All About Instinctual Variants:
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The instinctual variants/subtypes are an addition Claudio Naranjo made to the theory, inspired by Ichazo's enneagons of Social Relationships, Conservation and Syntony and Gurdjieff’s moving center of the sex, instinctive and motor functions, as explained by Frederic and Bernadette Schmitt:
Ichazo, Naranjo followed Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way teaching. According to this teaching, there are three main centers: intellectual, emotional, and moving. (...) Naranjo had, at that point, a brilliant idea: he put the three original Ichazo enneagons (conservation, relation and adaptation) in the three functions (sex, instinctive, and motor) of Gurdjieff’s moving center. The subtypes were born.
• Gurdjieff’s Sex function was merged with the syntony/adaptation subtype, and renamed by Naranjo as sexual subtype
• Gurdjieff’s Instinctive function was merged with the conservation subtype, renamed as self preservation subtype.
• Gurdjieff’s motor function was merged with the relation subtype, renamed as social subtype.
It's thus important to notice Ichazo didn't consider his enneagons as "subtypes" or "variants", but rather described as "definite patterns depending on his fixation" that show distortions in how a type will act in terms of social relationships, syntony and conservation of the being. Furthermore, what Ichazo called "instincts" (Conservation, Relations and Adaptation) are not equivalent to the variants but the triads of the enneagram, in which Conservation is Gut, Relations is Heart and Adaptation is Mind.
The variants are areas of life that affect the passion of a type, in which the most vulnerable and sensitive will cause the passion to distort itself into a subtype. The subtype represents the passion twisted into a neurotic problem that makes the person behave in a certain pattern. For example, the passion of Gluttony of Type 7 is distorted into "Suggestability" when directed to the sexual area and "Family" when directed to the preservation area.
According to the theory of the enneagram as taught by both Ichazo and Naranjo, each of us has one instinct that is a more central preoccupation than the others are, which is referred to as our subtype. There are three instincts, which Ichazo calls conservation, social, and syntony; and which Naranjo calls self-preservation, social, and sexual. The conservation or self-preservation instinct is a primary focus on physical survival, maintenance, and sustenance, although Ichazo seems to expand it to include the satisfaction of emotional and intellectual needs as well. The social instinct focuses on our relationship with others as a group and with society as a whole. The sexual, or syntony, instinct has to do with intimate relationships and our need to be syntonic or in tune with others. The theory goes that one of these arenas is more of a central concern for each of us. Just like our ennea-type, our subtype does not change. Because this life area is a focal point for each of us, we are primarily oriented toward its satisfaction. We could say that we are sensitive to this area of life, in much the same way that we are sensitive to our Holy Idea: it is an area we feel vulnerable about and hence much of our energy goes into it.
The particular instinct that we are galvanized around is where the passion associated with our type is most pronounced. In other words, if you are a Social Two, for instance, your pride would be most pronounced around situations or issues that involve your status or social standing. If you are a Social Three, it is in that area that your lying would be most pronounced, and so on. This is one way of determining what your instinctual type is—by noticing where the passion of your ennea-type is most apparent in your life. When the passion and the dominant instinctual drive come together, they create an even more specific focus of attention, reflecting a particular insatiable need that drives behavior. These subtypes thus reflect three different “subsets” of the patterns of the nine types that provide even more specificity in describing the human personality.
The inner sense of lack, fundamental to the ground of the personality, is focused and experienced here. In other words, it is in this sphere of life in which we feel the most deficient, in the sense of lacking what it takes, and also the most deprived. Because the glasses through which we view our lives are tinted in this way, we feel lacking in one of these particular life arenas, and because reality has a peculiar way of substantiating such beliefs, we have a hard time experiencing and objectively finding the fulfillment we seek in this sphere. Since this life arena is the most charged, it is also the area of life in which we most strongly experience the passion of our type. As Naranjo puts it, our passion or motivational drive is “channeled” into that instinctual sphere. Or to put it differently, one particular instinct becomes the most “passionate” in the sense that our personality is geared around its satisfaction, and this becomes the area of life in which we feel our deepest insecurity and vulnerability. The passions, in turn, bind and distort our instinctual drives so that when we are identified with our personality, our instincts are not functioning freely but are tied up with the concerns arising out of a limited, and thus distorted, self-definition.
Observing where the passion of our type arises most consistently and
forcefully is a good indication of which instinctual subtype we belong to.
For instance, if we happen to be a Four, we would find our passion of envy
arising in instances when either our self-preservation felt threatened, our
sense of social standing and belonging felt in question, or when our intimate
relationship or our capacity to have one felt in jeopardy. As a Four, we
might, for example, feel envious of what another possesses if we were a
preservation type; or we might begrudge a friend who seems socially adept
and accepted if we were a social type; or covet the sensual allure of another
if we were a sexual type. The binding and channeling of the nine passions
into three different instinctual arenas produces twenty-seven distinct
subtypes, each with a characteristic style reflecting this emphasis.
SOCIAL INSTINCT:
The social instinct corresponds to the herd instinct in animals; it involves the sense of belonging to a group, and a preoccupation with your interactions with and place within the group, the pecking order.The Social instinct focuses attention on and shapes behavior around issues related to belonging, recognition, and relationships in social groups. It drives us to “get along with the herd”—our family, the community, and the groups we belong to. This instinct also relates to how much power or standing one has relative to the other members of “the group” in terms of whatever that might mean for a person of a specific type.
A social fixation will make sexual alliances that further the social status and use the social connections to deal with survival issues. Social subtypes often constellate around their family life, prefer groups, and enjoy the social milieu. They call home often, and are involved with their parents and their children. They organize everyone at work to go to lunch together, or orchestrate dinners for groups of twelve. They are the people most interested in status. If the social instinct dominates, one is oriented toward achieving a sense of belonging, a place and status in community.
The second basic instinct of the proto analytical theory is our instinct of sociability or the Relation Instinct, known to zoologists and anthropologists as the instinct of the herd, or the natural inclination that humans have for a gregarious social life. This is another manifestation of our general sense of preservation, because without a society humans cannot exist. It is only by the common effort that we can survive as groups, never as individuals alone. In accordance with Protoanalysis, the biological basis of this instinct rests upon the circulatory system composed of lungs, heart, arteries, veins, and the urinary system. We have to remember that our lungs are our closest contact with the environment. This instinct produces its center of attention upon the area of the heart, and it is felt in relation with how comfortable we feel with our environment, such as being in the pleasant environment of a park or in the secure social environment of a party with friends. This feeling in the heart is what is known as our level of emotional participation in any social situation. The internal instinctual question is, in fact, “Who am I with?”, meaning am I in a secure and pleasant environment with friends, or in an insecure and unpleasant environment with danger and foes? On the psychological level, the instinct of social relations (Relation Instinct) manifests through an Ego-entity, whose primordial preoccupation is their own image and their relation with others. In Protoanalysis, it is known as the Image \ Ego.
• Can be the most decent yet often fake, manipulative, or subtly to grossly antisocial (essence present or left out when relating)
• Prestige, popularity, fame
• Superiority/inferiority problems (forgetting that we’re all equal in our essential functioning)
• Delusions of grandeur or of outcast
• Involved in causes
• Clubs, parties, groups
• The scene, the beautiful people, chic, fashionable, what’s in
• Going with or against the flow
• Socialite/philanthropist/misanthrope
• Political or religious crime (terrorists, anarchists)
• Confusion of boundaries between “you” and “me,” “yours” and “mine” (i.e. using one’s home as a public place, picking from another’s plate as it were one’s own)
Questions:
• Who am I? (you tell me; I’m defined by my relation to you and them, my place in the hierarchy)
Idealized Self Image:
• I am considerate, friendly, generous and self-sacrificing. I possess greatness which commands admiration and respect, and my position in life reflects my exceptional qualities.
Central Delusion:
• I can get from the outside what I’m lacking inside (togetherness, self-approval, acceptance, love)
Dilemma:
• To relate or not to relate; how to relate
Main concern with:
• Group
Aversion To:
• Relating
Special difficulties:
• Ephemeral and incomplete gratification (physical satisfaction possible for SP and SX but relating yields intangible satisfaction only; can’t feed all the hungry, can’t be liked by everyone)
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• Popularity, fame
Fear of:
• Loneliness
Craving:
• High ranking
Sex:
• Friendly
At a party:
• Am I wearing the right clothes? Who are the right people to talk to? What’s the right thing to say?
Focus when divorcing:
• How can I cope with my new status, what will people say.
Joining spiritual/religious groups:
• Looking for companionship
Demonstrations, causes:
• Equal rights, Save the Whale, stop the war, stop capital punishment
Chances are your dominant instinct is NOT:
• If gatherings are no big deal for you
Examples for dominant instinct:
• Judas, Jane Austen, Charles Manson, Caesar Chavez, Emily Post, Mahatma Gandhi, Karen Horney, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter
SELF PRESERVATION INSTINCT:
The self-preservation instinct is associated with vigilance, protectiveness and aggression; in one way or another you have to fight to stay alive, and you must destroy in order to eat. The Self-Preservation instinct focuses attention on and shapes behavior around issues related to survival and material security. It generally directs energy toward safety and security concerns, including having enough resources, avoiding danger, and maintaining a basic sense of structure and well-being. Beyond these basic concerns, the self-preservation instinct may place emphasis on other areas of security in terms of whatever that means for a person of a specific type (once it mixes with one of the nine passions)
A self-preservation fixation will bring strategies for survival into the social and sexual arena, and will choose partners that feed the self preservation Instinct. The self-preservation types can appear more nervous and tightly wound than the others. They spend more time worrying about questions of survival and security. If the self-preservation instinct is the most pronounced, one is preoccupied with survival and material security in an effort to find happiness and fulfillment.
In the case of the Conservation Instinct, the attraction or need for food and drink develops into the instinct of self-preservation, which is expressed as the center of attention that obviously is around the stomach, where our organic need is manifested as hunger or thirst. This center of attention is composed by the mouth, esophagus, stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and small and large intestines, and it is constantly asking the question “How am I?” and it will become generalized in the higher levels. It is the question of “How am I?”, that we can feel around the stomach when, for instance, we are in an uncomfortable situation or we are suddenly threatened by an imminent danger. In an equal way, our expectancy of good happening to us in the sense of our general well-being is felt as the all too familiar “butterflies in the stomach.” There is also a “gut feeling” when our self-preservation at any level is threatened. If we understand the instinctual question, we will be able to understand the Fixations attached to it, which are the outcome of this instinct. In Protoanalysis, the self-preservation ego is known as the Historical Ego because of its history of painful experiences and traumas of being constantly preoccupied and obsessed with preservation. This forms the Ego-entity that analyzes, from the point of view of their own past experiences or the history of their life, whatever situation that they are in and then, in fact, only projects the veil of their own Fixation over reality and covering it with only subjective meaning. This produces an endless solipsism and soliloquies of the Historical Ego.
• I am my body
• Heaviness
• Anxiety all the way to hysterical visions of annihilation; cold panic (if I move, something awful is going to happen; think of a Hitchcock movie)
• Paranoid streak; blaming and accusing others for damaging/endangering/ exploiting self
• Aggressive/defensive
• Money
• Nourishment
• Health; hypochondria
• Logistics
• Generous at feeding others, helping others out in SP crises
• The people who shop only in health food stores, filter the water, install triple locks and security system, refuse vaccination
• Excessively cautious or self-destructive, even suicidal
Questions:
• How am I? (I can’t tell what I need to be safe and sound)
Idealized self-image:
• I have psychic powers and I am invulnerable. My life is without a beginning or an end; I can see my past lives and my afterlife. I can predict the future and need not fear the unexpected.
Central delusion:
• There must be a way to beat death (i.e. take lots of vitamin C, jog every day, rely on medical science, healing arts, psychic powers)
Dilemma:
• To be or not to be; how to be
Main concern with:
• Self
Aversion to:
• Living
Special difficulties:
• Mortality irrevocable (suicidal impulse may arise because can’t take the anxious suspense)
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• Safety, security
Fear of:
• Poverty, illness, death (insecurity as one of first distortions)
Craving:
• Security
Sex:
• Sensuous
At a party:
• What’s there to eat and drink? Why is it so hot in here? This chair is bad for my back!
Focus when divorcing:
• Finances, who will take care of me from now on, who will give me a glass of water when I’m sick
Joining spiritual/religious groups:
• Looking for immortality
Demonstrations, causes:
• Against nuclear power plants, against abortion, don’t feed hormones to cows, don’t use pesticides
Chances are your dominant instinct is NOT:
• If food is no big deal for you
Examples for dominant instinct:
• Moliere’s Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), Karl Marx, Thomas Robert Malthus, Howard Hughes, the Frugal Gourmet, Ralph Nader
SEXUAL INSTINCT:
The sexual instinct strives towards syntony with the world, to be in tune and vibrate with it; you have to cover a lot of space, emit the strongest and pick up the subtlest signals when searching for the most or best of mates. The Sexual instinct focuses attention on and shapes behavior around issues related to the quality and status of relationships with specific individuals. Sometimes referred to as the “One-to-One” instinct, it generally directs energy toward the achievement and maintenance of sexual connections, interpersonal attraction, and bonding. This instinct seeks a sense of well-being through one-to-one connections with people in terms of whatever that means for a person of a specific type.
A sexual fixation will use sex to deal with financial and social issues. Sexual subtypes tend to prefer one-on-one relationships. They are charismatic, with sexuality leaking through the eyes. They tend to have more relationships with the opposite sex than with their own, and their sexual plumage is more pronounced.If the sexual instinct is most emphasized, intimate relationship seems
to hold the promise of satisfaction.
• Vibrating out there, looking for a mate; peacock displaying his feathers, deer locking antlers
• Susceptibility to states of intoxication, tripping
• Schizoid disposition (split between affect and intellect, invalidating one with the other)
• Lightness, playfulness
• Curious, seeking, searching
• Often has shiny, leaky eyes (leaking the high energy of sexuality)
• Not about orgasm (which one can have alone) but about letting go, dropping barriers, intimacy, closeness, union through revealing/denuding oneself
• Madonna or whore, abstinent or promiscuous
• Frigid or impotent, unusual sexual preferences
• Crime of passion
• Least likely to become famous (SP goes for immortality, SO intent on glory; SX has other things to do)
Questions:
• What’s going on? (all over the place; has to tune in on the lookout for a mate)
Idealized self-image:
• I have the power to attract whomever I choose and I know what passion means. I am in tune with the world around, sense its vibrations, and am ready to respond when my mate calls.
Central delusion:
• Through union with the One I can transcend myself, achieve wholeness (oneness with myself; I’m the half of a pair)
Dilemma:
• To be intimate or not to be intimate; how to be intimate
Main concern with:
• Mate
Aversion to:
• Sex
Special difficulties:
• Stop the high vibration, achieve stillness
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• Closeness, intimacy
Fear of:
• Worthlessness (no self-value)
Craving:
• Power
Sex:
• Imaginary
At a party:
• What am I doing here? (scans the room looking for the one right person; ends up in a corner talking to one person)
Focus when divorcing:
• What happened, what went wrong between us? I’m a failure, I’m nothing
Joining spiritual/religious groups:
• Looking for the Beloved
Demonstrations, causes:
• Gay and lesbian rights but mostly none
Chances are your dominant instinct is NOT:
• If sex is no big deal for you
Examples for dominant instinct:
• Marquis de Sade, Tom Jones, James Bond, Don Giovanni, Anain Nin, Sigmund Freud, Marilyn Monroe, Lorena Bobbit