic idealism later led me to not wanting (or not being able) to finish graduate school. While I enjoyed reading the classic textors, I didn't feel the same way when I attended practices and athenaeums. I naively believed that there we would try to 'cure souls' (etymological origin of the word 'psychiatry'), and in reality these were not even recognized.

This autobiographical exhibition shows how the social E7 lives life with a cinematographic attitude. And he describes how, through imagination and fantasy, he reconstructs reality and reduces the impact of emotional pain and frustration. The creation of an ideal universe represents the best escape route from reality, allowing you to imagine a world to suit you, where you remain in control and harmony is guaranteed.

“As a child, when I went to sleep in a negative state, I imagined that I had a beautiful dream. Thus, I would see again in my fantasy some scenes of an adventure movie that I had been passionate about in the previous days. My imagination was so vivid that I became the protagonist of the film. Reliving the most exciting moments changed my mood, and when I woke up the next morning I had the feeling that I had continued the fantasy during my dream.” (TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO)

Fantasy allows us to deflect the emotional stimuli that the social E7 is not capable of sustaining in the here and now. Just as fantasy is your great neurotic ally, emotionality is your staunch enemy. The emotional brain is almost completely disabled in the Social seven. Rationalisation absorbs the energy produced in the emotional center. The result of this process is a complete loss of the habit of perceiving and discriminating the sensations that make up the various emotions, an ataraxia that plays a leading role in the functioning of the social E7, especially when marking the relationship with oneself and with others. the others from a fair distance.

In all situations the energy tends to rise towards the head. Thus, the social Seven gives the mental processes the main energy charge. Also the habit of going against situations and not wanting to live in the present frustrating moment prevents him from receiving the information that comes from the emotional center to use it in a congruent way. Instead, it creates energy blockages that inevitably cause you discomfort. He is afraid to feel, to feel, since this takes him away from his ideal self-image. And he is terrified of emotional pain. Therefore unplug the emotional center. You don't trust your emotions. You don't trust your body. He prefers his dead fantasies to real, excited contact.

Therefore, at least two types of emotional problems are evident. On the one hand, the accumulation of anger that, as we have seen, cannot be expressed, except when it reaches saturation, with all that this implies in terms of internal tension. Second, the excessive investment in thought activates a fantasy with which it creates a satisfying virtual reality, which puts you in a good mood and drives away frustration. In this way, the imagination plays an important role in maintaining a balance, even if it is unstable and unsatisfying.

“My fantasies with girls [...] as a way to not feel the pain and loneliness.” (TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO)

The fantasy is designed to change the negative experience of the moment, in order to create a positive emotional state that moves away from it, giving rise, at the same time, to a kind of self-consolation, a momentary emotional substitute with which to calm the inner world a little.

“I was driving up to the room of my father, who had passed away a few hours earlier, with great sadness and shock. During the journey, my mind automatically began to show me slides of mental images of the happiest moments I had with my father. So when I got to the head of his bed, he was in a state of well-being, almost paradoxical. It was so good that I wasn't moved at all.” (TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO

 As in the case of E5 that, moved by the passion of greed, he tends to put distance between himself and the world, to take refuge in his inner universe, often very rich in knowledge acquired through years of study, to As a result of a series of interpersonal difficulties, the social E7 also withdraws into its own fantasy world.

“In my last years of university, at times when I was frustrated not having money to go on a trip or to make plans with friends, my mind would imagine projects, in the near future, that would bring me prosperity. that I wanted at that moment.

Effortless prosperity, without the frustrating burden for me to have to work hard to get to have a lot. I trusted my ability to make a mental puzzle in which money converged, little effort and this was important - the possibility of generating that prosperity in an ethical way (I could not be one of those selfish exploiters who care little about the welfare of others). So I could spend minutes, hours, until I was convinced that at some point, I would carry out my fantasy project and the one that, in prosperity, would come to my life.

But this desire for money was not important because of the fact of accumulating, but because of the ability it gave me not to have to deprive myself of anything I wanted. Of course, these fantasies never came to light, because they went against the image he was trying to project: that of an ethical person, humane and little interested in the material aspects of life. (VICTOR)

The fantasy of the social Seven is often very quick in imagining the realization of a future project, even if it lacks foundation. Let us not forget that Ichazo posited planning as the fixation or cognitive distortion of E7. In the case of the social subtype, this planning as an existential anxiolytic appears automatically, as in the alcoholic who, faced with the slightest problem, needs a drink. Your dose of fantasy, often in the form of planning, will appear. From a painful present to a harmonious future in a few seconds, as if it were a shot of heroin.

His fantasies reconnect with the past. If the effect is born from a distant mother who praises the child by focusing on its positive aspects, we rediscover this same structure in fantasy. Here too the protagonist revives that vain consent, being the center of his imaginary scene.

In this way, fantasy becomes an essential component of the social E7. It becomes a way of feeding oneself at the expense of the possibility of perceiving the richness of life and carrying out concrete projects.

CHAPTER 6; CHILDHOOD

By CRISTINA BUSI

Frequently, the man with a sweet tooth is a worshiper of his mother, and his life is [...] oriented around an idealized image of a woman who represents the beginning and the end of all pleasures and good things in life.

CLAUDIO NARANJO,

The enneagram of society

The myth of happy childhood

The social E7 has from his childhood the idea of ​​a stage devoid of worries. As if all the painful experiences had been relegated to some dark room in the recesses of the mind.

Unlike the E4, which identifies with a devalued self and perceives that something is missing, with an inner emptiness that feeds through self-frustration, the social Seven identifies with an idealized self and with the fantasy of what it will be like. when he has fulfilled his dreams of glory, nourishing himself on the vanity that gives him that presumed success in the eyes of others.

Projecting into the future, displacing frustration and denying pain come together in the mythical story of a happy childhood. What sustains the memory is the imagined experience, while the traumatic biographical events are censored or minimized in their emotional impact.

“I remember my childhood as a stage that was not necessarily very happy and in fact there are very few memories that I manage to retain of it. Over time I have thought that the cause of this little memory of my childhood could be related to a process of selective childhood amnesia, to which my unconscious would have resorted as a Darwinian mechanism of adaptation and survival. A kind of neural pruning whose sole objective would have been to be able to remember only those scenes experienced as gratifying, or at least not too painful.” (DIEGO)

The early dissociation of E7 from his emotional experiences feeds a biographical account that is not misleading in itself but rather because of the meanings attributed to it. Running away from home are adventures, loneliness is a place that allows you to be in contact with nature and the world, failures and abandonment are simple route changes.

The tendency to distort the facts in the light of a denial of pain and frustration also applies retrospectively and therefore, the past is simply the prelude to the wonderful future that awaits him and is covered not so much with the traumas suffered as with resilience.

The good boy 

One of the dominant characteristics of the social E7 is related to the role he plays in his family, which we could summarize with the formula: good boy.

“Today I see that I will tend to be good and lie to safeguard my image or my position as a misinformed person. He unconsciously used tools that were there as life preservers. With a tendency to manipulate actions to look good with others, let them walk all over me and evade conflict.” (ANONYMOUS)

The rule that the social Seven has given itself during its development is to exercise the role of measuring family imbalances. Very attentive to the needs, whether manifest or implicit, of all the members, and oppressed by the impossibility of solving the family's problems, he tries to activate two types of behavior: distracting from the problems and, when that is not possible, not creating others.

The two behaviors offset each other, so that being a good child means responding to the demands of the environment in a functional way and at the same time remaining unnoticed. He is a child whose concern is not to create problems for the people who care for him, who in his experience are overwhelmed by their own existential problems. The standard behavior that guides their action expresses an adaptation that satisfies environmental demands and does not require any investment of energy, not even in terms of expectations.

Therefore, he is a child who does his duty at school, in a dynamic family, with his friends, avoiding that they can generate involve parental figures. It grows up alone, imposing rules and roles. Try to help, anticipate the needs of the other, be available, collaborate and, when possible, enliven the family environment by creating a happy, serene and light atmosphere.

The demand that he makes of himself consists of exerting the least possible impact on the parents, of not being one more burden for them. It is progressively present with an active transparency: neutral in the face of explicit demands and needs, and active when it offers help and presence in the family in an apparently spontaneous and natural way.

The achievement of this status in the family requires a great capacity for self-containment and self-gratification, which the social E7 child develops through the imagined idealization of the effects that his actions will cause. The neurotic balance of this behavior is to believe that it can relieve Mom's sadness or some kind of Dad's distress, and thus be responsible for some degree of adult happiness.

Some consequences of this behavior, more refined and sustained by a more structured relational strategy, are also found in the relationship of the adult social E7 with groups: Present and reserved, attentive to the demands of others, available when necessary and detached from group dynamics. Agreeable, able to tune in and relate to all group members, only superficially involved. He is not a leader and his absence is not noticed; if it is present, it is an added value; and is capable of mimicry both when it is present and when it is absent. He is not popular in the strict sense of the term, and yet he communicates with many members of the group and leaves a pleasant wake with his presence.

The mother, when love is a trap. A poem about the mother-son relationship

Mother, say, why are you crying and so sad, sitting there on the floor! Can't you see that the rain is coming through the window and that you're getting wet?

Hey, the gong is striking four and my sister has to get back from school. What's wrong with you, say, mother? Why are you so strange? Haven't you had a letter from dad today?

Today the postman brought a letter to the whole town, I've seen it. Only Dad's letters are kept in a sack for him to read. Mother, I'm sure the postman is very bad!

But don't be there for that, mother. Look, tomorrow is the town fair over there. Let the maid go and buy pens and paper. I myself am going to write all of Dad's letters to you. And you'll see how you can't find any shortcomings.

I'll write straight from A to K... Why are you laughing, made? Do you think I can't write as well as Dad? You'll see, I'll make a line on the paper with a ruler and I'll be very careful, and I'll make the letters really big.

And when it's over, do you think I'm going to be as dumb as Dad, who puts the letter in that ugly postman's sack? I'll bring it to you myself on the spot and help you spell it! I know that the postman does not like to give you the best cards!

Rabindranath Tagore, The Bad Postman

Despite the story that the social E7 makes of himself, describing an upbringing in a serene environment and with a happy personal story, it is about a child who went through a difficult situation: A mother present but not good enough, in the Winnicott's meaning, which due to physical or psychological difficulties has not been able to empathically grasp the needs of the child, especially in the oral phase of development.

Fundamental to the intrapsychic dynamism of the social Seven is the partial failure of maternal restraint during the oral phase. The remoteness and early stimulation of the child's autonomy creates a vulnerable psychic zone. The oral need (hunger for love) not completely satisfied brings with it sequels of frustration that will become the path that will have to be traveled to return home.

 It is as if, in a very early phase of life, at the culmination of the oral phase, the child was invited to be autonomous in relation to maternal care. The mother abruptly interrupts the phase of the maternal reflex, in which she adapts to the demands of the child and gives, more or less consciously, a turn through which it is the child who must adapt to the maternal rhythms.

“Fifteen days after my birth, my mother gets sick; she has a postpartum infection and is admitted to the hospital, thereby interrupting her lactation period. My grandmother took care of me for a month. I feel, in a way, regressed, the deception for not having received what was due me and a latent lack of trust in the other is born in me.” (TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO)

“The displacement of the symbiosis to a level that is no longer physical (satisfaction of needs) but relational is typical of the social E7. The pain that stems from the distance from the mother will be compensated by her loving gaze, full of gratitude. If you complete me, I'm going to give you that look, which is my love.” (TESTIMONIAL, Aracaju Symposium, 2016)

 It is here that the drive for conservation, founded on necessity, finds a diversion towards dependence on the narcissistic satisfaction of the social instinct. (In other words, the sweet tooth becomes a sweet tooth and diverts greed into the relationship.)

The emptiness generated by frustration will become the engine to activate good behavior and find momentary satisfaction in the idea of ​​being the promoter of other people's happiness. The unexpressed and unfulfilled need in the oral phase will be the engine of a restless search. There will be no paradises in which to stop, because there was no expulsion from paradise.

Like Peter Pan, the social E7 has, as an alternative to the island that does not exist and where he is condemned to an eternal childhood, the position of looking from a window at a mother nursing her child. His story unfolds between an artificial paradise and an Eden that looks out the window, where pleasure is seen and not tasted.

From a certain point on, intimacy is looking at each other from afar full of love, maintaining complicity at a distance, knowing that they understand each other and being the privileged confidant (even with respect to the father).

In this respect, we can pass that it works with an anxious-avoidant attachment. In this type of attachment, the infant, after a period of separation from the mother, when reunited with her, may show open signs of anger or separate with apparent indifference. Parents often behave with rejection or neglect of the infant, tend to be emotionally distant, with a reduced capacity for affective attunement and limited use of nonverbal channels of communication.

Emotions tend to be demoted to the background in relation to the rational reading of events and internal states. For the regulation of internal states, the verbal cognitive level is used almost exclusively. This sometimes compromises social skills and makes it difficult to interact with peers." Several common aspects are evident in the biographies of the social E7. They are critical experiences that cause emotional stress, which create in the child a feeling of abandonment and lack of confidence in the possibility of obtaining an adequate satisfaction of needs.

“Surgical intervention at three years due to a facial angioma. I remember very well a kind of green suction cup that came close to my face and the terror at the moment of anesthesia. When I wake up, I see my cousin with her husband, unknown to me. I also remember that we played with some pegs. I didn't look up because in the bed next to me there was a little girl, bandaged, burned. I was shocked and scared by his accident. I felt alone and disoriented. I thought I was lucky because I hadn't been burned. I remember very well the plastic base in which I put the pegs.” (CHRISTINE)

The lack of maternal care is internalized, as if feeling a need were something to which one has no right, something illegitimate. The lack of trust nurtures a deep alienation from oneself and from one's own wants and needs. This renunciation of oneself manifests itself in a dramatic way, with a very deep pain and a rage on the surface that, with the passing of time, transforms into the decision not to need anything from anyone.

“I'm not interested in anything offered to me. Thus, I become a lonely child; I often leave home without warning and force everyone to look for me.” (TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO)

 It is possible that abandonment episodes cannot be found and more than great traumas, it is in the lack of quality and in the distance of the relationship with the mother where the neurotic nucleus of the social E7 tends to germinate. The son or daughter assumes the task of healing the mother's pain. The mother figure is consumed by her burden of pain, linked to a sense of significant loss, which often leads her to a depressive abyss.

The son is linked to the mother through a privileged relationship, as if he were the only one capable of understanding the burden of maternal pain, in fact has the sensitivity to grasp the weight and uses all his resources to save the mother. These are not fantascado stories. In the biography of the social E7, the son or daughter is often involved in the mother's ideas and suicide attempts, so that the role of the savior is established in an increasingly coercive manner.

The son progressively renounces manifesting himself and manifesting his existential project. He refuses to put an end to a separation that would be healthy for him on an evolutionary level and remains imprisoned in a pathological relationship with his mother.

This role is manifested, psychologically or emotionally, through behaviors imagined as functional for the good of the mother, and, therefore, through the mask of the child. Within this rational dynamic, the son crystallizes an evolutionary phase while the father, co-function of active agent in the separation of the mother-child dyad, is subtly invalidated.

The father, or when who can tell who's the bad guy in the movie

The father is often seen as a function of familiesand not as an effective point of reference.

“Often, the violence occurred within the home, generally with explicitly violent fathers and psychologically violent mothers. The father's violence generates fear and misunderstanding, and at the same time, his admiration is sought. The emotional absence of the father is also experienced as violence.” (TESTIMONIAL, Aracaju Symposium, 2016)

The paternal function has the task of helping the son to overcome the symbiosis with the mother, to bring him into the world, to help him learn the rules, particularly those of life. How can such a thing be verified with an absent father due to work or inability to Assume that role? The father seen through the child's eyes is a powerless and at the same time distant figure, incapable of offering an affective presence and an understanding of the child's rhythms and needs.

Another relevant aspect is the confusion between force and violence, to the extent that the force inside the childhood home manifested itself accompanied by violence. In reaction to this paternal violence, he has developed an impotence towards his father, as if he had introduced the message "I can't handle him." In the conflictive dynamic between the parents, the mother is perceived as the weak and fragile part, as the victim who must be defended from the father.

“Violent verbal argument between dad and mom, like a child, feeling the fear, the pain, a lump in the throat, tension in all the muscles of the body, clenched fists, my heart wanting to come out of my chest, wanting to yell at them: shut up, don't argue in front of me, I'm a child I didn't have the strength to tell them, it got stuck in my throat, only when I managed to look at them angrily, wanting this disharmony in my environment to end soon, looking for distractions for me and my parents, wanting to have a magic wand to dissolve that conflict immediately.” (TESTIMONIAL COLLECTED BY VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO)

The social E7 child in fact assumes a parental function with respect to at least one of the parents, abdicating the role of son in relation to both. Sacrifice is a behavior that is explained by the family of origin. It is a search for the highest position in the family at the expense of oneself. They all mutilate themselves, but the social E7 will want to appear as the most mutilated of all. It is a way of adaptation that gave him a good place in his family.

This supposes a dynamic organization between the instances of obedience and rebellion, in a behavior that reflects the ambivalence regarding the father figure.

“I remember that for several years I was afraid of my father. He was choleric and assumed an authoritarian educational style. I think my main concern was keeping him from getting angry. For no reason. And if possible, anticipate the demands, so that everything is calm. When he was available to talk, my father was really intelligent and stimulating.” (CHRISTINE)

We will now develop the subtly anti-authoritarian behavior of the social E7. His solution is to hide from authority and do things clandestinely. In doing so, guilt appears. In addition, an internal, non-explicit and very strong rebellion develops against the father, as compensation for the lack of courage to confront him directly.

The internal situation, therefore, of the absence of a father; It is not anti-authoritarian, it is authoritical. This follows from the relationship of the social Seven with the rules, of whose function of regulating behavior it is not aware

“My parents, as a teenager, called me insolent, cheeky, shameless, cynical, vicious and playful on many occasions. I did not understand what was the background of his perception, I was not that. I just kept my engine running, so I wouldn't get bored in life, I just wanted to get closer to whatever kept me excited and moving. I did not hide my great need for novelty, nor did I hide my great satisfaction with what was pleasant. But it wasn't out of shame; It's not that he didn't know the limits of modesty; I knew them, but I wasn't interested in following them, they weren't limiting my way of living. Although that also puts me in a dilemma. If I showed myself as I wanted, they repressed me, so I sharpened my way of tricking from a tone of benevolence and, instead of appearing disrespectful, I dressed as altruistic.” (XAVIER)

The internal choice of the social E7, which will develop indulgence, is to adapt to the context, to camouflage as long as this behavior is functional to one's own well-being. For the rule, understood as a social law, to be respected, the fundamental assumption is missing, that is, the recognition of the other, an adult, whose authority is considered.

As we have said, the social E7 child grows up alone and, therefore, it is he himself who establishes what is fair and what is not, the rules and norms; and based on an instrumental good and not a sense of justice: I'm a good boy because that way you'll be happy. Its adaptation is to anticipate and deactivate a demand; the ruler is simply a commodity. There is no real hetero-regulation and, therefore, self-regulation, and that is why, deep down, the social Seven has a sweet tooth.

“Obedient to the force; there is no other possibility to get what I want.” (CARLO)

In other words, the function of authority is meaningless and the inner father is, in fact, dichotomized in a love-hate ambivalence.

“Going against the father becomes the metaphor for going against the rules and authority. The omnipotent idea of ​​being able to do what you want, of feeling free from limitations, has nothing to do with a genuine and deep connection with oneself, which results from the integration of the father figure.” (TESTIMONIAL, Aracaju Symposium, 2016)

In order to defend the bond with an idealized mother, it becomes natural to establish an implicit alliance, which in some cases can reach a deep identification, as if the child had to support her and deal with the mother's pain as if it were his own. We believe that this decision is one of the possible matrices of the sacrificial passion. It is to become a hero, a hypothetical good father or the savior of his mother, especially when he is objectively in difficulty.

All this ends up creating a strong opposition towards the father, who is often absent and who becomes the ogre of the fable. Especially when the dynamic between the parents is conflictive and the mother, in the eyes of the child, is his victim. In this way, the father becomes the outcast, the evil to counteract, especially within himself.

 As a secondary effect, the devaluation of the real father makes identification with paternal characteristics conflictive, perceived only through the distorting lens of his devaluation by the mother. The son seeks, desires and at the same time rejects the father, who, with his affective distance, is perceived as the mother's executioner. The result is a conflict between an unacceptable part of himself, which needs to be hidden, and the idealization of himself as a good and positive hero.

Not having differentiated from the mother, the social E7 does not reach the educational stage and he fails to establish a confrontation with the father. The relationship with him is one of the first needs denied.

The conflictivity between the father and the mother is internalized as repeated traits in the psychic organization of the social Seven: the idealized mother in her role as victim and the father, degraded figure, expression of radial forms of patriarchy, as if he were the only promoter of the same. The inner world is divided into good and bad, and the origin of all maes shifts, in a Manichean way, to the function of the father.

The son's foundation assumes the value of the ransom and loses its potential psychic integration, conferring powers on this psychological component that are perceived as extraordinary at the narcissistic level. The son will save himself, the mother and the world; here are the premises of an undisguised and deviating identification with the divine son. In his alliance with the mother, the child imagines that he will be able to go beyond the father, defeat him and make up for his mistakes. The mechanism through which the social hero cannot fight against a father whom he devalues ​​and does not recognize takes root. You can only transcend it, into another world and another dimension, through the yearning for holiness.

With this abominable pact, social E7 denies himself the possibility of an authentic confrontation with admiring paternal love, which will never be enough and which conditions the perception of himself as a kind person. You will be able to use only maternal love, compassionate love. But it is the love for the poor and for the victims that he will be able, subtly and instrumentally, to dedicate to others and not to himself.

The preceding paragraphs highlight the existential check of the social Seven, divided into a double set of identifications between the paternal and maternal figures, which leads him to reproduce in himself an edition of the dramatic triangle savior-victim-executioner.

The process of formation of the personality of the social E7 is based on the identification with the person who exercises the maternal function and the assumption of feminine relational modalities, while the desire to identify with the father figure remains unmanifested.

On the other hand, the identification with the unconscious savior is due to the assumption of the characteristics of the executioner and generates a dynamic conflict that is seen in the difficulties of the social Seven for intimate relationships.

The evolution in terms of introjection could be reconstructed in this way: The patriarchal mind of the social E7 is based on the image of the victim of patriarchal power, that is, of the mother In the inner family of the social Seven, the feminine-maternal -compassionate is manipulative and unfaithful, while the admiring masculine-paternal is a denied desire. The natural and balanced evolution of the inner family resides in integrating the father, redefining the mother function and accepting the son function.

In phenomenological terms, the patriarchal mind of the social Seven is dominated by an impoverished son function in terms of attachment to organismic energy. It is not a true child function; it is the caricatured aspect of a father function imploded and made impotent by an exclusionary and falsely compassionate maternal function.

The only authorized masculine resource is intelligence which, deprived of its instinctive base, is only functional to power games and is bent on self- and hetero-seductive functions (and not, as in the case of an E5, inclined to the creation of theories).

The process of identification-counter-identification is also very clear with respect to gender identification. Neither men nor women Social Sevens adhere to aesthetic and behavioral gender clichés and tend towards androgynous flattening, which is the result of amplifying masculine characteristics in the female social E7, and feminine characteristics in the male social E7.

Not all social E7 were the object of more or less explicit violence in the family. For some, the encounter with a violent reality occurs in normal schooling, in military schools or religious communities; places marked by dogmatism and that censored action and thought to a certain degree

CHAPTER 7; PERSON AND SHADOW: WHAT IS DESTRUCTIVE FOR ONESELF AND FOR OTHERS

By CRISTINA BUSI, LLUÍS FUSTÉ AND VINCENZO D'AMBROSIO

In previous entries we have described the functioning of character, more with its shadows than with the opportunities it offers to the person who lives from it. The social Seven comes into contact with that shadow in his intimacy as he progresses in his work of disidentification with character functioning. It becomes clear to him that his passion to look extraordinary, his self-sacrifice, or his fixation on self-indulgence has an aspect that is destructive to himself and to the world. Next we will complement these forms that it has to harm life.

To understand how his self-destructiveness works, it is worth remembering that his basic core is mistrust, in himself and in others. He connects the difficulty in nurturing others with a sense of ontological unworthiness to be loved. This sense of deep unworthiness is associated with a basic pain that supports his reaction to avoid contact. We could define the social E7 as an emotional anorexic, a constantly hungry being who denies his hunger and bases his supposed superiority on denial and control manipulator of their emotional needs. It is in this anti-preservation strategy that self-destructiveness is based. A first form of destructiveness is towards one's own body. For the social E7, the body is a machine at the service of the mind and considers it in terms of efficiency. There is no loving care, just efficient maintenance.

Primarily the need to feed and man have the body in a functional physical form. all the necessities primaries are postponed in an unconscious delirium of omnipotence.

From the perspective of destructiveness we can also see its relationship with money, understood as a basic resource. He lives it with detachment and superiority, as a means to achieve other goals. He has no love for money, he does not accumulate it or care about its management in the medium or long term. Money is a vulgar subject.

It interests him as an instrumental good through which he can achieve a supreme good, for which he uses it to exhibit an attitude of generosity; it is a tool to promote the social image (of kindness) and seduction. In no way can it be an end because he considers it a worldly good and, therefore, far from the aspects that decorate his idealized, holy image. The social E7 does not feel comfortable owning goods and money. He shows no attachment to objects or material resources, boasting of his generosity. This difficulty in dealing with money in reality puts him in trouble since it does not allow him to build financial security. Again, from his ideal of not needing, he does not attend to his real needs and puts himself at conservation risk.

Another way in which this character expresses his self-destructiveness is in relation to his emotional needs. The social Seven, like all people, needs love, contact, intimacy. surrender to the other The mistrust that there can be love for him leads him to deny these needs, and once again transforms her reactively into emotional independence. His defensive idealism is catastrophic in affective terms since, by not contacting the difficult emotions his interpersonal relationships cannot be actualized and deepened to ultimately nurture him.

The E7 associates itself in a sea of ​​unidirectional relationships. He believes that he can be in the world as a giver and establishes his network by placing himself as superior, without dealing with the actual exchange in the relationship. The maintenance of this exchange is based on the realization of the nardsist idea of ​​oneself, emptying the contact with the other of real content. More than destruction, this ensures the non-construction of real reactions. On the surface, you seem to live in an ocean of relationships, and in reality you feel like you are in a desert.

This way of functioning is tied to their tendency to distance themselves and withdraw from relationships. In solitude you get the energy recharge, which is really just a reduction in the fatigue of relating. In the medium term, isolation brings a “problem”: it brings him into contact with the inner world, where he finds himself once again with the pain that he wants to avoid at all costs. The experience of boredom, of isolation, of being nothing reappears in relational withdrawal, so contact with oneself must be broken.

What is destructive for others is not what they receive from this character but the place from which it gives. It is a selfish and narcissistic internal place in which the other is nothing more than a mirror where you can see your extraordinary image reflected. Those who want to rob people of this character have it easy and can take advantage of them as long as they make them believe that they are being impressed by the privileges of the social Seven. On the other hand, for those who believe that in the giving of this subtype there is something more, those who wait for their presence, those who feel that there is an exchange in that giving, will feel disappointed and used.

What is destructive in the relationship is especially evident in the couple and intimate friendships. In the same way that at first he used a seduction made of understanding, politeness, good humor, happiness and optimism, later on the desire for the other person to play the same role takes shape. This condition, not made explicit, will serve as an excuse to start the game of devaluation of the other.

The mask of seductive complacency will break and the child who has swallowed all the anger will appear. In this way, an explosive rage begins to manifest, and the aggressive attitude is strengthened, creating a greater distance and a process of aggression towards the person who has frustrated him. This becomes someone with a thousand faults and weaknesses, an enemy with whom it is not worth continuing to associate. The social E7 begins to think about how to break the relationship, how to punish the partner or the close friend. Conflict and emotional distance are expressed more and more frequently. At this point in the game, the relationship is seen as a source of exhaustion, and the social Seven flees into restful isolation. This defensive modality creates a cushioned bubble, a subjective and virtual reality that distances you from contact with the other.

The trials of life related to separations, bereavement, and events involving inevitable pain undermine the self-referential system of the social E7, destroying character defenses and bringing out the core of the basic wound. A painful feeling of unworthiness and rejection arises that seems to lead to disruption, to a blind, violent and murderous rage towards the alleged aggressor, in a context in which he is not equipped to manage the emotional dimensions avoided for so many years.

In the most extreme cases, derealization can occur, understood as the experience of estrangement from life itself that, as a result of ataraxia, does not transmit any emotion. Like seeing life through a distancing filter. The partner or close friends thus suffer a surprise attack. They don't understand why so much of what was going on in the relationship has been kept from them. Basically, everything painful and frustrating has not been confronted in due time and only appears through explosion or abandonment. This unconsciously shallow relationship makes it very difficult for him to anchor people in life to deep levels and live the relationship in all its dimensions. Those who accompany this functioning in intimacy will feel attacked, disoriented and angry with their way of handling conflicts.

In the representation of pain there is an equivalence with death. This idea is the basis for his avoidance, a strategy that over time has not allowed him to develop the psychophysiological devices designed to allow him to feel pain and manage it. This fear of death ends up making him allergic to the cycles of life that are plagued by small deaths. Here we see how he lacks the courage to face the truth in his relationships; he feels that he will not be able to bear the pain that comes with transparency. And without truth, nothing grows.

Neurotic contact with the other makes it possible to avoid intimacy with oneself and with others, and functions as a distraction and a palliative filling of the existential void.

Thus, the tendency in relationships is towards discontinuity, based on repeated enthusiastic withdrawals and returns, ruptures and opening of new relational fronts. There are maintenance mechanisms that, mitigating the effects of these continuous oscillations, are complemented by the destructive dynamics of this subtype: distance or impossible relationships, where excited contact-withdrawal cycles are the usual dynamic.

This subtype is one of the more neurotically mystical characters in the Enneagram, attempting to identify with the divine ideal to such an extent that self-dissociation is based on this basic principle. It creates the conditions for the denial of what it claims to believe, denying the experiential dignity of life.

Narcissistically infatuated with the idea of ​​son of God, he bases his spiritual experience on a jumble of temporary ideas and experiences, none of which can be turned into real involvement. Spiritual experiences, as well as relational ones, lose appeal as soon as they require a real and transformative commitment. Even my spiritual path meanders in search of the extraordinary: guides, thoughts, schools, experiences; in other words, the gluttony of plurality, the idealization of the spiritual path. This is self-defeating because it mortgages one of its development paths by tricking it. The mystical is sought from neurosis, not found from the human thirst for development.

“I remember working in Brazil with a leader of an evangelical church who confessed in the group that he did not believe in God and that every Sunday he felt like a fraud sitting in front of the faithful and proclaiming the bonds of his church. Nobody knew his inner truth and he knew how to make a perfect countenance to be able to embody his role. He said that he did not believe in his sermons, but he knew how to make them useful to his parishioners.”

Even political and social causes are experienced with the same degree of superficiality. The passive-aggressive attitude of counterdependency typical of the social E7 helps to keep active a social criticism that is an end in itself, that is not functional in reality. Social criticism is more of an intellectual exercise where moral relativism and cynicism implicitly authorize any corruption.

This E7 is always on the side of the revolution before and after its implementation, never while it is happening. In this sense, he is complicit in maintaining the status quo, since he cannot really channel his criticism into action for change. His way of poisoning the possibility of social transformation is by using the public arena for his narcissistic ordeal, rather than for real change in the world.

With its lack of courage, it makes difficult the necessary actions that are required for change, with its idealism and with its difficulty with direct aggression, which is needed to uphold the difficult truth until the last consequences. In addition, he is able to work because he rents a good place, so we can find him selling his intelligence to the patriarchy in exchange for making him feel seemingly extraordinary. In its eurotic form it adds cowardice, disconnection, lack of reality and perversion to the thousands of the world.

 In relation to this cowardice, it should be noted that one of the most hidden aspects in the social E7 is fear. This is the emotion that turns off your social promotion, that drives you away from relationships, that inhibits you from taking responsibility. Each scenario is a source of fear, because in each one, being discovered is at stake. Thus, this trap that he makes for himself will also be foisted on the world. It is one of those who prefers a good social lie to a bad social reality. It will contribute to social idealizations in the world that do not allow us to see the deep and structural conflicts that are difficult to face.

The condemnation of the social Seven is that of the fugitive: He is boastful, ashamed of himself, afraid of being discovered in his superficial

improvisation, of losing control, of not being able to manage his own strategies, of not being intellectually adequate. do, if not included. A fear that he denies with his apparent antisocial nonchalance. But that leads him to suffer an internal self-persecution for not feeling capable of facing reality.

Fear increases with the intensity of the relationship. It is fear of not being understood, of being left, of becoming dependent on a relationship and not being able to survive its lack, of being truly seen and not accepted, of giving up and being lost. Fear of the symbiosis as a hellish paradise from which he will be kicked out again. Fear of affective dependence, which forces him to neurotically join a false autonomy. And this encourages another aspect, which is your difficulty in deep engagement with your truth and in relationships.

He ends up constantly running away from himself, out of fear of his own feelings and deep emotions. Fear of being discovered really and see your unacceptable aspects and what surrounds you. Fear of having no way out.

“This fine isolation is re-inhabited without consciousness. It is the innate reaction of rejection and the hope that tomorrow will be better, creating in the mind an ideal world in which to enjoy and be better. But when contacting the pain, which, in my own experience, deep down is that of an early rejection, we become aware of the mask and seeing it face to face can cause the ego to go into crisis. When there is a lack of structure, when it breaks itself and takes a different step, it is how the Being can incorporate what is new in its existence. But keep in mind that these crisis steps are not always the same. They can lead us to a path of growth and evolution or to a process of annihilation and self-destruction.” (XAVIER)

 It is not uncommon to understand these aspects in relation to the anger with which this subtype handles certain situations. We have already mentioned how it hides deeply destructive nuclei of oral rage within itself: an omnipotent desire to incorporate the other, to destroy him, to tear him to shreds. When there is a psychological fall, rage assumes the desire to wipe out everything and everyone. Ideas of possible physical aggression, often designed and experienced in fantasy, may appear, as well as a desire for revenge. When the defensive apparatus of rationalization gives way, a strong fear of a projective nature emerges, which is often directly proportional to the repressed rage. The difficulty in experiencing it and channeling it is a very destructive aspect for oneself and for others.

In this case, the self-reference becomes a personalization, that is, telling each other events that have no possible realistic relevance, such as feeling persecuted by others or by life itself. Sometimes the result is a form of paranoid thinking, ranging from simple social conspiracy to demonic persecution.

All these aspects, unless they enter into a pathological expression, are generally kept hidden. Just the accumulation of prolonged stress, related to the onset of anxiety, can lead this structure to collapse and force the social E7 to lean towards the logic of expressing oneself or asking for help. Thus, his repressed anger and fear at his inability to get out of the role of good and harmonizing ate away at him. This way of handling both emotions also makes him contribute to the tension in the world, since he doesn't let them come out and express themselves in the group, and tries to bury them under a lot of good rationalizations. Thus it contributes to the cancer of society.

On the flip side, in terms of hypomania, it is not uncommon for a social E7 to display traits of delusional thinking related to their spiritual path. Identification with Christ supports false miracles! The visionary capacity, combined with the desire to realize his identification with the role of the chosen one, leads to pseudo-delusional interpretations of his feelings. Shows great sensitivity to all extraordinary events and, of course, with self-referential delusions. In other words, the social Seven tends to cultivate the imagination and tell fables with the idea of ​​having healing, messianic or visionary powers. Once again we see how his character leads him to delirium, and from here he also joins those in the world who, with the desire to access the transcendent, end up inventing it.

CHAPTER 8; LOVE

By CRISTINA BUSI

“I wish to tell you the deepest words, but I dare not, for I fear your mockery. That's why I laugh at myself and turn my secret into jokes.

I make fun of my pain, so you don't make fun of yourself. I wish to tell you the most sincere words, but I do not dare, for I am afraid that you will not believe me. That's why I disguise them as lies and say it contrary to what I think.

 I strive to make my pain seem absurd so that it doesn't seem absurd to you. I want to tell you the most valuable words, but I don't dare, because I fear not being reciprocated.

That is why I name you harshly and take pride in my callousness. I want to sit silently by your side, but I dare not, for I fear that my lips will betray my heart. That is why I speak foolishly, hiding my heart behind my words. I treat my grief harshly, lest you do.

I want to get away from you, but I don't dare, because I fear you will discover my cowardice.

That is why I raise my head and approach you with an indifferent air. The constant provocation of our glances removes my pain without mercy.”

Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener

In the character structure of the social E7, a kind of double level of reading of the internal dynamism of the three loves can be identified: eros, agape and filia, of which Claudio Naranjo speaks. This subtype de facto presents an intrapsychic and relational structure that is counter-characteristic: It is distinguished by a vocation for altruism and a devotional thirst that leads to deception regarding the development of the three loves.

On the surface, the social Seven moves through the world with spontaneity and compassion, in constant tension toward spiritual elevation. He is a clean, good person, with a certain tendency towards holiness. This only in his fervent imagination. Its structure presents a lack of base, the integration of self-love.

A sense of unworthiness, the result of a lack of compassionate care, brings him a frustration so deep as to transform it into a denied need. The intimate relationship becomes an inaccessible territory due to its dangerousness, linked to a destructive potential. As if, for fear of having to suffer the pangs of hunger for love again, the social E7 prescribed a forced fast for himself, which condemns him to an existential hunger that has the advantage of being controlled and self-sufficient. And that, in mystical ideational madness, one day it will be satiated at the banquet of the gods. This is how the simple human hunger for maternal (oral) love becomes the passion of gluttony, later sublimated through sacrifice.

Compassionate love

Phenomenologically, the social E7 appears as a good person, attentive and lavish in attention. He is a keen observer of human relations, at the service of which he puts his strategic intelligence.

He is reserved, interested in people's emotional experiences and appropriate in providing support, more through storytelling than affective acts.

A superficial examination would take him for being mature in the sphere of compassion, capable of empathy and genuinely open to loving exchange, gratuitously at the disposal of the common good. The empathic capacity is there, unlike the E5. The problem is that it is not a type of empathy that serves benevolence, to seek the best for the other unconditionally, but rather it is at the service of narcissism.

“As a theater director, I had a serious problem in getting artistic projects off the ground. When I started the rehearsal period with the actors, I had a hard time insulating myself from their problems as people. As we worked through the scenes, I saw their pain and need as people, putting aside the needs of the artistic production to focus on helping and comforting them with their wounds.

I have the feeling that I see the other's wound, as I saw Mom's wound, and I feel an uncontrollable impulse to be that which heals it. It is a program that lights me up. I have rationalized it in various ways and actually believe that I have a detector that does not allow me to miss any opportunity to sanctify myself.” (LUIS)

This interpersonal modality, which is the calling card of the social Seven when it comes into relationship, is the main mode with which this subtype hides the typical seductivity of the E7. It is the way he enters into the parasitic form of love in order to gain admiration and nourishment for his narcissism.

The narcissistic nucleus of the social E7 is nourished by the denial of a desire for admiration that is played through false humility and reserve. This simplified scheme helps to read the adult social Siere and to see with different eyes his automatic exercise of self-interested compassion. This character is hardly mistaken in the mode of approximation. He has first observed at length, in great detail, the person by whom he wants to be chosen through subtle manipulation.

He simply makes himself available at the right moment, when the other is in a state of need, and in an instant, through his skill with words and gestures, gives him the opportune support. Being helpful satisfies your need for visibility. You don't need to be thanked; simply to receive a small sample of cari. No. Thus you can connect with your crazy idealization of Christian identification: "I am the true savior", which will allow you to be directly blessed by a higher entity within.

“Reviewing my relationships, I was surprised to see that they all had an absent, dead, or missing father. It's as if a part of me sensed that place to be filled in by the woman and was drawn to fill it. The other sad realization was that I had had many partners and I had abandoned all of them. In that act I see my revenge against the woman for needing her and my inability to navigate the deep conflicts that the relationship implies.” (Luis)

The relations of the social E7 are interesting, based on the self-referential presumption of an accumulation of credit with humanity. Seemingly gratuitous and redolent of sanctity, the social Seven's sacrificial passion is a long-term investment, one that will pay off directly with God. This is the trap of the child who, deciding to be good, always postpones the satisfaction of his needs to the future and believes that he can feed himself with the rotten fruit of a false compassion, which in reality is a skilful use of sympathy, confused with empathy. . Thus, the social E7 adult seduces through a mimetic capacity, a pleasure with the emotional depth of the other that comes disguised as compassion, and with the intention of arousing admiration. In this sense the other, although in a layer of reality it seems that he is being helped, he is not really seen but used as an instrument to get a reflection of his ideal (holy) self.

The lack of authenticity in the exchange feeds the neurosis. The feeling of gratitude on the part of the needy other feeds the ideal of oneself, which is only a thought and does not deeply nourish the true Self, isolated and unavailable for a genuine relationship. The profound difficulty in being in an authentic and intimate relational parity, where both feel present and worthy of love, condemns the social E7 to repeatedly experience a moment of crisis that manifests itself in two ways. A first modality is that, if one does not feel useful enough, if the other leaves the relationship of need, the alternative is to find oneself entangled in parasitic relationships where the other is experienced as too demanding.

The crisis of the relationship is a healthy alarm signal, which offers the possibility of evidencing the non-contractuality of the relationship built by the social Seven. The agreement, in fact, is unilateral and is based on the implicit demand for return and recognition, within entirely self-referential terms and linked to the need to preserve a dominant position in the relationship.

The accumulation of initial credit towards the other, through the seduction of compassionate kindness, is handled in intimate relationships as valid for life and is played as a bonus when disinvestment occurs. But how? After everything I've done for you, do you still ask me?

The disinvestment is, in fact, physiological, because the motivation is of a parasitic type and not based on the need here and now. The social E7 condemns himself to torture in the relationship by exercising the defense mechanism of proflexion (doing to others what he would like them to do to him), which supports the ideal of himself and does not affectively nurture the true self,

The social Seven feeds, through the grandiose ideation of himself, the denial of his own love fulfillment. Confuse cognitively being seen with emotional being cared for. In this way, the basic need for genuinely compassionate maternal care is censored.

“When my therapist proposed that I curl up like a child in my partner's arms and surrender myself to care, it seemed like an impossible task. It's my denied scene: being lost, hurt, demanding in mom's arms. I am the one who hugs, never the one who is hugged. I am the one who gives, never the one who needs. Surrendering myself in that embrace continues to be a challenge because it symbolizes my existential failure.” (Luis)

The feeling of need of the other is transformed into the idea that the other needs him, healthy affective dependence is denied and is transformed into a relationship of power and control through dependence on the other.

The social E7 love market thus develops a trend compulsively plotting unfinished gestalts that will repeat themselves and create love relationships that will not be truly intimate, although yes deep and ambivalent.

Erotic love

The erotic aspect of love development is, as can be deduced from what has been said so far, compromised in the same way. The vital flow of spontaneity is interrupted at the very moment in which the character's decision is to give up one's own needs: from the most basic of intimacy to the most everyday related to food, to sex. In fact, there is nothing that cannot be sacrificed in the name of a higher ideal.

The relationship with the body is functional. It is an instrument, which must function according to mechanisms of omnipotence. There is no real care or orientation to sensual pleasure.

The erotic pleasure of care has moved forward, to a grandiose admiring pleasure that feeds on fantasies and projects. The pleasure is shameful. The needs are not born from a body that comes true and asked for rest, contact, pleasure, food, sex.

 Desires are born that, once again, have to do with momentary fascinations activated from outside, and with inspirations that stimulate the ideal of oneself. Like an empty sack, exhausted by the load of mania that comes from new ideas, the social E7 finds itself alone without knowing what it really needs. In contact with an intolerable feeling of emptiness and insignificance, he looks outside for new stimuli to get carried away, and so on ad infinitum.

Once again the neurotic delusion sustains the short circuit, and the social dimension functions as a theater that allows the staging. In fact, in the relationship with the other, the social Seven feels a childish part reflected. The propensity to play, to joke, the taste for laughter and for simple things are admired as the residue of an innocent and childish component. With this behavioral mental strategy, the adult of this character not only brings into the world a good child, but also an innocent and pure one. What a triad for those who aspire to sainthood!

Thus, once again, this character structure constructs an inconsistent internal framework, in which the needy child is cleansed and exhibited only in its pure, idealized, and seductive components. It is very difficult for him to recognize that access to spontaneity lies in the recognition of rage and frustration, of the bad parts, whose integration represents a first step to access the erotic vital nucleus. Equally difficult is the recognition of infantile modalities that act through manipulation and counterdependence.

The quackery of this character is expressed by fitting everything into a flexible mental framework capable of integrating new information, but which is only a mental representation, not emotionally integrated, of the Being. So the informality in the forms, the style personal, moral relativism and the capacity to transgress are interpreted as an expression of individual freedom and evolved eroticism. When it is simply an adjustment to assimilate the theory of Being: If the theory extends, each behavior is lawful and has a purpose. In this way, the internal reputation is safe, with a good dose of self-indulgence that masks the compulsive gluttony of conscious choices anchored in pleasure and freedom.

Joy is present in an internalized way, while it comes out contained and, so to speak, tamed, so that the social Seven keeps a distance from it.

Sexuality 

In this sense, sexuality is also experienced in an ambivalent way, more in eroticized fantasy and seduction than in the act itself. Uninhibited in words and fantasies, the social E7 shows difficulty and fear when entering sexual intimacy, for what often stops the process at the level of complicity and superficial play, denying the depth of the encounter. The erotic relationship is experienced as a power clash rather than a place of surrender.

The deep erotic encounter is feared since to enter there you need a level of dedication, authenticity and risk that can call into question their false identity. Therefore, the erotic encounter will tend to be contaminated by its compulsion to serve. Here is an empathic, sensitive, pleasant, informed lover who puts all his skills at the service of the other person's pleasure, returning to his compulsion to receive an image of an extraordinary being. From that position the double flame of eroticism is corrupted. Dialogue, spontaneity and surrender, fundamental ingredients of the deep erotic encounter, are enemies of the sexual narcissism of the social Seven. For all these reasons, the erotic encounter, after the first encounters, is exhausted.

When it no longer works, the hunting of minds nor the curiosity of a new body, and the erotic has to be fed from the trip to the depth, there the interest in the story with the couple is lost. Sex with another tires him because he doesn't know how to surrender, it puts his ideal image in too much danger and he can't go through the dysphoric emotional aspects that appear when bodies are unleashed in communion.

“Sexual relations become complicated for me with my partner as the relationship progresses. Finishing the phase of conquest and discovery, it is difficult for me to travel through the space that opens up next. I feel that I have never been able to express myself sexually with all my being like this because I am very polarized in the relationship. I am a good caretaker. It seems that the deep connection is based on the fact that I am the father figure and my partner is a child that I have to take care of. And that doesn't arouse any erotic interest in me. To cross this swamp that I open in the relationship, I have to show my other erotic sides, going through the negotiation, the blockage and the rejection that they can produce in the other. For all these reasons, solitary masturbation becomes a place of tranquility. quilo enjoy solitary, until I realize how alone and impo I feel sorry for giving this sad fate to my erotic life.” (LUIS)

It is an enneatype in which perversion often appears, in the form of power games related to sexuality. Putting those fantasies in the couple would allow him to reconnect with his most impulsive aspects, but his madness reappears there: He would rather die than reveal a truth that could damage his image of being good. The good ones don't fuck, they make love.

He does not understand that, to enter the depth of erotic love, one must surrender to the animal and to the truth of desire, which is neither good nor bad, it is what it is. And sometimes it is made of pleasure and others, of pain, of sadness, of madness; dimensions of existence that make it difficult for him to live in solitude and it is impossible for him to live in contact. It is usual, in the biography of a social E7, to live with punishments in relation to sexual curiosity.

“When I was three years old, the lady who worked with us beat me up because I looked up her skirt.

My father hit me because I asked him what periods were.

They saw me kissing my neighbor on the street: I never got to see her again.” (TESTIMONIALS, Aracaju Symposium, 2016)

The topic of sexual pleasure in the family is often treated as a taboo by the figure of reference, directly or indirectly, so that the sexual drive itself gradually becomes incomprehensible. Sainthood comes with castration. Sex is something to be ashamed of. Sexuality is therefore intellectualized and idealized, in its mystical sense, and functional to the elimination of the instinctive sphere.

But let's not forget that it is an E7 character, therefore very sexually charged, very gluttonous and drugged with pleasure. A pleasure that when trying to be shared becomes heavy but that in intimacy with oneself can be lived with more tranquility, not having the other's gaze there. That makes the Social Seven a great masturbator. In solitude he does allow his desire, his perversion, his animal to flow. That space often becomes their refuge. The sexual satisfaction linked to autoeroticism allows you to avoid the uncomfortable component of expressing yourself sexually with the other, thus reducing the stress of interpersonal intimacy.

But the sexual pleasure thus achieved has only a temporary anxiolytic capacity, since the desire for physical pleasure and the dependence on the carnal impulse trigger a feeling of unworthiness and guilt. Therefore the sense of guilt will not be related to sexuality itself, but to expressing need and desire.

This inhibition of the instinctive is connected with the old game, a hidden game, something that sounds like the secret game with the figure parent of the opposite sex, in which the extraordinary position that is ordained to him is known, but it does not have to be too exposed for fear of the revenge of the other parental figure. He dies of shame when the other looks at him like someone extraordinary, almost as if he were dying of pleasure and were afraid of being discovered in his compelling desire to be seen like that by others.

Admirationable love

The relationship with transgression and the counterdependent attitude connect us with the aspect linked to devotional-admiring love. We have already made reference to the thirst that this subtype has to arouse and receive admiration, imagining that this will be its loving reward.

We also know that anyone who falls into his trap of compassionate seduction will not be worthy of admiration because, in fact, he is putting himself in the position of loser in the relationship. The search for admiration is then projected upwards (the father) and the path of the mystical social Seven is paved with dejected teachers.

The introject of the paternal relationship involves an ambivalent identification with the father. He is a dominant figure, also the bad guy in the movie; in short, an antihero. So the search turns to bad parents to avoid and good parents to overcome; all this while maintaining good manners.

The social E7 tends to idealize the characters it encounters, emphasizing the stimulating aspects, creativity, preparation, and the cultural level of the interlocutors. This perspective stimulates a sense of deep unworthiness and leads to an initial withdrawal that represents the phase of studying the other. The social Siere moves like a pseudosocial personality; he is not openly competitive and shows an apparent respect for the rules: he intuits those of the context and adapts to them strategically.

 In a short amount of time he is capable of becoming the model disciple of a teacher whom he only recognizes as such in the idealizing distance. The critical acuity of this character cognitively expresses a defensive form aimed, fundamentally, at immunizing himself from the power of the other. The teacher, when seen closely (then known and observed in his inevitable incongruities) is progressively and inexorably disqualified, devalued, trapped in his weaknesses, and ultimately drained of interest. He is no longer an object of admiration and therefore not even a potential source of admiring love.

Once again he returns to the starting point, in search of a new stimulus, a new goal to achieve. In this path of implicit dissatisfaction, the social Seven seeks parental recognition and then devalues ​​it when it is obtained, like a child who throws away the long-awaited food. In this way, the social E7 feeds its orality also with regard to admiring love.

The meaning of his life story develops neurotically by seeking a symbiotically admiring gaze from an authority that ceases to be as soon as he grants recognition. Unable to overcome his ambivalence, this subtype can neither acknowledge nor openly oppose authority, creating, for the umpteenth time, the premises for a frustrating relationship. The way out of this frustration is, once again, to create a fantastic internal world where the relationship is directly with the source, that is, where authority is embodied in a narcissistic and self-referential way.

“My relationship with Claudio Naranjo moves in terms of a strong ambivalence. On the one hand, the feeling of receiving a strong inspiration from him, of having a privileged relationship with him, as well as the desire to make a greater dedication, to live it intimately as a Master. On the other hand, a lot of fear of the pain that may come with that delivery, which ends up translating into a constant judgment of his person in which I look for reasons to behead him. And I find them. And then I am left alone, disoriented. And the sensations of gratitude return, of admiring love towards Claudio, the experience of being his disciple, the internal invitation: to explore surrender, admiration, guru yoga. Just thinking about it gives me honey. What if he hurts me? What if he really is a false teacher? Pray doubt it as protection. And there I am stuck, blocked. Without being able to get closer or farther away. Without being able to express all this that happens to me. Without being able to transit neither the delivery nor the abandonment.” (LUIS)

On the concrete plane, the spiritual search of the social E7 manifests itself in a mystical-type form. Since his emotional need is to reconstruct a symbiotic form of love that he shuns, the relationship with the divine is also panicked, totalizing, ecstatic. The divinity, whether spiritual or secular, conceives it directly, without being mediated by figures of reference such as a teacher, whose admiration it shuns. Similar tensions easily bring him closer to pseudo-religious and para-spiritual forms.

Mutual recognition implies, in fact, an assumption of responsibility that, due to grandiose projections, becomes a burden. It supposes a change in the position of control that the social E7, in its unconscious counterdependence, cannot tolerate because it marks the passage towards a relational adulthood that frightens and oppresses. Therefore, in every relationship the admiring period is followed by a devaluing phase.

 It is a paradoxical position. The main engine is the search for admiring love, but the goal is impossible to achieve because ambivalence foresees two variants: Either the encounter with the bad teacher, who is not recognized, and therefore results in a useless relationship; or the good teacher, who grants an admiring and compassionate recognition that he cannot accept.

In this way, the spiritual search is revealed in its triple reality: the rationalization of a seductive gluttony, the pleasure of pleasing humanity as a recognition of one's own divine nature, and the compensation of a profound feeling of unworthiness.

CHAPTER 9; HISTORICAL PERSONALITY: JOSÉ MARTÍ

By MAURICIO CERDA

By serving others,

I am saved.

JOSE MARTI

Among the historical figures cited as examples of the social Seven, Saint Francis of Assisi stands out. He has been the referent of being realized from this characteristic functioning. He made his character his flag and managed to recover fundamental values ​​of Christianity within the Catholic Church. The way to do it has always sparked controversy among those of us who have approached his life in search of inspiration, since at times he seems more driven by his passion than by his virtue. In addition, recently Claudio Naranjo has introduced the hypothesis that it could function closer to the sexual Seven, and has invited us to get closer to the figure of Rabindranath Tagore and that of José Martí, the latter character to whom we have dedicated the chapter that follows. follow.

José Martí is the resplendent hero of Cuban emancipation. Apostle of independence and teacher are the ritual expressions that apply to him. It is not surprising since he was a being of extraordinary dedication, as will be seen immediately. José Julián Martí Pérez was born in Havana, Cuba, a Spanish colony at that time, on January 28, 1853, the son of Spanish parents. He was the eldest and only boy, followed by seven sisters. Throughout their childhood and adolescence, the family has limited resources. As a child, he witnesses mistreatment of the Creoles that provokes indignation. He selflessly helps his father with agricultural work and in adolescence stands out as a student, while writing poetry and even a play at an early age.

In 1868 the Ten Years' War began, the first fight for Cuba's independence, which would culminate in total failure. In 1869, when he was barely sixteen years old, Martí was involved in an incident in which the military confiscated a letter in which he and other classmates criticized a third party for having enlisted as a volunteer in the Spanish army to fight the independence fighters. In the trial, he declares, protecting his companions, that he is the only author. He is sentenced to six years in prison.

After a year, his father gets the authorities to change the sentence and is deported to Spain. Not only his personal hardships, but above all the suffering he sees in other prisoners will make him never forget prison. With one of the shackles that gripped him, he molded a ring that had the inscription CUBA inside, and that he would wear until his death.

In the old continent he studied and graduated with a degree in Civil Law and in Philosophy and Letters. Courts several women and grows his love for the theater. He writes and maintains contact with Cubans and also with Spaniards inclined to the cause of the island's independence. He remained in Spain for five years. His income is meager and he lives austerely. Before returning to America, at the age of twenty-two, he visited Paris for a few weeks. It goes straight to the museums. Get an interview with Victor Hugo, glory of French letters.

A little later he settles in Mexico, where he is finally reunited with his family. He works there as a journalist. He meets Carmen Zayas, a Cuban from a wealthy family with whom he married in December 1877.

When Porfirio Díaz, a military leader, assumed the presidency in Mexico at the beginning of 1877, Martí moved to Guatemala, where he worked as a professor of Literature and History of Philosophy.

In each place where he resides, he wins the favor of the relationships he establishes: charismatic, affable, simple and intelligent without pedantry, with a strong sense of ethics. He is always on the move and invariably writes and reads a great deal: the Spanish Golden Age and the Greek classics, Shakespeare and Emerson, Balzac and Baudelaire.

After the Ten Years' War, he returned to Havana in 1878. In November his son José Francisco was born. He immediately concentrated on political action and soon reached leadership responsibilities. In August 1879, a second uprising took place, the so-called Little War, which in the space of a year would end again with the defeat of the rebel forces. Martí is arrested and again deported to Spain.

In a few months he manages to move to New York, settling in the guest house of Manuel Mantilla, disabled, and his wife, the Venezuelan Carmen Miyares (Carmita). In March 1880 he managed to bring his wife and little son to New York. Although he loves them dearly, his commitment to the cause of Cuban independence is incompatible with the attention and basic economic income that Carmen demands of him. When, after seven months, she understands that her husband chooses Cuba over her and their son, she decides to return to the island, where she obtains economic support from her father.

A week after Carmen's departure, Martí was elected a member of the Cuban Revolutionary Committee, in which he quickly ascended and reached the presidency. In November of that same year, MARÍA Mantilla Miyares was born, whom she professed great affection for and called her goddaughter. It is known that Martí and Carmita Miyares were an emotional consolation for each other and today it is certain that MARÍA was their daughter.

In 1881 he moved to Venezuela with the hope of advancing in the emancipatory cause, but a text of his arouses the suspicion of the president, the caudillo Antonio Guzmán Blanco, and Martí, recently arrived, suddenly decides to return to New York, where there are no authorities that harass or irritate him.

Starting in the 1980s, he achieved wide continental renown through numerous and varied journalistic chronicles that he sent from New York to important newspapers-there would be twenty in all of Latin America. He conquers readers with his eloquence, his finished and heterogeneous knowledge and the high ethical values ​​that inspire him. It also publishes works of poetry, which the critics enthusiastically celebrate, as well as a novel and translations.

In 1891, his wife broke up with him definitively and the following year Martí, hurt but without ties, left the positions he held as consul of Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay in New York, as well as the presidency of the Literary Society, to consecrate himself exclusively to his liberating mission: he founded, with the main leaders in exile, the Cuban Revolutionary Party.

During 1893 and 1894, making use of his reputation, he toured the United States and several countries in America, establishing ties with and between the former military chiefs of the two attempts at independence, obtaining economic resources and weapons, and at the same time coordinating the preparations. for a new uprising that, he argues with conviction, will have to be brief, with the minimum of costs and, attention, with respect for the enemy.

But the plan is discovered and the ships that were to be used to disembark the troops are seized. Despite the harsh setback, Martí convinced the Party leadership to continue forward. He then sent instructions to the island and the uprising took place in February 1895. In April he arrived and immediately contacted the main rebel military leaders in the interior. Martí is indisputably the brain, heart and soul of the independence struggle. The military chiefs resolve to confer on him, who is not a military man the rank of Major General -the highest on the ranks- for his merits and services rendered. On May 19, in Dos Ríos, he was shot three times in a minor skirmish. Three years later, the uprising concluded with the independence of Cuba from the Kingdom of Spain.

Traits of enneagram 7 and the Social Subtype

Although in the previous review you can clearly see, it seems to me, a set of traits of the enneatype Seven and the social subtype, in this section these traits will be highlighted and information will be added that will more clearly delineate that profile.

In just forty-two years of life, José Martí wrote hundreds of articles and journalistic chronicles, along with works of an educational nature, he was in charge of several literary or cultural publications, among them one aimed at children, he translated novels from English and French, and published conferences and political essays, two poetry books of great artistic repercussion (Ismaelillo and Versos Sencillos), a novel and two plays. A book of poetry and a play were published posthumously, along with his diaries, letters, and other materials. The edition of his complete works exceeds 12,000 pages arranged in 27 volumes; a production, by the way, surprising.

He wrote with brilliance and propriety on topics that ranged from criticism of American caudillos to the moral superiority of democracy (of and for the people), from new ways of raising cattle to floriculture, from New York celebrations of Christmas to a day of boxing, from the praise of Walt Whitman's poetry to that of French Impressionist painting (artistic projects resisted in those years)...

Using the words of the Mexican essayist Enrique Krauze, it is clear that Martí got carried away by the voracious ambition to know. Curiosity, intellectual restlessness and the diversity of their interests are features of this character functioning, which is seen

reflected in the variety of his written production and in his numerous readings.

Generativity is a sign of health in this character. In his sickest phases, the person who functions as a social Seven will remain anchored to his fantasies, castrated by his lack of strength to carry out projects and frustrated by his inability to put his expression in the world, to sustain the earthquake that puts his narcissism at stake by showing himself. It is clear that José Martí was able to cross this obstacle and put himself in the world. In his fruitfulness we can see the classic multiplicity of talents, the synthetic, panoramic vision tending towards variety rather than depth. It is a way of functioning more like a journalist than a novelist. An interesting note is that both Martí and Chéjov and Tagore stand out in literature for their stories. A short literary form, which calls for a lot of synthesis and does not require great internal journeys of its characters but rather shock effects and the ability to photograph reality.

On the other hand, testimonies abound from those who had the opportunity to hear him at his lectures, and who describe his oratory as persuasive, bewitching and electric, in which the gift of words, charm, desire for admiration are appreciated. and seduction is frequent in this type. As a good social, his object of desire is the group. And lacking the strength of a wolf, he uses his fox abilities. The strange thing in a social Seven would be to find one without social skills, since as we have seen, that is the arena of his neurotic salvation.

Regarding seduction in its direct meaning, there is a growing consensus among researchers that it was less contained than was believed. It was always known of Marti's sensitivity to female beauty, of his extra-marital relationship with Carmita Miyares (which both hid as much as possible) and of the attraction he exerted, perhaps involuntarily, on the Guatemalan MARÍA Granados, chaste indeed and with a tragic end. , but that took place no less than in the period of courtship with his future wife.

Nevertheless, only in recent years have many doubts been cleared up regarding his paternity of MARÍA Miyares, while one of Martí's current researchers, the Cuban Yamil Díaz, pointed out in 2016 that the apostle had romantic relationships with several women at the time.

In short, there are reasons to recognize in him a seductive and enchanting man who, however, repressed himself to a certain extent. This is another of the central points to be able to determine the health of the social Seven: their intimate relationships. Little can be deduced from Martí's entire work about his intimate life, unlike, for example, Kafka. Martí speaks of the world and for the world, and it is difficult for us to dive in waters about which he says little. Being able to live their sexuality freely would be a sign of maturation. Having to live it in secret and through infidelity, a track of stagnation in its development. This character dissects the intimate relationships of a couple in order to put all their energy into the world. Little do we know what Martí did with it.

Martí was a sociable individual who, perhaps stimulated by the mission that was imposed, captured sympathies and friendships easily. But at the same time there are records of periods in which he avoided contact with others and was markedly withdrawn, exhibiting the withdrawal that is often strongly present in the subtype.

Statements from close friends and the sheer magnitude and variety of his activities show that he was a formidable worker.

At thirty, for example, he simultaneously held the position of consul, wrote newspaper articles, composed poetry and maintained an intense political activity. It is said that he worked eighteen-hour days. For Martí, the mission came before pleasure or rest, as always happens in the social subtype. Strategist, politician, lawyer, lecturer, journalist, teacher, poet, novelist and playwright: the joy and joy of sacrifice. It is a character hooked on the social, a place where he finds his reason for being. Disguised as sacrifice and dedication, there is his narcissistic compensation and his idealism.

At the same time he was generous, helpful and, particularly with children, he could be very affectionate. As an example a letter to his mother, from prison, at sixteen:

“I need nothing, if not from time to time two or three reales to drink coffee. However, when you go without seeing your family or anyone you love, you might as well spend a day without drinking coffee. Dad gave me five or six reais on Monday. I gave two or three alms, I lent two.”

Generosity, cancellation of one's own needs and austerity.

Because he was certainly very austere, he dressed modestly and although he was a lover of good food he used to eat little; he was not tall, he was thin and it is believed that he weighed no more than sixty kilos. In his continuous transfers he tolerated discomfort well. Frugal and ascetic, he was used to living with little or the bare minimum. It seems that the burden of responsibility, which was given to him as the firstborn, operates throughout his life. He cannot refrain from the needs of the group and will always put them ahead of his own. A bargain for the community he serves and a disaster for himself and his family.

Especially on the political level, he was not only industrious but also permanently collaborative. He sought to unite wills and cooperate in any task that could be useful. In principle, he did not seek leadership, but his intelligence, his magnetism, his organizational skills and his iron commitment made him stand out immediately and led him, inevitably, to leadership positions. In the mid-1980s, he had clear reservations about what he considered to be the personal excesses of Máximo Gómez and Antonio Macco, military leaders of the two frustrated attempts at libertarianism. However, our hero persevered so that in the final war of 1995, Gómez was appointed chief general of the independence army and Maceo, his lieutenant.

Martí did not have the highest ranking position, but in fact he was the one who exercised the main leadership. In other words, a case of the sneaky leader directing the leader, typical of the subtype.

It never ceases to amaze, on the other hand, that the one who could not secure a decent income to support his own family has been such an efficient collector and provider of the considerable financial, logistical and weapons resources necessary for the final uprising, putting his idealism before the needs of loved ones. His unique planning ability was gradually deployed for almost a decade in which he convinced dozens of patriots, soldiers and wealthy people to participate, traveling to different countries to do so, obtaining a large sum directly from General Porfirio Díaz, president of Mexico and had previously been reluctant. His wife and son, as deeply as he loved them, did not come first in his life. However, he was certainly a magnificent and disciplined organizer, a lucid foresight and an ingenious provider in what he considered his life mission. To his great friend Fermín Valdés he confided: «The truth is [...] that I only live for my land».

He lived for his land to achieve freedom. Freedom that already in the intimate and personal sphere is one of the marked desires of the enneatype and that also explains its characteristic anti-authoritarian inclination. Lastly, if one pays attention to what is central and constant in the behavior Martí's comment, it should be noted that he said of himself: «My job is to sing all that is beautiful, ignite enthusiasm for all that is noble, admire and admire all that is great. To which he added: "Above man, only the sky." Carlos Márquez, one of his main biographers, maintained that Martí, already in his adolescence, wanted to be good, wanted to be educated, wanted to be free.

While the Argentine Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, another prominent biographer, stressed that

He was animated by the Sermon on the Mount and by a temperament of metallic consistency and transparency of rock crystal [...] Conduct incorruptible and incorruptible, honesty, haughtiness, loyalty and frankness, decorum and probity; frugality bordering on asceticism.

That is to say, an idealist, hungry for nobility and virtue, almost a saint or, as custom has consecrated him, an apostle. In the words of the essayist Enrique Krauze, Martí embodied the sacrificial myth: He sacrificed his individual interests, his artistic talent, his economic well-being and even his wife and son at the altar of the country, In his play Abdala, adolescent creation, he had written: <Do you think there is something more sublime than the homeland?». He sacrificed his life by immolating himself for the good that he considered superior: the freedom of Cuba. And to his misfortune he succeeded. The Cubans are very grateful to him. He died in a skirmish at the age of forty-two.

CHAPTER 10; CINEMATOGRAPHIC AND LITERARY EXAMPLES

LITERARY EXAMPLE

 By Lluís Fusté

Timon of Athens

Author: William Shakespeare, 1606-1608

The search has not been easy. The main difficulty is in the little exterior drama of the trait. The social E7 has a fairly intense inner life but the outer one tends to be, despite it, conventional. The great adventures are lived in his mind more than in reality, as shown by writers of the stature of Jules Verne or Anton Chekhov, possibly people who functioned from the traits of a social Seven. This is situated between the helpful or the kind on the outside, too cowardly or far-sighted to occupy positions of tension in relationships with others or with the world. Novelists and playwrights end up using him as a secondary character. In his most neurotic version, he just doesn't have leading man blood.

This differentiates it from the constellation of traits of a sexual or conservation E7, of more dramatic excess in its relations with the world and whose actions tend to be less conventional. The conservation subtype has that strategic selfishness, that mafia behavior, without reaching the excess of E8, which makes it attractive to artists. The sexual Seven transgresses the limits of both sexual convention and the mystical, he has an artistic elan and the ability to fascinate with his siren songs. Both manifest a greater drama and therefore will be more used to inhabit novels, movies and series.

Below we present some of the mirrors that we have found to be able to tender the transformation work of people who have developed a social Seven character.

The first proposal is the play Timon of Athens, by Shakespeare. A simple argument, far from its great tragedies, and that seems to want to convey a very clear message. It tells the story of Timon of Athens, a wealthy Athenian who is known for his extraordinary generosity to his friends.

The story begins when Timon receives various people in need of help at his house. He pays the one who drowns in debts, he gives it to the one who needs a dowry, he buys it from the one who sells a jewel at an overpriced price. Only Apemantus, a companion of his, denounces the neurotic nature of the scene. To which Timon responds with humor and benevolence.

This opening scene is followed by a lavish meal, at which his guests sing the praises of the host. He always responds with humility and phrases like: «I have often wanted to see myself poor, to get closer to you! We are born to do good. And what good is more ours than the riches of our friends?" Or: "I would like to distribute kingdoms among my friends without ever getting tired.” And so, he gives perks and money to all who ask him. Meanwhile, Apemantus continues denouncing the grotesqueness of the situation, in which the kindness towards his friends has no limits.At the end of the first act his servant Flavio appears and reveals that Timon is broke.

In the second act, Timon realizes his lack of money. Far from being worried, he sees it as an excellent test to receive the affection and generosity of the friends he has always helped. In the scenes that follow we see how the different friends find excuses to refuse to return the help given at the time, and Timon's servants return home empty-handed.

Meanwhile, the servants of the creditors urgently visit Timon's house. Seeing himself abandoned by his friends, Timon is furious and decides to call one last banquet, to which he invites them all. Once he has them seated, he serves them dinner, which consists of a plate of boiling water and stones. To the surprise of the guests, Timon launches to insult and denigrate them for not having helped him. The dinner ends abruptly with the guests fleeing precipitously while Timon is branded as crazy that “one day he sends us diamonds; another, stones!». The host then insults Athens and all its inhabitants and decides to retreat to the woods to avoid contact with putrid humanity.

Already in the forest, Timon finds a treasure that he decides to rebury in part: «Damned metal, whore of humanity, who brings disorder to the nations, return to the land where Nature put you!».

He runs into General Alcibíades and his retinue, who are on their way to conquer Athens. Timon decides to give him part of the treasure he has preserved, to aid the destruction of the capital. Apemantus comes to confront his newly acquired misanthropy, in a bitter dialogue about Timon's reaction to contacting the shadow of the human being.

 He is also visited by thieves, artists and former servants who receive the same welcome from Timon: insults and imprecations. The senators of Athens even come to his cave, offering him the command of the city to help them against the attack of General Alcibiades. Timon taunts them by offering them a tree to hang themselves on.

Timon dies, alone. Alcibiades, who meanwhile has entered Athens as a winner, promises to pay honors to his tomb, on the seashore, where he will recite the epitaph that he left: «Here lies Timon who, alive, hated all men».

Away from his deepest and most psychological portraits, Shakespeare presents us with a polar, diaphanous and allegorical character, with whom he questions the self-sacrificing and generous without limit, while denouncing the perverse games of society.

The work defines the singular madness of the social E7 that we have defined as the compulsion to be extraordinarily generous, helpful and self-sacrificing, guided by an unconscious narcissistic motivation. Timon of Athens shows the gluttony set to build and achieve an image of extraordinary goodness. Her passion for giving herself, to the point of cannibalism, appears in an act that already enhances her superiority over the rest of mortals. Apemantus describes it this way in the second scene: «I suffer seeing so many people watering their delicacies with the blood of a single man. And it's so crazy that it stimulates them more! Generosity is a sign of true aristocracy, for the original meaning of the word 'generous' was 'of high birth'. Timon loses his material possessions by investing in his image of kindness. The crazy idea nests in him that if he gives everything, everything will be returned to him.

In the first scenes we see him drunk with generosity, giving what he does not have and even what is not asked of him. As a good narcissist, he confuses flattery with friendship and eats the smoke that comes out of the eyes and mouths of his flatterers. He feeds them with material objects. His overflowing passion appears in this phrase of his: I would like to distribute kingdoms among my friends without ever getting tired. To which the world, in the mouth of Flavio, replies: «Never was there a spirit so crazy by dint of being good».

Shakespeare denounces here that passion for unrestrained generosity that no longer respects the instinct of self-preservation and in which a utopian fantasy of human relations is hidden. The problem is not goodness but the place from which it occurs: naive, narcissistic, weak and passionate. As in the Greek tragedies, this morality tale wants to warn us against excess, hubris, which supposes the material sacrifice of oneself.

 In the scene in which Timon is glad that he has lost his possessions so that he can feel the strength of friendship, we can see another trait of the social Seven: his naivete. Even though cunning is one of the traits of this character, it has an Achilles heel. Due to a combination of idealism, sensitivity, narcissism, and difficulty in putting his aggressive side into play, he has convinced himself that people are mostly honest and direct and will respect the rules of the game. Surprising aspect in someone who handles fraud and masks well. This idealized fantasy of being honest with him makes him easy prey for cynics and impostors who know how to exploit his weak point: his social image.

This makes him a vulnerable political animal since he has difficulty negotiating with the others in a direct and selfish way (unlike E7 conservation). In order to be looked at as a saint, he will give everything to the other. Not out of kindness but out of inability to handle situations in which he has to defend his interests. Since it gives him more narcissistic pleasure to give than to receive. Others abuse his generosity. He is a good leader as long as he has to distribute goods, mediate in other people's conflicts or advise, but he loses himself in his need to please everyone and in his allergy to friction, so common in human affairs; as we see in Timon, when he has to move from abundance to lack.

This work also gives clues about the management of emotional pain that the social E7 does when it is frustrated. We see that he lacks resources to be able to do something with the pain, since the ones he uses leave him stuck in it. Some appear in the work, which we list below:

Abandonment

Timon decides to leave Athens feeling hurt and frustrated. The solution is to leave the frustrating situation because you do not have the aggressive resources to reverse the situation, nor the maturity to live in reality. This makes you a professional dropout. It is difficult for him to learn when he has a narcissistic wound: he is pushed to change the scene. In addition, it is one of his favorite weapons to harm the other, since it is one of the actions that hurts him the most when it is the others who carry it out. We can think that what hurts Timon the most is that his friends abandon him to his fate and that all this generosity was intended as a vaccine so as not to feel abandoned again.

Escapism

Timon flees into nature and, above all, into solitude. In the forest he pronounces a sentence that marks a direction of transformation of the social E7: «Earth, give me roots». Leaving the city, from the social fabric in which he desperately seeks a reflection of extraordinariness and welcome, allows him to land on his narcissistic journey. Freed from the gaze of his own, he can look at himself. This is what has been called the schizoid defense of Seven.

But the forest can also be a metaphor for the flight towards the ideal reality, because it is lost in the game between men. Therefore, a place of stagnation for a character that hurts so much socially. In the case of Timon, it will be a one way ticket since he will not perform the necessary wisdom on his trip to the forest to be able to return to the city. Flight and misanthropy are the solutions when you have not been able to assimilate the experience and grow.

Hatred

This is the answer that floods the second part of the work. From the madness of generosity to the madness of hate it could be Timon's polar journey. And it shows a very denied aspect in this enneatype, which is sold as a transcended of low passions. Hate, in this case, instead of being a stage of the cross, becomes the final station. Hate in the social E7 appears as a response to the other for not knowing what to do with the hurt felt. Having difficulty circulating anger, it quickly rots and becomes anger and then hate. We see how Timon goes from philanthropy to misanthropy, both as neurotic responses. The social Seven also has little resilience to face negative emotions, so, as seen in the work, he runs the risk of getting stuck in them.

Self-pity

In the last pages, we can see another defense mechanism of this character, which is self-pity and self-indulgence. He can remain in the phase of self-pity as a form of self-pity, instead of recognizing his own responsibility and thus being able to grow, as happens with the protagonist of King Lear. He does not become a tragic hero because he lacks the inner resolution that allows human beings to see themselves as they are.

CINEMATOGRAPHIC EXAMPLE

 By Lluís Fusté

Living is beautiful

Director: Frank Capra

Year: 1946

The protagonist of the film How beautiful it is to live, by Frank Capra, seems to us to be a good example of the functioning of a social E7. George Bailey, as the character is called, is a good guy who time and time again decides to postpone his desire to travel and eat the world when confronted by situations that are triggered every time he is about to leave. Whenever he has to choose between his plans and what he considers to be his duties in favor of others, he chooses the latter, ferociously postponing his intimate desires. Isn't that one of the capital traits of those whom the psychology of the encatypes designates with the term sacrifice?

The film, which lasts 130 minutes, takes place on December 24 between the sky and a small town called Bedford Falls. Several inhabitants pray to God that night for George Bailey ("I owe everything to George, help him sir" is the first sentence heard in the film). Accessing these prayers, God instructs Saint Joseph to send an angel to help him, because in a few minutes he will try to commit suicide.

Saint Joseph assigns the mission to Clarence, an angel of little intelligence but with a great virtue: the pure faith of a child. Clarence is pleased to be called since, if he fulfills his mission well, he will be able to receive the wings that he has been waiting for two hundred years. As he prepares to descend to Earth, Saint Joseph teaches Clarence about George's life from his childhood. We then attend a flashback that covers most of the film.

George Bailey from a young age was noble and helpful, and early conceived the dream of leaving the miserable town in which he lived since birth and achieving university studies, travelling the world and dedicating himself to the construction of great works, such as airports or extraordinary skyscrapers. But fate and his invariable disposition to postpone himself in pursuit of others, prevent him from carrying out his projects.

At the age of twelve, he saves his little brother Harry from drowning in a frozen river and shortly after prevents the pharmacist he works for from accidentally filling a poison prescription to a patient. As an adult, having finished his secondary studies, he prepares a trip to Europe before going to the University in New York.

But suddenly his father dies and the Credit and Construction Company that he directed with altruistic criteria, for the benefit of the low-income sectors of the city, is adrift. To prevent unscrupulous county tycoon Henry Potter from taking over the Company, George decides to postpone his plans and temporarily take over management of the company. Meanwhile, his brother Harry completes his university studies in New York with George's money.

When Harry returns, he does so married and with an excellent job offer from his father-in-law in another city. Although he is willing to replace George, this ultimately does not happen.

Despite clumsy personal reluctance, George finally gives in to his love for Mary, a charming girl who has been in love with him since childhood. As newlyweds head to the airport for their honeymoon in a taxi, a strange turmoil in the city startles them. The banks have suffered a financial bankruptcy that can drag down your company, as the small shareholders are demanding the return of their money. To avoid bankruptcy, George decides to use the money earmarked for his honeymoon and lend it to shareholders, contravening to his own detriment. what is established in the contracts.

Over the years, the company has achieved important achievements in its construction area, which benefit the most humble sectors of Bedford Falls. George himself, however, with four sons lives on just enough. When Potter, the petty and insatiable tycoon, discovers that in the construction market George's company has become competition for him, he offers to manage all his businesses, with a salary ten times what he receives. George hesitates before the offer, but becomes convinced that it would be selling out and refuses to accept.

It arrives on December 24. When Uncle Billy, an associate of the company, goes to deposit the company's money in the bank, in an argument with Potter he inadvertently hands him the envelope with the money. When the tycoon finds out, he maliciously decides to keep quiet: it will mean the bankruptcy of the company and jail for the Baileys.

When George finds out that Uncle Billy has lost the money. falls into despair. He asks Potter for help, but Potter, of course, denies it. Then he decides to commit suicide, because at least the life insurance he has could be useful for his family. At that moment Clarence appears, the angel... But let's leave the outcome for later.

George Bailey's functioning as a social Seven is evident in a variety of scenes. Beginning with his idealism and naivety, as on the occasion when he goes to buy a suitcase and asks for it, exultant, exclaiming: "I don't want a suitcase for one night, but for a thousand and one nights!". And he adds that it must be big to be able to put many labels: Rome, Baghdad, Samarkand... Later, he asks his uncle Billy: «Do you know what the three most exciting sounds are?». When he says something very prosaic, George replies: "Anchor chains, an airplane engine and the sound of a locomotive." These first scenes show an enthusiastic, dreamy, kind, empathic and naive person. A good boy.

As a child, he notices that Mr. Gower, the pharmacist he works for, has received a telegram telling him of the death of his son. For this reason he finds himself drinking And because of alcohol, in the preparation of a recipe he includes poison by mistake. George notices the mistake and, confused, delays his delivery. When the pharmacist receives a call claiming the medication, he becomes furious with George and hits him. The boy defends himself with these words:

"Mr. Gower, you don't know what you messed up with the capsules, I know you're not really mad at me, you're sad about the telegram... You put something wrong in the capsules, it's not your fault, Mr. Gower, look and you'll see what you did." . I saw the bottle where he got the powder, I told him it's poison, I know he feels bad.”

The pharmacist realizes his mistake and emotionally hugs George, who reassures him: “Mr. Gewer, I won't tell anyone. I know how you feel, I won't tell. Let me die if I do!" The next scene, in a time ellipsis, shows us an adult George, buying the suitcase he wants for his travels. To his surprise, Mr Gower has prepaid the largest as a gift for him. Evidently, her former employer felt very grateful to George.

The protagonist can act in such a noble way, as he does with Mr. Gower, that it seems impossible not to awaken in the other the need to be grateful, which, as we know, hides an aspiration of this subtype: altruism as a way of eliciting recognition. . Furthermore, in the scene with Mr. Gower, George exhibits his ability to inhibit his aggressiveness and defend himself with words, displaying remarkable empathy, understanding, and commitment for a boy of twelve, yet the ability to push aside , at least temporarily, their own needs, emotions and desires, characteristics usually also present in the Social Seven.

Although the film shows a generally extroverted and enthusiastic George, different passages show more clearly the compotent social character: in its great seriousness, restraint and austerity. This is made explicit, for example, when at dinner his father tells him, and repeats: "You were born old, George." It also happens that he is not a good dancer and, in his own words, he does not have the stature of an athlete. Their interests go, rather, in another direction.

 In two or three episodes it is alluded to that he is a good reader and, in an important scene, in which he walks sorrowfully away from his younger brother's wedding celebration (because this forces him to postpone his plans once again). leaving the city), we see him retrace his steps, alone, to the public library...

In that same section of the film it is possible to appreciate his great capacity for containment. The young Mary has returned from studying in New York and, although there she has been courted by Sam, a friend of both, George's mother knows perfectly well that Mary is in love with her son and that she could be a wonderful wife for him. So she tells George and encourages him to go visit her, but George resists... because he doesn't want to interfere between Mary and Sam. Without knowing how, he ends up walking outside Mary's house who, seeing him, invites him inside. George behaves in an obfuscated and even rude manner. Apparently, he is not fully aware of what he is for. viewer is obvious: he is as attracted to Mary as she is to him. His bewilderment is the result of his inner struggle to quell the impulse to get closer to her, since his dear friend has an interest in the same woman. How noble George is, to what extent he is able to repress his own impulses, if it is for the benefit of others!

But fate lends a hand. Just when he's about to leave upset at Mary's house, she receives a call from Sam from New York. The shot shows Sam with another woman; in fact he is telephoning to propose a business deal to Mary. Hearing that George is there, he decides to inform them both at the same time, forcing them to place their faces next to each other in order to hear the earpiece. The scene is delicious: we see the last moments of George's fight. When Samadue: “It's the chance of a lifetime”, George succumbs and, at the same time with heartbreak, fury and bereavement, passionately kisses May, declaring: «I don't even want to start any business... I just want to do what I want. At last, feel the speculator.

George is a modest and unassuming guy. When preparing his trip to Europe, a friend finds out, surprised, that he will do it on a ship that transports cattle. Geoge casually tells him that he likes cattle. Later, when he gets married, he will sincerely enjoy the magic and simple wax that Mary prepares on the wedding night, and then he will settle down to live in an old renovated dilapidated house.

With the arrival of four children he will manage to live on little money and will even be able to resist Potter's offer to increase his income several times over. But strictly speaking this, as is characteristic of the social subtype, is not entirely genuine. When the film narrates what happens to each character during the Second World War, we see that, unlike many, George has minor tasks, not at all heroic, such as collecting rubber and scrap metal, for example, which he does without any pleasure. His not-so-secret yearning for greatness makes him uncomfortable.

Likewise, towards the end, when he falls into crisis, he launches a series of judgments that do not seem tinged only with the bad moment he is going through, but also give the impression of bringing to light experiences that he had not fully confessed to himself until. then. When one of his sons tells him about a neighbor's new car, George complains irritably, "Isn't the one we have good enough?"

 A few moments later, arguing with the husband of one of her children's teachers, she bleeds from the wound for no direct reason, anticipating an imaginary reproach: "Perhaps my children are not the best dressed or do not have decent clothes but...". And learning that Zuzu, the youngest, has caught a cold, she complains with bitter anger to Mary: It's this house, I don't know how we don't all have pneumonia; it's like living in a fridge>. And he waits for a capital phrase: "Why do we have to live here in this miserable city?"

Indeed, we know that our George has never felt at home in Bedford Falls. Since he was little he imagined huit, excuse me, part of that small provincial city in pursuit of broad horizons and greatness. At dinner with his father, George had told him, "I couldn't spend the rest of my life locked up in a miserable office [referring to the Company]. I feel like if I don't get out of here, I'm wasting myself."

Here we see his nuclear narcissism again. George has never been able to accept his circumstances as they are and, deep down, he feels confined, which is very difficult for this subtype. He always dreamed of an attractive future (and worthy of the admiration of others). Time and again fate put him at a crossroads that made his long-awaited departure difficult. And again and again, without anyone forcing him, obeying only his nature, he chose to postpone his plans and stay. His sense of responsibility and service to others always prevailed, above his most intimate desires.

At this point we can dig deeper, for the film clearly shows in three or four important scenes that his altruism is combined with a stubborn opposition to the unscrupulous Potter. There is a power struggle between them. The tycoon has a special interest in the Credit and Construction Company because it is the only important business in the county that he does not own. George zealously defends her for the same reason: she is a bastion of decency and community service. He is unwilling under any circumstances to submit to Potter's money or power.

What's more, George is repulsed by his use of his money and power. In this regard, the scene in which, for the first time, George decides not to leave the city is revealing. The death of his father has recently prevented him from embarking on his planned trip to Europe, but is about to finally leave to study in New York. It is then that the company's board of directors asks him to take his father's place as executive secretary. George refuses, until the moment when he is made to see that if not, Potter will take control (and the social function of the company will be lost). At that moment, a very close-up of George's face shows how his expression changes completely: he is unable to tolerate such a thing happening. Accept the charge.

The denouement not only exhibits George's personality traits, but also some of the dynamism that can lead a social E7 to hell, first, and to his return to life later in a more virtuous condition, in the precise sense in which it is meant postulates the psychology of the enneagram type.

When Uncle Billy misplaces the company's money, the company loses its financial solvency. "This means ruin, scandal and jail", are the exact words that George exclaims when he finds out. For anyone it would be a difficult drink, but even more so for someone who has put all his efforts into helping others, sacrificing so much for his own benefit. And it is clear that the checkmate to his public image, the “scandals, matters a lot to George.

As if that were not enough, he goes to a bar where he, who is not a man to pray, in his tribulation raises a prayer to God asking for help. At that moment a parishioner recognizes him as the one with whom he had a telephone discussion a while before. Without saying the teacher's husband knocks George down. George goes, he cries for help and receives a blow for answer. It is the coup de grace: he feels like a failure in front of his community and his own family and friends. He can only expect the rejection of others. It is then that, without losing his inclination to sacrifice, since he has life insurance in mind, he directs his steps to the river to jump into the waters on a dark snowy night.

Here we see how withdrawal as a solution and abandonment as a form of aggression against the other take shape. When it's about to jumping off a bridge, sees that another person has fallen into the water and the reader guesses what George ultimately did. While the clothes are drying in a lookout's post, the other individual, Clarence, the angel now in human form, confesses who he is and his mission. George naturally doesn't believe him. At one point he says to the angel: I wish I had not been born. Clarence sees that this may be the way to help him. Using his supernatural power, he makes George visit the city as if he had never really been born.

Our protagonist discovers that Bedford Falls has changed its name and is called Pottersville. He finds the grave of his brother Harry, who drowned as a child, since he did not have this older brother to save him. In a dramatic sequence, George finds that the city is full of clubs and brawlers. None of his friends or family recognize him and it becomes clear that his life circumstances have been much more difficult or that his character has worsened, because George never existed.

When he finally meets Mary, who in this past life has become a gray old maid, George can no longer resist and asks Clarence, in the utmost desperation, to give him back his troubled life, which he had renounced. . Seeing that the city had morally degraded and that many friends and relatives were worse off and, in particular, feeling that he had lost his wife and children, was unbearable for him. He no longer wanted at all to lose his life, now he longed to get it back.

 In the last few minutes we have witnessed a good example, in my opinion, of the manifestation of sobriety as a liberating virtue from the compulsive mechanics of social E7. Clarence, of course, has granted George's wish to get his life back and we see him arrive at the entrance to the city. Reading the name of Bedford Falls again, he bursts with joy. Run through the streets wishing everyone and everything a Merry Christmas, including Henry Potter. He arrives home and doesn't care that the police are waiting to arrest him. He’ll go to jail, but he doesn't shy away from it anymore, this is his village and his friends, the only thing that matters. It is in life that it does what it does. He is happy to get everything back to normal, including the problems.

However, while George was out overnight, word spread of the serious problem he was in and the community en masse came to give him, a cash grant that will get him out of jail. He thus receives fair compensation for his efforts, but first he has had to go through an experience of death and rebirth that has allowed him to feel happy with the circumstances of his existence, something that he had never really experienced in his entire life. What he lived through has allowed him to discover that he does not need to go to another place, nor fulfill dreams of greatness; meaning and happiness are in what you have, with its real limitations. With his family, with his low income, with his old house, in the same small, provincial town he has never left.

CINEMATOGRAPHIC EXAMPLE

By Lluís Fusté

Living is easy with closed eyes

Direction: David Trueba

Year 2013

Finally, the most complex character that we have found and that works from the traits of a social E7 is the protagonist of Living is easy with your eyes closed. The fact of being the protagonist of this realistically made film allows us to see how this character handles himself in different situations and in private. In addition, we have the hypothesis that the actor who embodies him could function as a social Seven due to his physical and energetic constitution.

An English teacher, from a school for priests in the steppe and Francoist Spain of the 1960s, decides to go on a trip to meet John Lennon and ask him to include the lyrics of The Beatles songs on the sleeve of his records.

Look extraordinary. Several scenes allow us to observe this neurotic motivation. This road movie starts by showing us the protagonist in class, with his students. He is the English teacher and brings his students glimpses of another world, the Anglo-Saxon world, which at that moment in the history of Spain represents freedom and democracy. In that classroom of repressed and Francoist Spain, he is the light. As we have already pointed out, the neurotic motivation of the social E7 is to see oneself as extraordinary from an action of sacrifice or service. The job of a teacher is therefore one of the things that works best for him

since it allows you to enjoy solving many problems. In the class he has a captive audience, whom he can capture with his magic and kindness from the arena. In the classroom, he is the guide, he has an important mission and a silent audience, easily impressionable, that can return that image of being extraordinary that so calms him. A closed world, easy to manage, in which he does not have to face reality or conflicts that are too destabilizing and in which he enjoys a positive and kind social image. A good place for narcissists with wet gunpowder.

In another scene, he explains to the girl he is sharing the trip with to meet John Lennon about his job as a teacher. He presents himself as a hero. His conscious motivation for undertaking the journey of meeting Lennon is his passion to serve children and get the Beatles to publish their lyrics to their albums, so that they learn English better. But constantly in the film we see how his unconscious motivation, and his enjoyment, is to do something extraordinary and get to rub shoulders with one of the cultural heroes of the time. He seeks in this experience of meeting Lennon the meaning and salvation of his mediocre life; he tries to cover his reality with the sheet of fantasy and extraordinariness.

In the film we can see that the action of service/sacrifice is real. He endangers his way of life as a teacher to carry out his mission, in which the great beneficiaries will be others. A mission without great dangers, but that lives as if it were in the Vietnam War and where the quixotic aspect of this character is seen. Within the enneagram we find many subtypes that have sacrificial or serving behaviors. What characterizes the social Seven is the compulsiveness in that behavior and the unconscious and neurotic motivation to look extraordinary that moves it. And also that the action of the sacrifice does not annul him as a person, and that this sacrifice is not total either.

Relationship with authority

Several scenes show his relationship with authority. On the one hand, with the authority that he considers evil (the priests and the police in the film) he adopts an attitude of apparent self-assertion. He prefers to apologize to ask for permission, like when they get jealous in the cinema to get closer to Lennon and the competent authority catches them.

With authority it seems that he does not have the strength to rebel directly, as when a priest hits one of his students and we see that he dislikes this but does not dare to denounce what is happening out of cowardice. It is not strange that he works in an institution in which he does not believe (a college for priests) while maintaining a correct attitude and enjoying the perks of being next to those in charge. He dreams of transforming the institution from within, but in reality he is sheltered by it. The social E7 does not generally have the strength of a transformer." And his character can lead him to the mediocrity of the survivor. These aspects make him a necessary collaborator of power, to whom he offers his fox skills to earn a place .

To sustain this internal tension, he uses fantasy as a way of sustaining an idealized self-image of goodness, well-being, and meaning. Something that we can see in the scenes in which at night, in his room, he tunes in to the English radio and transcribes the songs of the Beatles. On the other hand, in his relationship with the authority he considers good-John Lennon, in the film-he becomes horizontal. In the scene where he meets him, he treats him like another friend.

She has been rehearsing this encounter with Lennon repeatedly, which has allowed us to see how she manages her fear and uses her seductive skills to non-aggressively approach the other and win his

favour. He places the longed-for authority in the place of the colleague, in a narcissistic movement in which he tries to become related to her. There his narcissism returns to play tricks on him, since he does not respect the real distance that separates him from that authority.

Sense of humor

Throughout the film we see the use he makes of the sense of humor, central to this character. The social Seven often leaves his interlocutor with a smile on his face. Not with a laugh; it is a smile of well-being. Humor is the oil in their relationships with life and with the world. A way to drain away anguish and tension and to present yourself as harmless in relationships.

The protagonist makes very profuse use of a generally light humor. Although sometimes he allows himself to take out his aggressiveness there, as he does with the female protagonist when she is not nice to him. His humor allows him to always be in the relationship with a half smile and a sense of well-being. One way to include humor in relationships is by coming across as ridiculous or outlandish. It is a way to avoid intimacy and, again, to try to avoid violence from the other, showing himself as harmless.

Good humor is linked to a compulsive optimism, which presents him as an enthusiast of life. When the other characters open their wounds of pain, he throws his enthusiasm at them. In his luminous part, this opens him up to the possibility of a daily spirituality, in which getting up in the morning can be an act full of beauty, as he shows us in the scene in which he wakes up his traveling companion with the phrase : «My mother taught me to turn on the sun. There you have it, turned on for you."

Relationship with erotic desire

 On his journey to find Lennon he picks up a girl who is running away from home. She is pregnant by a stranger and her family wants her to give their child up for adoption, but she wants to have it. The protagonist is attracted to the girl from the first moment but he cannot play his desire until he goes drunk one night. Then he dares to ask her for a kiss. And to tell her that he would marry her. With this proposal he sends her to sleep. There we see that his presentation to women is obvious of his masculinity, his aggressiveness. He does not express his desire clearly and directly. He appears harmless, castrated, devious. He uses soft humor and presents himself to the stake with sexuality as a romantic gentleman, castrated, too respectful, mental. There is no body hiding the animal. So much control, coldness and disconnection make it unattractive. She will prefer the company of the young boy with whom they take the trip.

Relationship with physical violence. 

Another interesting subplot for the characterization of this character is his relationship with the farmer who violates his friend. Arriving at a hotel, the boy who shares a trip is attacked by a peasant, who cuts his long hair. Upon finding out, the teacher appears before the farmer asking for explanations, and the farmer slaps him. Here appears his aspect of compulsive pacifism. He thinks he is a pacifist by choice when in reality he is one by obligation, since he has no weapons to defend himself against someone who does not accept dialogue.

The transformation in this area is that the social E7 will raise their voices and their fists to be able to confront those who do not understand another language with physical aggressiveness. In the film, the professor will return to the farmhouse and destroy his tomato crop right under his nose.

Idealism

The film also accurately portrays this central feature of the social E7. Already the very motivation of his trip seems fueled by an unattainable ideal. The interesting thing is that we see how that idealism with which he masks certain aspects of life is sometimes a driving force that allows you to achieve things that others do not get to see or possible.

The professor manages to talk to Lennon and the lyrics of the songs are published on the next Beatles album, just as he had dreamed. This allows us to see that within the ideal self there are two parts analyze the tyrannical ideal, which punishes us with an unattainable ideal, and the driving ideal, which presents us with a possible goal, the achievement of which forces us to grow. The professor's trip to Len's meeting does not belong to this second type of ideal. His idealism also encompasses, in this case, Lennon. And as with all neurotics, knowing his altar we can understand what he yearns for: Lennon is the artist, free, bohemian, brave; the extraordinary being that every social Seven would like to become.

CHAPTER 11; JOKES AND VIGNETTES

A joke

A very pious Hebrew, devout and observant of all the commandments, goes to the Temple one Sabbath morning, walking the path that separates his house from the place of prayer.

 After several hours of prayer, while he returns to his modest room, seeking to concentrate on the reflection on the sacred texts and the teachings received in the temple, as well as on the questions of the soul and not on all the daily problems that forge the prison of his spirit, destiny surprises him. Suddenly, while walking down the street, he trips over a wallet full of money. And there his delicate financial situation appears, the bills to pay, the hardships he has been through and his eternal struggle to make ends meet. But, it's Sabbath. The holy day on which money cannot be focused. What should I do then?

He decides to ask God for an answer, a guide on how to act in such a terrible situation. And think, think, think... And, miracle! It's Sabbath all over the world and, just in that square meter where he and the wallet are... Thursday!

CHAPTER 12; TRANSFORMATION PROCESS AND THERAPEUTIC RECOMMENDATIONS

By CRISTINA BUSI

 If we lived madness and followed it,

 it would become wisdom

CLAUDIO NARANJO

The first step to initiate transformation is awareness. It seems trivial to say it; however, it is an act that demands authentic humility. The difficulty is not so much in identifying the character traits typical of the social Seven and attributing them to themselves as in giving up manipulating them and accepting the shadow of the character.

The deep identification with his idealized image will lead the Social Seven to quite easily accept aspects of his character such as the search for holiness, kindness or compassion and altruism and, therefore, to easily locate himself on the enneagram map that he proposes to Claudio Naranjo. The real difficulty consists in going beyond those traits, intimately perceived as better and advantageous within a path of psycho-spiritual growth, and overcoming that image constructed with so much pride, searching for the narcissistic core that sustains that attitude.

In this first phase, the experience of working in a group of the same subtype is fundamental because it activates the character's first demon, that is, frustration. The group promotes a process of reflecting on others that is normalizing, evidences the impossibility of differentiating oneself within a group of peers, and exposes the competitive need to stand out as extraordinary within the group.

 Starting from the frustration, it is possible to observe the different behaviors with which the social Seven avoids the emotional contact that he activates to avoid the pain that derives from it: devaluation of the group, of the task and of the rules; isolation; compensation; deviation towards gambling and cynicism. The repetition of analogous behaviors, apparently light and fatuous, leads to gradually revealing the passive-aggressive and destructive charge, and circumscribes the basic neurotic need, that is, the search for visibility as an extraordinary being.

“I realized how tedious it was for people to be with someone who thought he always had an answer for everything and who seemed to fear nothing. He seemed to want to use all my sarcasm for the sole purpose of alienating anyone and thus finally ensure a "prosperous solitude." I also realized that my disbelief was not at all passive, quite the opposite. Behind my good boy's face hides a leviathan who tried to add people to fatten his dark and hopeless world. And one day I also saw that in my own children and in the avoided depression that I had wanted to instill in their little hearts, luckily without being very successful. They and my wife have always been my real saviors, the only ones who managed to remove the clouds from that sunless sky that lived in me for so many years.” (DIEGO)

Once this first layer of neurotic behavior has been cleared, it is essential to look for what lies behind it, that is, the attempt to avoid pain. One must intentionally renounce self-description neurotic and open to an authentic biographical narrative. The first thing is to demystify childhood itself. Telling others about one's own biographical sufferings, going through the neck of the facts by describing the violations and deprivations of one's own being, beginning to open a compassionate door towards one's own childhood vulnerability, is a different step from manifesting endured suffering of a neurotic type, the painful melancholy on which the social E7 feeds so much.

Coming into contact with one's past pain is the first act of that "conscious suffering" that the social Seven needs for its evolution. Revealing one's being allows one to go through the first doors: arrogance hidden as false humility, shame, fear of rejection and the admission of needs.

“I told myself that I started the therapeutic process out of intellectual curiosity and a need to change jobs. When asked about my childhood in the first sessions, my answer was that I had had a very happy childhood. That was stated in the manual with which I presented myself to the world. He had never let me tell the truth of what I had experienced. Neither myself nor the others. It took me two years to put a but to my childhood. And for several more years, to understand that I started the psychotherapeutic process because the life I had invented for myself had been broken and I was depressed and disoriented.” (LUIS)

Self-observation

The change of character requires patience, trust and a certain amount of discipline, resources with which the social E7 is not endowed. It is useful that there is training in making contact with one's own character structure and intentionally attempting to act out alternative behaviors. It is not a question of a change but rather of a simulation, a "as if" that allows the mechanisms of one's own character to be revealed a little at a time.

Only the gradual knowledge and the testing of the character in the face of its repeated traps can lead the social Seven to be motivated for a real change, which goes through a profound process of restructuring the internal intrapsychic balances.

Perceiving loneliness, isolation, basic distrust and the intrinsic devaluation of emotional and relational self- or hetero-manipulation mechanisms, fully understanding the level of unnecessary (neurotic) suffering that this character self-inflicts, are required steps to authentically found motivations. To the change.

One of the first therapists who attended me asked me, after reading my autobiography: «The Pain. Where do you have the pain?». (LUIS)

The social Seven has a neurotic drive for improvement, a longing for holiness, and a neurotic aversion to painful frustration. These three elements, coupled with the tendency to filter experience in the light of identification with its idealized representation, create character armor that hinders the possibility of real change. Indulgence, quackery, and the yearning for holiness work together to maintain the status quo.

Any potentially transforming element is neutralized in harmony with the belief system, through a work of intellectual assimilation and ethical and moral relativization. Very quickly, the social E7s know what they have to do and how they have to be to manifest the change. Their strategic mind leads them to autosa botaje, unconsciously disguising the internal reality. Keep in mind that the defense mechanisms are sophisticated and not at all obvious for this character. Breaking your compulsion to bend and rationalize, and opening up to feeling, are sometimes insurmountable obstacles in the short term.

In order to avoid this intrinsic tendency of the character structure, it is necessary in a first phase simply to put oneself to the test constantly exercise doubt about what he says and thinks. Act and consciously observe the functioning of the character and seek, as a support base to get out of the character structure, coherence between the two worlds: the sensitive-emotional and the intellectual, the intimate and the public.

Meditation and body

We have extensively described how the use of the mind is the Achilles' heel for this character structure, which is so airy and prone to mystification. It is almost intuitive to root transformation work in the body. Feel the hunger. Feel the emptiness. A valid help comes from meditation: Panoramic attention to all somatic and mental events allows the social Seven to observe the breadth of distracting strategies that are widely available to your body.

“My first step on the path of transformation was a ten-day vipassana meditation course in the Goenka tradition. The proposal is to lead a monastic life: get up at four, meditate ten hours a day, not speak, not write, not socialize... What attracted me was the extraordinary nature of the proposal and the possibility of hanging the medal for finishing it. . I didn't even know what the course was about. It was the first time in my life that I stopped and began to observe what happened to me every day. I left the course with the medal for my ego and also with a fracture in my armor that forced me to continue working on myself.” (LUIS)

The discipline of holding on to the breath can gradually reduce the attachment to transient phenomena. In meditation, the social E7 tends to produce visions and follow its imaginative mind in mystical prospects, losing connection with the here and now. In daily practice, reeducation is useful to be able to listen to one's own body, in terms of physiological needs certain: sleep, hunger, tiredness, sexual desire, physical pain Introduce a discipline of monitoring poor somatic sensations and basic physiological needs.

Begin to nurture yourself by cultivating, through the exercise of sobriety, a taste for things and the enjoyment of what is there. cultivate the sensuality, contact with a body that can become a guide for the satisfaction of the needs that are anchored to the here and now. Meditation allows you to begin to distinguish the neurotic needs of the real ones.

Punctual and panoramic attention to the body makes it possible to activate a balancing mechanism against the superpower of the mind of the social Seven, and progressively develop an antidote to flight and evasion. First listen to it, feel it, so that later you can discover its needs and potentialities.

“I cannot say if this is of a certain enneatype, but being able to enjoy the body immediately connects us with the basic instincts that we have. To think that I can integrate myself from the consciousness of my body, awakening the pleasure and pain of my body, realizing what I like, being able to be attentive and discover the bodily sensations when I don't like it. Being more attentive to my corporeality has given me a sense of hope; It is like having found a meaning in life.” (XAVIER)

Casual activities that tend to reduce the body's overall arousal level and help develop specific attention to changes, even subtle ones, in vital parameters, such as yoga or tai chi, are useful. The connection with one's own body helps to retake the compass of life for the search for real satisfaction, giving greater possibilities of connecting with his dimension as a child.

“Today I discovered that movement, anger or strength is a good thing that my life needs. Trusting my instinct gives me a sense of authenticity because I don't hold back and swallow things. It's like meditation, is to abandon oneself in the breath and then leave it, solar and realize, live and expand.” (XAVIER)

The mind

 A difficult task for the social Seven is to learn to observe how his mind moves, recognizing the strategies, traps and illusions and, above all, without getting trapped in the labyrinths and mirages that he builds with it.

The invitation for all social E7s is to realize that, in reality, they are a special being to the extent that we all are, and not to feel the need to have to do something in order to deserve it. In the emptiness of the Being, in doing without an objective or planning and in giving without strategy, the social E7 will be able to honor life as true human beings. Get the vivid feeling of being normal, of being one more grain of sand in this vast desert: that cures them.

Ideation (strategic or fanciful) is a powerful activator, which also allows a certain psychophysical excitement to be sustained. The difficulty therefore is, as for Ulysses in his encounter with the sirens, to observe without getting caught up in the workings of the mind. Again, cling to an internal witness who observes; practice that is achieved through meditation, work with lucid dreams and the guided use of some psychotropic substances.

A useful exercise is to watch the ideas germinate in your head and the planning goes off. Let's not forget that Ichazo pointed out planning as the cognitive fixation of the greedy character. Being able to get out of that exciting mental spiral and ground those ideas into reality, make a calm choice and carry out the ones you want. The sicker a social E7 is, the fewer actions it will take and the more it will stumble through life. The most accomplished examples of people with this character have all managed in part to lead to action and the world his dreams. Jules Verne, Anton Chéjov, José Martí or Francisco de Asís managed to put that synthetic, jumping and creative mind to produce for the world: novels, stories, social transformations...

In mental operations, it is important to add the activity of realization to the visionary capacity, creativity to sustainability, managing to connect the pleasure of planning with the pleasure of carrying out the plans. In everyday life, it would mean assuming global responsibility for an action, carrying it out, starting with the most common behaviors: Assuming a commitment, fulfilling it within the established deadlines, doing one thing at a time. work in depth and not just transversally, leave dead spaces to be able to savor what you are doing.

The observation of the mind leads to a progressive disidentification of mental phenomena, of which the social E7 feels intimately proud, and allows the effects of some ideations to be gradually deactivated. The recognition, not only of the content of one's own irrational convictions, but also of the way in which they operate, fully involving the organism, leads to recognizing the connection between ideation and a manic emotional activity, and to reestablishing a line of global balance more linked to the here and now. It is a discipline of detoxification of the pleasure of mental activity.

Exercising a considered use of verbal intelligence, not for fantasy but for communication and definition of one's own position, gradually leads to an experientially conscious use of this mind, which thus becomes a virtuous antidote. against quackery: words as bridges and not as sleight of hand. Manifested ideas, as possibilities to define borders and accept limits.

“Specifying thoughts is also a factor that plays in the interpersonal. Being able to communicate feelings is a suffocation; it seems that puts us on pause and, stoically, we escape from feeling what they are telling me, traveling to a calmer, more peaceful, happier place. Saying what we feel may seem like harakiri because it's going to hurt, but after expressing anger or disagreements I realize that nothing is wrong and it heals me.” (XAVIER)

Making thoughts present and visible in words and actions is a strategy that makes it possible to expose the tendency to quackery, which has become a drug of the mind, and progressively weaken its effect on the mind. person. There is a verbal-visual axis that makes the word a way to control, manage and defend cognitive fixation, so that any element of self-knowledge can be used to subsequently close the narcissistic nucleus on itself. More than studying, this character needs to be experienced, express himself from your truth, and sweat to get in touch with his intimate reality and his neurotic way of functioning.

“I remember a regressive type of work: I noticed pain in all parts of the body, as if something was pressing, from inside, to come out. Like a beast that wanted to free itself and, in doing so, scratch its skin. I invoked the help of therapists in every possible way: lying to me, squirming, crying, throwing glances. I never verbally asked for help. So I was able to figure out how it works.” (CHRISTINE)

Self-transformation: changing the intrapsychic world The intrapsychic world of the social E7, as we have seen in the chapter on love, demands a refounding of new balances in the dynamism of the inner father-mother-son family. For this to happen it is important that some passages in the plane of reality become promoted, if necessary through a therapeutic path, a reparative process in relation to some incomplete passages in intrapsychic development.

A fundamental nucleus in relation to the emancipation of the patriarchal mind is the redefinition of the internal representations linked to the father and the mother. In general this implies completing the process of separation from the mother and a rapprochement with the father. It is not necessary for it to happen on the plane of reality, but it is necessary that the psychic dimensions of the paternal and the maternal be decontaminated from the historical-biographical emotional narration that fixes them. A full reintegration, unrelated to childhood traumas, will then be possible. The first step, as has already been said, is to recognize the pain linked to these passages, living it, going through it, being able to integrate it within one's own experience.

Recognizing the frustrated need of a mother not sufficiently in tune with the child, and the denied need of a father, feared or absent and introjected as "bad", allows one to work through the pain generated by biographical wounds and emancipate oneself from them in order to continue the own existential realization in a plane of effective emotional autonomy.

The transformation manifests itself as autonomy, a capacity to care for one's own and the external, deep emotional empathy and a connection with all the erotic vitality of the son function, according to Claudio Naranjo's map of the three loves. Going through the experience of primary pain allows the reintegration of parts of oneself and makes the child function available for full functionality of the spontaneous. The evolutionary passage consists of reaching the possibility of experiencing and expressing one's own emotions, particularly everything related to emotional pain.

“When we were eleven years old, a group of seven children got lost in the woods. It started to hail. They all cried desperately. I put myself in command. And I led them to the camp. I just felt excited. I felt extraordinary. I felt useful and superior, like when I consoled my mother. Fear and pain do not belong to me; they are of the world.” (LUIS)

Openness to anger is also important, since aggressiveness is frequently expressed passively. And it is a sign of integration to be able to express anger functionally and directly in interpersonal conflicts. Being able to develop an internal army without becoming militarized, being able to get direct without getting violent.

This also means being able to embody the inner character of the bad boy. Being unpleasant, disharmonizing the group, disinfecting himself by remembering that he is not as good or as wise as he seems.

“I experienced a burning rage, which in the days that followed led me to hate to the point of even imagining and wanting to kill the people who at that time were directing the work and had not helped me. I remember the embarrassment and anger at telling him days later. And my relief to see them openly laughing at my threats.” (CHRISTINE)

The direct expression of rage differs from the petulant and demanding groan with which the social Seven expresses himself when, in full manifestation of sacrifice, he enters a crisis due to social saturation.

The path to real self-acceptance includes coming to grips with your ugly parts, acknowledging your limits, and really giving up the idea of ​​saving the world and becoming a saint. This leads him to a sense of loss of meaning of his own life, whose deep meaning he will have to look for in his simple unraveling. A frustrating but necessary resizing.

The transformation of the E7 begins when he deposits on the ground the cross that he unconsciously acquired and of which he became a passionate bearer. And it continues when, touched by revealing grace, he realizes his ridiculous mission and can finally laugh at all that and find his place in the world, one more among the others.

The healing distance often requires a healthy, real therapeutic relationship, capable of sustaining the attacks of distrust of the social E7, always in search of guides, men and more extraordinary experiences. The relational experience of being in a restorative experience will allow you to go through the necessary crises of derealization. The experience of being able to be only human and not divine allows the social Seven to surrender to an adult, full, corrective love, and then transfer it to real affections. Surrendering to a love that fully contemplates him allows the social E7 to adhere with progressive confidence to his own vital movements, allowing him to tune in with greater emotional and relational spontaneity.

Recognize needs as such, including care from the other, practice asking and receiving. The work to open up to love involves accepting the affection that comes from the other, becoming small, vulnerable, worthy of receiving, integrating what comes from the environment without the need to overcompensate, without feeling guilty for receiving. Begin to look with genuine compassion at your inner child, who has been deprived of love, and recognize its divine nature.

The key words in the restorative therapeutic process are sweetness, limits, firmness and equanimity. The rhythm must be gradual and the setting should be able to contain its discontinuity. The persistent sweetness of the maternal; the firmness of the paternal; equanimity as the ability not to intervene or manipulate, so that the child's spontaneity can manifest again. Laughing spontaneously I think shows better than any other expression the change in the social Seven. Irony and the capacity for detachment become a gift, accompanied by that smile of the cat from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, which Claudio Naranjo often quotes.

Living is thus a less serious thing, less serious. Also less exciting, sometimes. There are times when you feel the lack of passion. The intensity is recovered on a horizontal plane, less adrenergic, more encompassing and linked to the capacity for prolonged emotional contact with people. It is a more authentically horizontal exchange and service, if it appears, is no longer contaminated by sacrifice. Thus he can contemplate the good for the other and also for himself.

Eros shows up from time to time, making the sight poignant. The relationship becomes physically encompassing ra; contact, not only symbiotic; also transformative and exciting. These and other things are related to what Naranjo defines as sobriety, that is, the virtue that the social E7 has to cultivate in its path of psycho-spiritual growth.

 One of the definitions that Claudio Naranjo gives of sobriety is doing what has to be done at the right time. It means following what is instinctively linked to the sacred naturalness of the child, which emerges as urgent in its vital need and which is linked, in an adult and wise relationship, with reality.

 False sobriety is one of the traps that we find on the path of transformation proposed by the use of the enneagram from the perspective of Claudio Naranjo. The ability to pervert virtue and neurotize it is common in this character, so we will give some testimonies about the misuse of sobriety as an obstacle in the process.

“When looking at myself, it has been easy for me to take myself for a moderately sober person. Compared to my Seven acquaintances, I haven't seen too many signs of gluttony. I settle for food, comforts, whims, easily. Barely centered, in moments of intimacy and isolation, a little attached to food, reading, smoking depending on what... and nothing else. It is relatively easy for me to let go of habits. I don't fight for money, nor - that's how I saw it for recognition... Not even for immediate spiritual achievements, nor by power... I have almost infinite patience, and a capacity for renunciation and conformity superior to those of those around me.

Looking at myself recently, looking at myself in the light of whether I am allowing my real tendencies to surface, leaning on my true intrinsic spontaneity, I see these capacities for renunciation and control as excessive. I eat very little sober. Is it that my sobriety is to be exerted on my automatic tendency to take the sober paths?

It seems to me that in my case it has more to do with restricting my taking care of others and turning attention to my truth.” (FRANCIS)

In the development of virtue, we see that the social E7 tends to make only an intellectual understanding of it and, therefore, the behavior is subjected to self-manipulation strategically consistent with this presumed understanding. In a simple formula, just as in his childhood the social Seven has been a good child, in his spiritual path he adapts his behavior to what he supposes is the image that certifies his development.

“I have used the knowledge I had of the process, in this case virtue, in a totally instrumental way to maintain the neurosis. I have enjoyed my adaptation to frustration, cultivating in a very narcissistic way the idea of ​​being in the full exercise of virtue, while fully sinking into my neurosis. Virtue, the cognitive knowledge of virtue, has been a revolving door for me. I have been bad for years, in which I was so lost that I did not even have the strength to differentiate between neurotic and necessary pain. Until I said enough. I think this had to be done: stop adapting to the impositions, stop giving up, stop breathing with half a lung. Stop waiting for death to be happy. I don't think that's sober at all; I believe that sobriety is a step, the umpteenth step, towards vitality.” (CHRISTINE)

 In a first phase, more behavioral, it will be necessary to get sober in acts with the world. Stop the multiplication machine narcissistically rewarding social situations and scenes in which he appears as good or extraordinary. In general, he feels superior to the other E7s because they can't hold back in their behavior like he can. But his addiction is another. The other E7s are more clearly selfish, sexual, or exploitative. In the social Seven it is important to be able to contain yourself in your behavioral games to be extraordinary in front of the other and the group. And above all, put a limit on his idealizing fantasies of himself and his mission in the world.

In a second phase of deepening, he will have to take sobriety to the intimate, deeper sphere, exploring more deeply the motivations of small acts. Stop doing relationships with yourself and with others in order to be seen as extraordinary. Start doing what needs to be done, beyond the image that can be earned in the group and in your inner heart. In a third phase, he will be able to let go of sobriety as a guide and he will be able to surrender to life and its flow because he no longer works for his little ego but is just another drop in the sea. The social E7 is one that has to clip its wings to be able to take root and grow.