Core Theory
Antecedents in the Scientific Literature on Character
Trait Structure
Defense Mechanisms
Etiological and Further Psychodynamic Remarks
Existential Psychodynamics
As a spiritual “missing of the mark” or spiritual hindrance, avarice must have naturally been understood by the church fathers in more than its literal sense, and so we see confirmed in Chaucer’s “Parson’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales, a reflection of the spirit of his time: “Avarice consists not only of greed for lands and chattels, but sometimes for learning and for glory.”
If the gesture of anger is to run over, that of avarice is one of holding back and holding in. While anger expresses greed in an assertive (even though unacknowledged) way, greed in avarice manifests only through retentiveness. This is a fearful grasping, implying a fantasy that letting go would result in catastrophic depletion. Behind the hoarding impulse there is, we may say, an experience of impending impoverishment.
Yet, holding on is only half of ennea-type V psychology; the other half is giving up too easily. Because of an excessive resignation in regard to love and people, precisely, there is a compensatory clutching at oneself—which may or not manifest in a grasping onto possessions, but involves a much more generalized hold over one’s inner life as well as an economy of resources. The holding back and self-control of avarice is not unlike that of the anger type, yet it is accompanied by a getting stuck through clutching at the present without openness to the emerging future.
Just as it can be said of the wrathful that they are mostly unconscious of their anger and that anger is their main taboo—it may be said of the avaricious that their avarice is mostly unconscious, while consciously they may feel every gesture of possession and drawing up of boundaries as forbidden. It might be said that the avaricious is internally perfectionistic rather than critical of the outer world, but most importantly the difference between the two ennea-types lies in the contrast between the active extroversion of the former and the introversion of the latter, (the introversion of a thinking type that avoids action).
Also ennea-type I is demanding while ennea-type V seeks to minimize his own needs and claims, and is prone to be pushed around in virtue of a compulsive obedience. Though both types are characterized by a strong superego, they are like cops and robbers respectively, for the former identifies more with its idealized superego-congruent self, while ennea-type V identifies with the overwhelmed and guilty sub-personality that is the object of super-egoic demands.
The polarity between pathological detachment and the attachment of holding-on echoes the polarity in ennea-type I between anger and an over-civilized compulsive virtue. Neediness in ennea-type V is deeply hidden in the psyche, behind the veil of indifference, resignation, stoic renunciation. And just as perfectionism nurtures the anger that sustains it, we may also say here that the prohibition of needs (not simply from their satisfaction but even from their recognition within the psyche) must contribute to the impoverishment of life that underlies the urge to hold on.
Ichazo’s word for the fixation corresponding to ennea-type V is “stinginess,” which stands, I think, too close to “avarice”—the ruling passion or emotion. “Meanness” with its connotation of an unknowing failure to give would come closer to capturing the dominant aspect of the ennea-type V strategy in face of the world: self-distancing and the giving up of relationships. Still better, however, is to speak of being detached, withdrawn, autistic, and schizoid.
Just as the image of the anankastics that we find in Schneider smacks of a certain contamination with the schizoid (in that Schneider emphasizes formality as an expression of insecurity) there is in Kurt Schneider’s concept of the “sensitive”—the personality disposition that most resembles our schizoid—some emphasis on the obsessive element, for he tells us that the more esthenic (i.e. assertive) among these have excessive “moral scruples.” There is no doubt, however, that Kurt Schneider has in mind our schizoid when he describes the sensitives as those “subjects that have an increased capacity for impressions with regard to all kinds of experiences without the ability of expressing them.” He speaks of a “retentive elaboration of all experiences that is turned against the self.” And adds that “the sensitive individual seeks firstly the blame for every event or failure in himself.”
The syndrome of aloof retentiveness has not only been observed but also received much attention in contemporary psychology.
Aside from the possibility that the schizoid form of retentiveness probably contributed to Freud’s abstraction of an anal character, corresponds to the syndrome described by Ernst Kretschmer, pioneer of systematic characterology. When in his study of schizophrenic patients at his clinic he described the syndrome that he proposed to call schizoid, the following were the main group of traits he observed to be the most frequent:
Unsociable, quiet, reserved, serious (humorless)
Timid, shy, with ne feelings, sensitive, nervous, excitable, fond of nature and books
Pliable, kindly, honest, indifferent, silent
Groups two and three stand in certain opposition to one another, forming a contrast similar to that he described between depression and elation in his cyclothymic type. “If we want to give a short account of the basis of the schizoid temperament,” he says, “we must say: the schizoid temperament lies between the extremes of excitability and dullness, in the same way that a cycloid temperament lies between the extremes of cheerfulness and sadness.”
Both among his patients as among the bearers of what he proposed to call “schizothymic” temperament (among his “normal” acquaintances), Kretschmer had the merit of pointing out the polarity between hypersensitivity and insensitivity in this personality: sometimes it is one or the other that is the chief characteristic, while in others an alternation or a transition from early “hyperaesthesia” to late apathy. More generally, I think, we may say the individual is characterized by an exaggerated vulnerability and by a self-protective distancing from his excessively new and vulnerable feelings. I quote Kretschmer again:
“He alone, however, has the key to the schizoid temperament who has clearly recognized that the majority of schizoids are not either over-sensitive or cold, but they are over-sensitive and cold at the same time, and, indeed, in quite different relational mixtures.” “Out of our schizoid material we can form a continuous series, beginning with what I call the ‘Hölderlin type,’ those extremely sensitive, abnormally tender, constantly wounded, mimosa-like natures, who are “all nerves”- and winding up to those cold, numbed, almost lifeless ruins left by the ravages of a severe attack of dementia praecox, who glimmer dimly in the corner of the asylum, dull-witted as cows.”
This polarity, Kretschmer emphasizes, is not to be found in the middle of the range. He finds individuals like Strindberg, who said of himself: “I am hard as ice, and yet so full of feeling that I am almost sentimental.” “But even in that half of our material, which is primarily cold, and poor in an effctive response, as soon as we come into close personal contact with such schizoids, we find, very frequently, behind the affectless, numbed exterior, in the innermost sanctuary, a tender personality-nucleus with the most vulnerable nervous sensitivity, which has withdrawn into itself and lies there contorted.”
The unsociable (or “autistic”) characteristic of his schizoid is something that could be understood either in relation to hypersensitivity or to insensitivity toward others, as in the case of those sensitive natures that “seek as far as possible to avoid and deaden all stimulation from the outside; they close the shutters of their houses, in order to lead a dream-life, fantastic, poor in deeds and rich in thought (Hölderlin) in the soft mulled gloom of the interior. They seek loneliness, as Strindberg so beautifully said of himself, in order to “‘spin themselves into the silk of their own souls’.” Kretschmer’s view on schizothymia was further elaborated by Sheldon who endorsed Kretschmer’s l threefold conception of human constitution, interpreted the “aesthenic” body-build as l “ectomorphia” (originating in the predominance of the embryonic ectoderm), and viewed the schizoid disposition as a variable in temperament that he called “Cerebrotonia.”
Related to ectomorphy, “cerebrotonia” appears to express the function of exteroception, which necessitates or involves cerebrally-mediated inhibition of both the other two primary functions, somatotonia and viscerotonia. It also involves or leads to conscious attentionality and thereby to substitution of symbolic ideation for immediate overt response to stimulation. Attendant upon this latter phenomenon are the “cerebral tragedies” or hesitation, disorientation and confusion. These appear to be the by-products of over-stimulation, which is doubtless one consequence of an over-balanced investment in “exteroception.” Though Sheldon is more concerned with variables than with types, it is clearly in ennea-type V that we see the highest expression of both ectomorphic constitution and cerebrotonic traits, among which Sheldon lists the following twenty as most distinctive:
Restraint in Posture and Movement, Tightness
Physiological Over-Response
Overly Fast Reactions
Love of Privacy
Mental Over-intensity, Hyper-attentionality, Apprehensiveness
Secretiveness of Feeling, Emotional Restraint
Self-conscious Motility of the Eyes and Face
Sociophobia
Inhibited Social Address
Resistance to Habit and Poor Routinizing
Agoraphobia
Unpredictability of Attitude
Vocal Restraint and General Restraint of Noise
Hypersensitivity to Pain
Poor sleep habits, chronic fatigue
Youthful Intentness of Manner and Appearance
Vertical Mental Cleavage, Introversion
Resistance to Alcohol and to other Depressant Drugs
Need of Solitude when Troubled
Orientation Toward the Later Periods of Life.
Many of these traits express the over sensitive aspect of the temperament (Physiological Over-response, Hyper-attentionality, Apprehensiveness, Resistance to Habits and Unpredictability of Attitude), while others have to do with inhibition and with moving away from others, such as Restraint in Movement, Secretiveness, Sociophobia, Inhibited Social Address.
Introversion, the gist of the variable, seems to constitute a convergence of both: a movement away from the outer to the inner, and sensitivity to inner experiences.
Moving from the realm of temperamental dispositions to character proper, we observe that “compulsive” or “anankastic” character in the European usage corresponds to ennea-type V and not ennea-type I as the syndrome called “compulsive personality disorder” in the DSM III. This is immediately apparent from the opening lines of V.E. von Gebsattel in his pioneering essay on the existential analysis of the anankastic disposition: “What always fascinates us in encountering the compulsive person is the unpenetrated, perhaps impenetrable, quality of his being different. Seventy years of clinical work and scientific research have not altered this reaction. Kept alive by the contradiction between the intimate closeness of the presence of a fellow man and the strange remoteness of a mode of being completely different from our own, the dialect of psychiatric amazement never ceases.”
Addressing himself to the anankastic psychopaths of Schneider and others through the study of a case, von Gebsattel observes a mode of being in the world that I have already alluded to in the description of avarice at the beginning of this chapter: a getting stuck, a blocking of the life process.
While Sheldon, more than Kretschmer even, undertakes to study a temperamental disposition—which may be the soil of a character but not a character itself—Karen Horney, speaking out of her psychotherapeutic experience, was to describe the crystallization of an interpersonal strategy: the neurotic disposition to move away from people and conflicts, the “solution of detachment.” Like Sheldon—who, in spite of the arbitrariness of his rating the components of temperaments from one to seven, may appear to be correct in stating that these may be found in different degrees and combinations—Horney might well have come to distinguish degrees and forms of expression of the tendency to move away from people. Yet it is at the same time clear that just as cerebrotonia does, sociophobia (in the sense of compulsive avoidance of sociability and relation) clearly culminates in the schizoid disposition, and it is the picture of ennea-type V that we gather from her discussion of the “solution of detachment.”
I quote from Neurosis and Human Growth: “The third major solution of the intrapsychic conflict consists essentially in the neurotic’s withdrawing from the inner battlefield and declaring himself uninterested. If he can muster and maintain an attitude of ‘don’t care,’ he feels less bothered by his inner conflicts and can attain a semblance of inner peace. Since he can do this only by resigning from active living, ‘resignation’ seems a proper name for this solution”. “Resignation” she clarifies, “may have a constructive meaning. We can think of many older people who have recognized the intrinsic futility of ambition and success, who have mellowed by expecting and demanding less, and who through renunciation of nonessentials have become wiser. In many forms of religion or philosophy renunciation of nonessentials is advocated as one of the conditions for greater spiritual growth and fulfillment: give up the expression of personal will, sexual desires and cravings for worldly goods for the sake of being closer to God. Give up personal strivings and satisfactions for the sake of attaining the spiritual power which exists potentially in human beings. For the neurotic solution we are discussing here, however, resignation implies settling for a peace which is merely the absence of conflicts … His resignation therefore is a process of shrinking, of restricting, of curtailing life and growth,”
The distinction she draws here is similar to a parallel one which we drew between genuine virtue and the false virtue of moralism. It is the case of an introversive, rather than an extraversive, form of religiosity, where neurotic renunciation stands in place of a healthy capacity to forgo gratification. Horney tells as that the basic characteristic of neurotic resignation is distinguished by an aura of restriction, of something that is avoided, that is not wanted or not done. “There is some resignation in every neurotic. What I shall describe here is a cross section of those for whom it has become the major solution.”
She begins her description by telling us that “the direct expression of the neurotic having removed himself from the inner battlefield is his being an outlooker at himself and his life … Since detachment is a ubiquitous and prominent attitude of his, he is also an outlooker upon others. He lives as if he were sitting in the orchestra and observing a drama acted on the stage, and a drama which is most of the time not too exciting at that. Though he is not necessarily a good observer, he may be most astute. Even in the very first consultation he may, with the help of some pertinent questions, develop a picture of himself replete with a wealth of candid observation. But he usually adds that all this knowledge has not changed anything. Of course it has not—for none of his findings has been an experience for him. Being an outlooker at himself means just that: not actively participating in living and unconsciously refusing to do so.
In analysis he tries to maintain the same attitude. He may be immensely interested, yet that interest may stay for quite a while at the level of a fascinating entertainment—and nothing changes.” Horney’s next observation is that “intimately connected with nonparticipation, is the absence of any serious striving for achievement and the aversion of the sort … he may compose beautiful music, paint pictures, write books—in his imagination. This is an alternative means of doing away with both aspiration and effort. He may actually have good and original ideas on some subject, but the writing of a paper would require initiative and the arduous work of thinking the ideas through and organizing them. So the paper remains unwritten. He may have a vague desire to write a novel or a play, but wait for the inspiration to come. Then the plot would be clear and everything would flow from his pen. Also he is most ingenious at finding reasons for not doing things. How much good would be a book that had to be seated out in hard labor! And are not too many books written anyhow? Would not the concentration on one pursuit curtail other interests and thus narrow his horizon? Does not going into politics, or into any competitive field, spoil the character?” “This aversion to effort may extend to all activities. It then brings about a complete inertia to which we shall return later. He may procrastinate over doing such simple things as writing a letter, reading a book, shopping. Or he may do them against inner resistance, slowly, listlessly, ineffectively. The mere prospect of unavoidable larger activities, such as moving or handling accumulated tasks in his job, may make him tired before he begins”…..”In analysis it appears that his goals are limited and again negative.
“Analysis, he feels, should rid him of disturbing symptoms, such as awkwardness with strangers, fear of blushing or fainting in the street. Or perhaps analysis should remove one or another aspect of his inertia, such as his difficulty in reading. He may also have a broader vision of a goal which, in characteristically vague terms, he may call ‘serenity.’ This, however, means for him simply the absence of all troubles, irritations and upsets. And naturally whatever he hopes for should come easily, without pain or strain. The analyst should do the work. After all, is he not the expert? Analysis should be like going to a dentist who pulls out the tooth, or to a doctor who gives an injection: he is willing to wait patiently for the analyst to present the clue that will solve everything. It would be better though if the patient didn’t have to talk so much. The analyst should have some sort of X ray which would reveal the patient’s thoughts.” And she continues: “A step deeper and we come to the very essence of resignation: the restriction of wishes.” Though we may also speak of resignation in the cyclothymic ennea-type IX—where we find extraverted resignation, resignation in relationship manifesting as abnegation—in the schizoid personality we find a resignation without participation, a resignation that goes as far as giving up contact.
Says Horney: “He is particularly anxious not to get attached to anything to the extent of really needing it. Nothing should be so important for him that he could not do without it. It is all right to like a woman, a place in the country, or certain drinks, but one should not become dependent upon them. As soon as he becomes aware that a place, a person or a group of people means so much to him that its loss would be painful he tends to retract his feelings. No other person should ever have the feeling of being necessary to him or take the relationship for granted. If he suspects the existence of either attitude he tends to withdraw.”
The most extreme expression of the pathology may be recognized in the catatonic syndrome in schizophrenia, for even though the latter constitutes an extreme complication of the schizoid way of being in the world, precisely because of this it allows us to see a caricature of some of its traits: unrelatedness, laconism, a seeming flight from the world in which personal world is relinquished, and a passivity in which the individual seems to surrender his life and body to others, and the characteristic symptom of exibilitas cerea in which the person adopts whatever position others manipulate the body into—a caricature of automatic obedience.
Next in the gradient from psychosis to mental health is Kernberg’s “Narcissistic Personality Organization,” in which the negative self-image coexists not only with an idealized self-image, but with an orientation to seek recognition through intellectual or creative excellence.
Better known today than Horney’s description of the “solution of detachment” are Fairbairn’s observations and reflections on schizoid character—all of them pertinent to our ennea-type V. In addition to being best known among those who have contemplated the schizoid syndrome, Fairbairn is known for his claim to the e ect that the schizoid phenomenon is the root of all psychopathology. This statement reflects, I think, his understanding of the existential issue of what I am calling “Being Scarcity”—or to use his vocabulary, “ego weakness” as the root of all psychopathology, and I think that it would have been more exact to leave it as that, for the schizoid personality is only the one in which this pervasive issue of the human condition makes itself most apparent. Just as the resigned ennea-type IX is blind to its blindness, ennea-type V is, in regard to the perception of ontic deficiency, what might be called a hypersensitive: structurally an introvert and usually an intuitive, he is most attuned to his internal experiences, and his avarice is interdependent with a sense of impoverishment at the spiritual level as well as at the psychological and the material.
One of Fairbairn’s findings in his psychoanalysis of schizoid personalities was that beyond the analysis of superego pathology, schizoid patients were in need of understanding that, their process of detachment (in transference and in life) constitutes a defense “against a dreaded activation of a basic relationship in the transference characterized by a libidinal investment of the analyst experienced as a preoedipal, particularly oral, mother.” I have taken the statement above from Otto Kernberg’s summary, as also the following: “This libidinal investment seemed a major threat to these patients, a threat derived from the fear that their love of the object would be devastatingly destructive to the object.” Yet the schizoid’s fear is not only the fear of destroying the object, it is also one of losing oneself through an excessive love thirst, being engulfed through the intensity of dependency needs—as R.D. Laing has pointed out in The Divided Self.
All in all, Fairbairn’s contention of the sense of negative expectation concerning mother love has contributed a cornerstone to our understanding of this personality, to which he contributed various other observations, such as noting “the chronic subjective experience of artificiality and of emotional detachment of schizoid personalities …. these patients’ attitude of omnipotence, objective isolation and detachment, and marked preoccupation with inner Reality.”
Let me end by remarking that without mentioning the word avarice, Fairbairn’s understanding of the schizoid clearly involves the recognition that it involves an unwillingness of the person to invest herself in relationships and an avoidance of giving.
In DSM III we find our type in the “schizoid personality disorder.” I quote the correspondent description:
A. Emotional coldness and aloofness, and absence of warm, tender feelings for others.
B. Indifference to praise or criticism and to the feelings of others
C. Close friendships with no more than one or two persons, including family members
D. No eccentricities of speech, behavior, or thought characteristic of Schizo-typal Personality
Disorder
E. Not due to a psychotic disorder such as Schizophrenia or Paranoid Disorder
F. If under 18, does not meet the criteria for Schizoid Disorder of Childhood or Adolescence
There is a personality type in DSM III that is defined on the basis of a single trait, and which, because of this, may be a diagnosis ascribed to more than one of the characters in this book: the passive-aggressive personality. It’s resistance to external demands is most typical of ennea-type V, yet is also a trait that may be found in ennea-types IV, VI, and IX. Theodore Millon, who was on the committee that originated DSM III, has proposed both a change in name of passive-aggressive, and a description of the syndrome that takes into account other characteristics, such as “frequently irritable and erratically moody, a tendency to report being easily frustrated and angry, discontented self-image … disgruntled and disillusioned with life; interpersonal ambivalence,” as evidence in a struggle between being independently acquiescent and assertively independent; and the use of unpredictable and sulking behaviors to provoke discomfort in others.
On the whole, I get the impression passive-aggressive is one more complication of ennea-type V, and find corroboration for this impression in the resemblance that Millon points out between this passive-aggressive personality and compulsive personality, beyond their obvious contrast (a similarity within contrasts that I have already commented upon), “both share an intense and deeply rooted ambivalence about themselves and others. Compulsives deal with this ambivalence by vigorously suppressing the conflicts it engenders, and they appear as a consequence, to be well controlled and single-minded in purpose; their behavior is perfectionistic, scrupulous, orderly, and quite predictable. In contrast, the passive-aggressive, referred to in Millon’s theory as the ‘active-ambivalent,’ fails either to submerge or to otherwise resolve these very same conflicts; as a consequence, the ambivalence of the passive-aggressives intrudes constantly into their everyday life, resulting in indecisiveness, fluctuating attitudes, oppositional behaviors and emotions, and a general erraticism and unpredictability. They cannot decide whether to adhere to the desires of others as a means of gaining comfort and security or to turn to themselves for these gains, whether to be obediently dependent on others or defiantly resistant and independent of them, whether to take the initiative in mastering their world or to sit idly by, passively awaiting the leadership of others.”
Unlike the case of most of our character types I find that the shadow of ennea-type V appears in more than one of Jung’s descriptions of introverted types. Speaking of the introverted thinking type, for instance, which as we shall see corresponds mostly to our ennea-type VI, it is possible to find some schizoid characteristics, such as “his amazing unpracticalness and horror of publicity” or the observation that “he lets himself be brutalized and exploited in the most ignominious way if only he can be left in peace to pursue his ideas.” Also it is most typical of ennea-type V that “he is a poor teacher, because all the time he is teaching, his thought is occupied with the material itself and not with its presentation.” Also in the description of the introverted feeling type, which will be quoted in reference to our ennea-type IX, traces of ennea-type V overlap, such as “expressions of feeling therefore remain niggardly, and the other person has a permanent sense of being undervalued …”
In spite of these traces of ennea-type V character in the above-mentioned psychological types of Jung, it is definitely in the introverted sensation type that we find the best match for our character. We read, for instance, that:
“He may be conspicuous for his calmness and passivity, or for his rational self-control. This peculiarity, which often leads a superficial judgment astray, is really due to his unrelatedness to objects.” Or: “Such a type can easily make one question: why one should exist at all, or why objects in general should have any justification for their existence since everything essential still goes on happening without them.”
Scanning the descriptions given by Keirsey and Bates of the sixteen profiles obtained through a test derived from the Myers-Briggs, I find ennea-type V psychology reflected in that of the “INTP”—i.e., the introvert who has a predominance of intuition over sensation, thinking over feeling, and perception over judgment. I quote some of their statements:
“The world exists primarily to be understood. Reality is trivial, a mere arena for proving ideas… .
“The INTP’s should not… . be asked to work out the implementation or application of their models to the real world. The INTP is the architect of a system and leaves it to others to be the builder and the applicator …
“They are not good at clinical tasks and are impatient with routine details. They prefer to work quietly, without interruption, and often alone.
“They are not likely to welcome constant social activity or disorganization in the home … INTP’s are, however, willing, complaint and easy to live with, although somewhat forgetful of appointments, anniversaries, and the rituals of daily living - unless reminded. They may have difficulties expressing their emotions verbally, and the mate of an INTP may believe that he/she is somewhat taken for granted …”
In the homeopathic tradition the characteristics of ennea-type V may be found in people with personalities associated with Sepia, which is the remedy claimed to benefit them. The homeopathic is made from the fresh ink of the cuttlefish—a creature who lives alone rather than in a group, lives in the crevices of rocks, and ejects ink for camouflage when seeking escape or stalking its prey. Sepia is associated with women, either withdrawn, dissatisfied, or contented in a career. One instance is that of women worn out with the cares of home and children, and not seeming to have the energy for it. Coulter remarks:
“All manifestations of love—marital, parental, filial, and even close friendship—are a drain on her reserves of energy and an obstacle to her need for a certain amount of privacy and independence.” She quotes Kent as remarking of them “love does not go forth into affection.” And comments “love is not absent, but the manifestation of love is benumbed and cannot be expressed.” She further quotes Hering as finding Sepia people “averse to company” and elaborates: “she does not want to go out, largely because of the physical e ort which sociability demands.” The dominant feeling is one of indifference—the wish of wanting to “crawl into her lair and be left alone, not touched, approached or bothered.” Thus there is not only an emotional unresponsiveness but a seeking to escape from close emotional ties and obligations. The wish to emancipate herself from the “burden of love” may be expressed in personality or a profession.
Coulter observes that the type can be “spirited, creative and attractive, but even when socially outgoing she may still lack warm sympathy” … “she may appear deficient in feminine receptivity and the finer shades of emotional responsiveness.” Sepia feels too stressful an impingement of life on its independent and private meanings, shown characteristically in a straightforward negativity “whether due to an inability to conceal her nature, a need to feel rejected, excessive candor, or simply a complete lack of interest in producing a good impression.”
Also evocative of ennea-type V is the personality picture associated in homeopathic medicine with Silica. I quote from Coulter:
“The inflexibility of flint is manifested on the mental plane in Silica’s ‘obstinacy’ (Boenninghausen) … He is not aggressive or argumentative, will smile, remain pleasant, and appear mild enough—but still proceeds as he deems best… .”
She describes a child who dislikes boarding school but will only use “passive persuasion” methods with his parents. She also describes the picture of a young adolescent girl or young woman, to whom it is impossible to give advice or even give a present. “… This is not from an overall negativeness but from rigidity of views. The girl (or boy) can be just as rigid and selective in her judgment of people and thus has particular difficulty finding friends, and later, an acceptable partner in life. Persons who remain single, not from aversion to the marital state but from being too exacting—no one is ever quite suitable—will often exhibit Silica characteristics.”
Coulter compares a Silica individual with the “stalk of wheat,” which is delicate and yielding and yet provided with a still outer covering. In personality this relative firmness corresponds to an intellectual stability and power of concentration, while the individual lacks vitality and “he may expend so much energy coping with his physical environment that little is left over for enjoyable living.”
Also fitting the picture of ennea-type V is the observation of forgetfulness and abstraction in Silica personalities, their faint-heartedness, lack of courage, and the refusal to shoulder responsibility. Coulter quotes Whitmont’s likening of the Silica individual to “a timid delicate white mouse which still fiercely maintains the integrity of its own small territory”
Retentiveness
As usual, it is possible to find in this character a cluster of descriptors corresponding to the dominant passion. In it, along with avarice, belong such characteristics as lack of generosity in matters of money, energy and time, and also meanness—with its implication of an insensitivity to the needs of others. Among the characteristics of retentiveness it is important to take note of a holding on to the ongoing content of the mind, as if wanting to elaborate or extract the last drop of significance—a characteristic that results in a typical jerkiness of mental function, a subtle form of rigidity that militates against the individual’s openness to environmental stimulation and to what is emerging, the transition of the present mental state to the next. This is the characteristic which von Gebsattel has pointed out in “ananchastics” as a “getting stuck.”
We may say that the implicit interpersonal strategy of holding on implies a preference for self-sufficiency in regard to resources instead of approaching others. This, in turn, involves a pessimistic outlook in regard to the prospect of either receiving care and protection or having the power to demand or take what is needed.
Not giving
Also the avoidance of commitment can be considered as an expression of not giving since it amounts to an avoidance of giving in the future. In this avoidance of commitment, however, there is also another aspect: the need of type V individuals to be completely free, unbound, unobstructed, in possession of the fullness of themselves—a trait representing a composite of avarice and an over-sensitivity to engulfment (to be discussed later). It may be pointed out that hoarding implies not just avarice, but a projection of avarice into the future—a protection against being left without. Here, again, the trait represents a derivation not only from avarice, but also from the intense need of autonomy of the character (see below).
Pathological Detachment
Given the reciprocity of giving and taking in human relationships, a compulsion to not give (surely the echo of perceiving in early life that it goes against survival to give more than is received) can hardly be sustained except at the expense of relationship itself—as if the individual considered: “If the only way to hold on to the little I have is to distance myself from others and their needs or wants, that is what I will do.”
An aspect of pathological detachment is the characteristic aloofness of ennea-type V; another, the quality of being a “loner,” i.e., one accustomed to being solitary and who, out of resignation in regard to relating, does not feel particularly lonely. Seclusiveness is, of course, part of the broader trait of detachment, since it requires emotional detachment and repression of the need to relate, to be in isolation. The difficulty that type V individuals have in making friends may be considered also here, for an important aspect of this difficulty is the lack of motivation to relate.
Though it is easy to see how detachment can arise as a complication of retentiveness, the giving up of relationship is interdependent with the inhibition of needs—for it could hardly be compatible to give up relationships and to be needy, and thus giving up relationship already implies a relinquishment or minimization of needs. While resignation in regard to one’s own needs is practically a corollary of detachment, the inhibition of the expression of anger in this character involves not only resignation in regard to love needs, but also the fear that is present in the schizoid personality in virtue of its position next to the left corner of the enneagram.
Fear of engulfment
The fear and avoidance of being “swallowed up by others” might be a corollary of the avoidance of relationships, yet not only this, for it is also the expression of a half-conscious perception of one’s own suppressed need to relate, and (as Fairbairn has emphasized) a fear of potential dependency. The great sensitivity to interference and interruption of ennea-type V individuals is not only the expression of a detached attitude, but also a function of the person’s proneness to interrupt herself in the face of external demands and perceived needs of others. In other words, a great sensitivity to interference goes hand-in-hand with an over-docility, in virtue of which the individual interferes all too easily with her own spontaneity, with her preferences, and with acting in a way coherent with her needs in the presence of others. Also, in light of this over-docility (understandable as a by-product of a strong repressed love need) we can understand the particular emphasis in aloneness in ennea-type V. To the extent that the relationship entails alienation from one’s own preferences and authentic expression there arises an implicit stress and the need to recover from it: a need to find oneself again in aloneness.
Autonomy
The great need for autonomy is an understandable corollary of giving up relationships. Together with developing the “distance machinery” (to use H.S. Sullivan’s expression), the individual needs to be able to do without external supplies. One who cannot get to others to satisfy his desires needs to build up his resources, stocking them up, so to speak, inside his ivory tower. Closely related to autonomy and yet a trait on its own is the idealization of autonomy which reinforces the repression of desires and underlies a life philosophy much like that which Hesse puts in Siddhartha’s mouth: “I can think, I can wait, I can fast.”
Feelinglessness
Though I have already alluded to a repression of needs, and mentioned the suppression of anger of ennea-type V, it seems desirable to group these descriptors along with others in a more generalized trait of feelinglessness. It has to do with the loss of awareness of feelings and even an interference with the generation of feeling, which results from the avoidance of expression and action. This characteristic makes some individuals indifferent, cold, empathic, and apathetic. Also anhedonia might be placed here, though the greater or lesser incapacity to enjoy pleasure is a more complex phenomenon: while ennea-type I is aversive to pleasure, ennea-type V simply appears as having a diminished capacity to experience it. In this is implicit, however, the fact that pleasure does not rank high in the scale of values of this character for it is postponed to more “urgent” drives, such as the drive to keep a safe distance from others and the drive for autonomy.
Postponement of action
We may say that to act is to invest oneself, to put one’s energies into use, which goes against the grain of retentive orientation of type V. Yet, more generally, action can not be considered as separate from interaction, so when the drive to relate is low the drive to do is concomitantly lessened. On the other hand, action requires an enthusiasm for something, a presence of feelings—which is not the case in the apathetic individual. To do is also something like showing one’s self to the world, for one’s actions manifest one’s intentions. One who wants to keep his intentions hidden (as the avaricious typically does) will also inhibit his activity on these grounds and develop, instead of a spontaneous movement and initiative, an excessive restraint. The characteristic trait of procrastination may be regarded as a hybrid between negativism and the avoidance of action.
Cognitive Orientation
Ennea-type V is not only introversive (as is implied in moving away from relationships) but also typically intellectual (as introverts generally tend to be). Through a predominantly cognitive orientation the individual may seek substitute satisfaction—as in the replacement of living through reading. Yet the symbolic replacement of life is not the only form of expression of intense thinking activity: another aspect is the preparation for life—a preparation that is intense to the extent that the individual never feels ready enough. In the elaboration of perceptions as preparation for (inhibited) action, the activity of abstraction is particularly striking, type V individuals lean towards the activity of classification and organization, and not only display a strong attraction towards the process of ordering experience, but tend to dwell in abstractions while at the same time avoiding concreteness. This avoidance of concreteness, in turn, is linked to the type’s hiddenness: only the results of one’s perceptions are offered to the world, not its raw material.
Related to abstraction and the organization of experience is an interest in science and a curiosity in regard to knowledge. Also the inhibition of feelings and of action, along with the emphasis of cognition gives rise to the characteristic of being a mere witness of life, a non- attached yet keen observer of it, who in this very keenness seems to be seeking to replace life through its understanding.
Sense of Emptiness
Naturally, the suppression of feelings and the avoidance of life (in the interest of avoiding feelings) constitutes the avoidance of action along with an objective impoverishment of experience. We may understand the sense of sterility, depletion, and meaninglessness that are typical of type V as the result of an objective impoverishment in the life of relatedness, feeling, and doing. The prevalence of such a sense of inner vacuum in modern times (when other symptomatic neuroses have been relatively eclipsed by the “existential ones”) reflects the proportion of ennea-type V individuals in the consulting rooms of psychotherapists today. One psychodynamic consequence of this existential pain of feeling faintly existing is the attempt to compensate for the impoverishment of feeling and active life through the intellectual life (for which the individual is usually well endowed constitutionally) and through being a curious and/or critical “outsider.” Another more fundamental consequence, however, is the fact of “ontic insufficiency” in stimulating the dominant passion itself—as is the case in each one of the character structures.
Guilt
Ennea-type V (along with type IV, at the bottom of the enneagram) is characterized by guilt proneness—even though in type IV, it is more intensely felt—”buffered” by a generalized distancing from feelings.
Guilt manifests in a vague sense of inferiority, however, in a vulnerability to intimidation, in a sense of awkwardness and self-consciousness, and, most typically, in the very characteristic hiddenness of the person. Though guilt can be understood in light of the strong superego of type V, I believe that it is also a consequence of the early implicit decision of the person to withdraw love (as a response to the lovelessness of the outer world). The cold detachment of type V may thus be regarded as an equivalent to the anger of the vindictive type VIII, who sets out to go it alone and fights for his needs in a hostile world. His moving away from people is an equivalent to moving against, as if, in the impossibility to express anger, he annihilated the other in his inner world. In embracing an attitude of loveless disregard, he thus feels a guilt that is not only comparable to that of the tough-minded bully, but more “visible” since in the bully it is defensively denied, while here it manifests as a pervasive and Kafkaesque guilt Proneness
High Superego
The trait of high superego may be regarded as interdependent with guilt: the superego’s demanding results in guilt and is a compensatory response to it (not unlike the reaction formation involved in the high superego of ennea-type I). Like the type I individual, type V feels driven, and demands much out of himself as well as of others. It may be said that ennea- type I is more externally perfectionistic, ennea-type V internally so. Also, the former holds on to a relative identification with his super-ego, while the latter identifies with his inner “Underdog.”
Negativism
A source trait related to the perception of the needs of others as binding, and also a form of rebellion against one’s own (superegoic) demands, is that which involves, beyond an avoidance of interference or influence, a wish to subvert the perceived demands of others and of oneself. Here we can see again a factor underlying the characteristic postponement of action, for sometimes this involves a wish not to do that which is perceived as a should, a wish not to “give” something requested or expected, even when the source of the request is internal rather than societal. A manifestation of such negativism is that anything that the individual chooses to do on the basis of true desire is likely to become, once an explicit project, a “should” that evokes a loss of motivation through internal rebellion.
Hypersensitivity
Though we have surveyed the insensitive aspect of type V, we also need to include its characteristic hypersensitivity, manifest in traits ranging from a low tolerance of pain to fear of rejection.
It is my impression that this trait is more basic (in the sense of being psychodynamically fundamental) than that of feelinglessness and that, as Kretschmer has proposed, emotional dullness sets in precisely as a defense against the hypersensitive characteristic. The hypersensitive characteristic of ennea-type V involves a sense of weakness, a vulnerability and also a sensitivity in dealing with the world of objects and even persons. To the extent that the individual is not autistically disconnected from the perception of others, he is gentle, soft and harmless. Even in his dealing with the inanimate environment this is true: he does not want to disturb the way things are; he would like, so to speak, to walk without harming the grass on which he treads. Though this hypersensitive characteristic may be ascribed, together with the cognitive orientation and introversive moving away from people, to the cerebrotonic background of the type, we can also understand it as partly derived from the experience of half-conscious psychological pain: the pain of guilt, the pain of unacknowledged loneliness, the pain of emptiness. It seems to me that an individual who feels full and substantial can stand more pain than one who feels empty.
Lack of pleasure and of the feeling of insignificance, thus, would seem to influence the limit of pain that can be accepted, and hypersensitivity itself, no doubt, stands as a factor behind the individual’s decision to avoid the pain of frustrating relationships through the choice of isolation and autonomy.
Though it is possible to speak of reaction formation in connection with the super-egoic aspect of type V (i.e., the good boyish or good girlish, not greedy and not angry characteristics) it is not reaction formation that predominates in type V character—but isolation.
Of course, what is meant by isolation in this technical sense of the word is not the behavioral isolation of a schizoid in the social world—and yet there seem to be some relation between interpersonal isolation and the defense mechanism called isolation in Psychoanalysis, i.e., between the interruption of the relationship with others and an interruption of the relationship with oneself or with the representation of others in one’s inner world.
Anna Freud describes isolation as a condition in which the instinctive drives are separated from their context, while at the same time persist in awareness. Matte-Blanco, speaking of painful traumatic experiences, says that it can be observed in cases when the intellectual content of what has occurred is isolated from the intense emotion that was experienced, “which is coolly recollected by the patient as if it referred to something that happened to somebody else, and does not matter to him”. In these cases, he adds, “it is not only the emotional content that is isolated, but the connection bearing within the intellectual content itself, which results in the loss of the true and deep meaning of the traumatic experience and of the instinctive impulses that have been at play in relation to it. The result of this is, then, the same as in repression through amnesia.”
The concept of isolation has been applied to the process of separating an experience from the contextual horizon of experience through the interpolation of a mental vacuum immediately after. The symptom of blocking in schizophrenia may be said to correspond to an extreme form of self-interruption through a sort of stopping of mental activity. This process was called by Freud motor isolation and interpreted as a derivative of normal concentration (in which also the irruption of thoughts or mental states is prevented). Matte-Blanco comments further: “In the normal process of directing the stream of thoughts the ego may be said to engage in much isolation work.”
The mechanism of ego splitting is closely related to that of isolation and just as prominent in type V. While splitting in the psyche is a general characteristic in neurosis (and is implicit in the separation of super-ego, ego and id), ego-splitting proper—in which contradictory thoughts, roles, or attitudes coexist in the conscious psyche without awareness of contradiction—is more prominent in type V than in any other, and explains not only the simultaneity of grandiosity and inferiority but also the simultaneity of positive and negative perceptions of others. We may say that isolation is a core of type V character in that the characteristic detachment not only from people but more generally from the world (including one’s own body) depends on the inactivation of feelings and also corresponds to an avoidance of the situation in which feelings normally arise: an interruption of the life process in the service of feeling-avoidance.
The incongruence of aloofness with the ordinary human need for contact is maintained through a dulling of the emotional life; at other times in the more hypersensitive variety of individual, it exists side by side with intense feelings, which appear in greater association with the aesthetic and the abstract than with the interpersonal world. Also the avoidance of action in type V may be seen in light of an avoidance of feeling and of the isolation mechanism, and would deserve the name of motoric isolation better than the interruption of thoughts and the disturbance of gestalt perception through mental blocking.
Where there is remoteness not only from others but also from the world, action is unnecessary, and conversely, the avoidance of action supports the avoidance of relationship.
As in other characters here too we may ask ourselves whether the mechanism of isolation has arisen in connection with a particularly avoided realm of experience, so that its typical operation matches a typical repressed content. The answer seems to be given by the enneagram structure itself, for once more we may understand that the attitude of type V is most opposite to that of type VIII, and it would seem that its over-control, diminished vitality, and disposition not to invest itself in any particular course of action or relationship entails a corresponding taboo on intensity and fear of potential destructiveness. Type V is the very negation of lusty superabundance, and thus we are invited to think about the mechanism of splitting as arisen from an individual’s way of protecting himself against a primitive and impulsive response to the environment. His skill in separating himself conceptually and analytically considering the aspects of a situation allows him to see such situations as something unrelated to personal needs—and thus leads to the restriction of personal needs that goes hand-in-hand with avarice in self-spending.
As a group ennea-type V individuals constitute the most ectomorphic in the enneagram, and it is reasonable to think that a cerebrotonic disposition has contributed to the “choice” of a moving away as a solution to the problems of life. Occasionally the individual has memories of fear related to a sense of physical fragility.
What is most striking in regard to the form of love deprivation in the story of ennea-type V is early onset, so that the child never had an occasion to establish a deep bond with its mother. Unlike ennea-type IV whose emotional reaction is that of mourning a loss, ennea-type V feels an emptiness and does not know what he is missing. The syndrome of hospitalism described by Spitz—in which children provided with nourishment but not with maternal care may languish to the point of death—seems emblematic of what happens more subtly in the aloof adult who suffers from apathy and a depression without sadness.
The situation of mother deprivation (literal or psychological) may be complicated by a lack of alternative relationships when the child is the only one in the family and the father is either distant or the mother jealously interferes with the child’s relationship to him. Unrelatedness to others in such instances stems from the lack of a deep relationship experience at home.
Another element often encountered in the childhood of ennea-type V is that of a “devouring,” invasive, or excessively manipulative mother. Before such a mother the child protects his inner life by withdrawing and learns to be secretive.
These and other experiences contribute in the story of the ennea-type V individual to a sense that it is better to go it alone in life, that people are not loving or that it is “bad business” to relate to others for what love they offer is manipulative and entails the expectation of receiving too much in exchange. Thus life is organized around not needing others and saving one’s resources.
As is well known in connection with schizophrenia research, schizoid persons often have a schizoid parent. I know somebody in whom both parents were schizoid: “They formed a couple that was like a capsule, a world apart.” She says, “I lacked nothing but I never knew what was happening at home. When I was little my mother jokingly answered when I called her, after not responding for a while: ‘I?, I am not your mother!’ “
No less common, however, is the antecedent of a type VI parent. A young man with an ennea-type VI father and an ennea-type IV mother reports: “I felt a little caged in, the best was outside, my greatest interest has been to run away, to be far from my parents. I had a di cult time with my parents because they constrained me too much, and my solution was to escape inwardly. Even when I was able to move away outwardly I continued to do so.
“If I had learned to disappear or not be there or the idea of abandonment, I sometimes wonder if it started when the doctor abandoned me when I was to be born. The nurses said, he just left for lunch and they tied my mother’s legs together. Another abandonment, maybe I learned from was, as a baby in the crib, my parents left the phone on the hook and they worked in a restaurant and they said, ‘We listened sometimes to see if you were crying or not and then we’d come’.”
As in the case of ennea-type VIII, ennea-type V seems to have given up in the search for love. To the extent that his dependency needs are only under control, however, he longs for a love that is expressed through the willingness to leave him alone, without demands, deception, or manipulation. The vehemence of the ideal militates—as in other instances—against its earthly realization.
While it makes much sense to view the schizoid disposition as a withdrawal in the face of assumed lovelessness, and it is useful to take into account the fact that the sense of lovelessness continues to exist not only as a “phantom pain” but also as a result of the fact that his basic distrust leads him to invalidate the positive feelings of others towards him as manipulative—I think that a whole new therapeutic vista opens up when we take into account the repercussions of an emptiness which the individual inadvertently creates precisely through the attempt to fill it up. Thus we may say that it is not just mother love that the adult type V is needing right now, but true aliveness, the sense of existing, a plenitude that he sabotages moment after moment through the compulsive avoidance of life and relationship.
Thus it is not in receiving love that lies his greatest hope (particularly since he cannot trust other people’s feelings) but in his own ability to love and relate.
Just as inwardness is animated by a thirst for enrichment and ends up in impoverishment, so also a misplaced search for being perpetuates ontic obscuration. The self-absorbed schizoid would remove himself away from the interfering world; yet in the act of thus removing himself, he also removes himself from himself.
An implicit assumption in ennea-type V is that being is to be found only beyond the realm of becoming: away from the body, away from the feelings, away from thinking itself. (And so it is—yet with a “but”; for it can only be perceived by one who is not avoiding the body, the feelings, and the mind).
While it is easy to understand grasping as a complication of ontic thirst, it may be well to dwell on how grasping is also—together with avoidance—at its source. The process is conveyed by the story of Midas, who in his wish for riches, wished that whatever he touched turned into gold. The unanticipated tragic consequences of his wish—the turning into gold of his daughter—symbolizes, better than conceptual thinking alone can convey, the process by which reaching for the most valuable can entail a dehumanization—and reaching for the extraordinary, an impoverishment in the capacity to value the ordinary.
The Christian tradition uses the term "greed" for a passion that strikes us in a way as dispassion: a tendency to indifference that in the language of psychology could be called a "retentive" character. We can describe it as a passion for not giving that involves both an economy of oneself and a feeling that one has little to give—a feeling poor, or poor in spirit. If we ask about the expression of retentiveness in the three spheres that correspond to the subtypes, it can be said that conservation greed wants to retain what little it has as a consequence of having anesthetized and restrained its voracity. Like Canetti's Finolora, who walks with very short steps and stops for a long time on thresholds, almost without breathing. In sexual greed, on the other hand, an invasive possessiveness demands a delivery that is as excessive as excessive is his need for love, and social greed leads to wanting to feel important, but at the same time insignificant or uninteresting, for which reason from inner poverty one seeks the magic of meaning, the wealth of experience, the special, the lofty, the great, or the extraordinary.
It seems to me somewhat more difficult than in the other characters to morphologically differentiate the three forms of greed, but below we can see what our cartoonist has highlighted after the observation of many who have attended the SAT programs.
In animal symbolism, we can say that the conservation E5, being the most hidden and timid, corresponds to the mouse, while the sexual, hypersensitive and most intense, corresponds to the ermine (an animal little bigger than a mouse). and very fast, who is the only one who knows how to succeed in an encounter with a cobra); the social E5, however, is very much like a giraffe which, with its long legs and long neck, can look down at things and also eat from the leaves of trees too high for other animals.
What is the crazy idea that sustains the excessive economy in the energies of life? If I wonder how an E5 is wrong, first of all, I would highlight their choice not to enter into a relationship with others and the corresponding idea that the independence of solitude is better than ties, which imply being open to giving and receiving. Well, isn't there in the relationship with the other the danger of having to give more than what is received? An E5 tends to think that it is better to go it alone for life, and might even say that it is better business to go it alone, since the thought of how much is given or how much is received implies an economic element.
Of course, he derives such implicit reasoning that, during childhood, an E5 was manipulated, received false love or was not raised properly, so he has intuited that the expression of love has been somewhat manipulative, invasive or superficial, but more deeply, it seems to me that an E5 is not convinced that there is such a thing as love, and for this reason his mistrust of relationships is associated with the suspicion that the love is perhaps just an illusion, an attempt at seduction or manipulation. Sometimes an E5 seems to be an exception to the universal search for love, and seems to prefer to be at peace or interested in the secret of the stars, or perhaps in the search for mystical experiences. Look for some alternative to love, but it is very difficult to find an alternative to love that is truly fascinating, unless one has an extraordinary mind that allows one to feel like Newton or Darwin, who were passionately absorbed in their creativity.
The hardly suffered loneliness of an E5, except in the form of vague dissatisfaction, can be understood as a result of a basic non-relationship, which in turn derives from a lack of understanding that a relationship is not one plus one equals. to two, since it implies the passage from individual consciousness to a consciousness of a very different order, as Martin Buber proposed when distinguishing the relationship with a you from the relationship with an object or thing. Relationship implies mutuality, and when two come together, they must give up a certain freedom, but instead a different horizon is acquired. We all have difficulty forming true, deep, and profoundly satisfying relationships because we all resist the notion that humans are more or less the same. Much has been said about recognizing oneself as equal to others, but I believe that such recognition comes naturally from the recognition of one's own deep awareness. If I recognize my deep self, I can feel that we are all that deep self, but without it, we are all a bit like E5, and we feel isolated. But unlike others who begin life with a strong symbiotic bias, an E5 starts out distrusting that it's a good thing to blend in with others, and is especially afraid that a relationship will mean giving more than he gets
The passion of avarice is the neurotic need to conserve the little that one feels that they have conquered, or the little that they carry within themselves. With the existential experience of having lost originary union, the E5 renounced what they do not have, while seeking to not lose the little they still have. Through the need to feel they exist and are loved, the E5 places distance toward need itself and others, who could cause any type of need. To reach this resignation, they feel obligated to separate themselves from their feelings and put energy in an intellectual passion that they imagine could cover up the sensation of feeling empty and cut off.
Like the other mental types, the avaricious type seeks, through the acquisition of intellectual knowledge, to patch up the distance they feel in relationships, distance that they themselves create to not feel dominated by the emotional chaos that emotional relationships may entail.
Avarice must be understood as a difficulty to give parts of themselves to others, whether it be emotions or intimate bonds. Even in a more tangible way, the E5 is unable to let go: a neurotic attachment to symbolic or concrete objects serves to not make contact with a sensation of fragmentation which by nature relate to a lack of emotional support. The E5 describes their childhood as a place and a time of loneliness that goes beyond concrete occurrences; relationships are always somewhat formal and emotionally sterile.
Their mother, even if she is invasive and controlling, maintains an emotional distance. She does not facilitate the expression of feelings, nor is she empathetic or participating in the world of the E5 child. It could be that care itself isn’t missing, but it is not transmitted through intimate contact.
For the E5, the body, the primary space for the definition of the self, with its perceptions, pulses, and instincts stops being a mode of access to the self, others, and the world very early on, and cognitive information becomes the preferred channel for relational exchange and the building of their own identity. As Claudio Naranjo often says about the E5: “they substitute their mom’s milk for books.”
Maintaining relationships is costly and, therefore, they not only limit them to a sustainable number, but they also pigeonhole them into precise and unmistakable categories: a friend is a friend, so if they become a colleague, an internal emotional confusion is created. Isolation, the fixation of the E5, must be understood not only as isolation from others, but also as isolation of their experiences between each other and isolation between their intellectual and emotional world.
For the E5, their greatest task in interpersonal relationships is maintaining the other’s expectations and demands because these represent a link and a commitment from which they will not know how to free themselves, or they may not feel in the right space to satisfy them. Additionally, these carry with them the danger of abandonment; overall, there is a deep distrust toward relationships and love.
They always have the fear of being invaded by the other, a fear owing to a hypersensitivity and a sense of vulnerability. Of all of the mental types, the E5 is, without doubt, the one who demonstrates having a massive mechanism of splitting that tends to isolate pleasure from the realm of instincts; pleasure in all its forms cannot be cultivated because it would be a source of emotional perturbation and a danger that could lead to a loss of control.
The E5 may appear cold, inexpressive, thoughtful, inhibited, untrusting, and physically withdrawn. Within themselves, they do not have consciousness of also being a body, as if their body were a stranger’s, as if they walked around in a world that doesn’t belong to them.
EV individuals seem to have concluded at the beginning of their lives that the world will not give them the love they yearn for, and they decide to fix things themselves, minimizing their desires. They distance themselves from the world, which asks more from them than it gives them and puts more impediments in their path rather than helps them—and to a certain extent “erases” them, forgets them. Like Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, they seem to say to themselves: “I know how to wait, I know how to fast, I know how to think.”
Quino has eloquently characterized the resigned self- denial that avarice entails in the cartoon in which the emptiness of the surrounding space becomes a metaphor for emotional poverty. Whereas some passions suppose moving towards the other too intensely, in this case we have a movement away from others. What Karen Horney said is very true: that the remote person can neither move towards the other via an amorous or seductive gesture nor against the other; in the conflict between these two tendencies—of love and aggression—he or she ends up departing the battle field. These types are neither warm nor ardent, but cool; however, their search for isolation and solitude, their desire not to be interfered with, invaded, subjected to demands, becomes a passion. What others search for outside of themselves, they search for inside, or beyond the interpersonal world—in the symbolic, the abstract, or the transcendental.
Not only is this a character that is close to fear, but also it has a form of this: a fear of ending up empty, of not having, of not being able. It entails a position of impotence and passivity with respect to life.
It is also adjacent to envy, and one could say that it shares the sense of lacking with this character; but this is an envy paralyzed by fear, which instead of approaching the object of desire, renounces what it feels to be unreachable. A great deal has been said in psychoanalysis about how schizoid people disconnect from their need for the other by means of the fantasy that their magnitude would be unacceptable, incompatible with life, that their voracity and dependence would lead them to “devour” the other. The fear of being devoured is likewise present: their own need would place these people in a situation in which the other used them, which is nonetheless true. When they enter into a relationship of dependence, they overadapt to the other to the extent that they forget their needs and need to reconnect with their inner world in solitude. Resignation arises on thinking that desiring is too much. Part of this character’s makeup is to say to oneself: “Is it worth making an effort? Is it worth insisting?” There is a loss of intensity coupled to desperation. Resignation entails apathy. And this “Is it worth it?” is linked to their vision of the world. It seems to them that they are not going to find anything profoundly satisfactory. They anticipate being disappointed, as they were when they were small.
It may be said that a vicious circle is established by means of which the selfsame prohibition of avarice affords them an intensity that, in turn, redounds in its negation. The taboo of greed breeds greed, which in turn stimulates the prohibition of wanting nothing for oneself. The result is a guilty egoism that neither asks for anything nor accepts that it be given what it secretly desires. Something similar occurs with the desire for privacy: this is complicated with the laying of blame. The result is that in order to hide it from the other, this person ends up having to forget his or her own secret.
Apart from the resistance to giving, not giving oneself is typical of the “retentiveness” of this character, which is manifested in only being half committed to what one is doing, or in participating in things, while at the same time asking oneself whether it might not be better to save oneself for something else. They are likewise resistant to expressing themselves, particularly with respect to communicating emotions. Commitments are difficult, as a result of a desire to economize for a possible better investment of their energies. As a result, the avaricious person is a simple observer of life, hardly living it and wasting opportunities as well as talents.
The characteristic defense mechanism of this character is what Freud called “isolation,” meaning the separation of some contents of the mind from others, as well as the compartmentalization or separation of ideas and feelings. The result is a good analytic capacity and a difficulty in seeing the overall aspect of situations and their meaning.
After defining meanness as “a lack of generosity with respect to spending,” Theophrastus portrays the mean man in the following way:
When voluntary donations are solicited in the assembly for the State, he silently gets up and disappears from the assembly ... On the feast in honor of the Muses, so as not to have to give any money, he stops his children from going to school on the pretext that they are ill ... He carries home the meat he has bought in the market himself and carries the vegetables in the fold of his gown. He stays at home when it is time to wash his cloak.
This image of the strictest economy of spending is a little more complex than the idea that might be considered a priori, since it suggests that this meanness not only indicates the desire not to spend and the sacrifice of personal desires in favor of avarice, but also a negation of the needs and desires of others. In virtue of this association, the word “meanness” not only speaks of economy, but more specifically of a lack of generosity in spending, as defined by Theophrastus.
As a distinction of meanness, Theophrastus speaks of avarice as “the desire to pursue a sordid profit” and gives a characterological portrait in which, together with these miserly traits, is to be found the covetous aspect of this type (which, in short, appears as disinterest and resignation):
The person who suffers from this defect is capable, in a banquet he has organized, of not serving an adequate amount of bread and of asking the guest he has received in his house for a loan ... If he sells wine, even to a friend, he mixes it with water. He takes his children to the theater the day when entrance is free ... He makes his servant carry too much weight and to make things worse, he gives him less food than the other masters ... If he considers that one of his friends has bought something cheap, he buys it from him and resells it at a profit.
Among the characters of the Commedia Dell’Arte, perhaps the one that most evokes this character is one who seems to walk as if his feet did not touch the ground: Stenterello. The girls in the street laugh at his absentmindedness, his clothes, and his appearance. Strange words and symbols cover his jacket as a sign of his interest for magic and mysterious knowledge. His name alludes to the poverty that accompanies his lack of worldliness.
A story by Pfeifer illuminates the way in which the hiding of desire in EV feeds passivity. He presents a subject who explains: “I live in a shell, which is inside a wall, which is inside a fortress, which is inside a tunnel, under the sea. I am safe and tranquil here. Safe from you. Tranquil that you are not going to disturb me.” A woman rows past in a boat above all this, and he goes on to say: “If you really loved me, you would find me.”
I said that there are characters that are apparently more loving than others, and I began with those that are so to the most marked degree. The one I shall comment on next is one of those that appear to be the least loving. Again, if love is an attribute of the essence of human beings—of their true self or central nucleus of being—it is something that is independent of character, which can be giving, available, or affirmative of others, or more distant, hard, or cruel. These are differences in programming or differences in interpersonal strategy and therefore belong to the world of pseudo-love more than to that of true love. However, the fact that schizoids seem less loving is valid both for those who experience this from the outside and for schizoids themselves. While hysteroids, the right wing of the Enneagram, find it easy to fool themselves with respect to their own capacity to love, it is more difficult for the more schizoid of the characters to fool themselves than anyone, and they may suffer acutely as a result of their incapacity truly to relate to others.
Although in their tendency to blame themselves the autistic are ignorant of the measure of spontaneous love contained in their psyches—from the viewpoint of the ideal of what they should be or do—it is also true that their programming turns against this impulse to merge with the other that Plato offers us in The Symposium, as a response to what love may be. Schizoid characters are opposed to this impulse to merge with others since they harbor a true passion for avoiding ties. If love means being interested in others, “autistic” schizoids are the ones who are not interested. Not only do they hardly express their affections, but also they are cooler, more apathetic, more indifferent than others.
They like to receive, yes, but not to ask for things, because they have learned that asking may bother, and they are afraid that their voracity will lead them to an even greater frustration than the self-imposed frustration of being patient. Even their desire to receive love is dampened to the extent they have adapted to living with as little as possible, minimizing any need that entails dependence on others and needing to give in order to receive. Moreover, they find it difficult to know what they receive, as emotionally and implicitly they do not believe in love any more than EVIII, and they tend to think that those who manifest love do so out of their own conscious or unconscious interests. Or they do not believe themselves to be worthy of receiving love because they do not feel of enough worth or because their own disinterest in others leads them to feel that they do not give enough.
There is, therefore, a non-commitment to love, non-commitment to others, non-commitment to life, and over-control of the fear of commitment, of the threat that the needs of others entail. In their excessive intolerance with respect to the demands and expectations of others, they experience the desires of others mainly as limitations. The most underdeveloped form of love is naturally the maternal, giving, and compassionate type of love; love of others is eclipsed by the love of ideals and preoccupation with oneself. There is scant feeling of camaraderie, little sense of community or fraternity with other mortals. These characters are also available very little to their children, whom they see—more so than in the case of other characters—as a weight, an impediment. On other occasions, however, there is a very intense projection of their own abandoned “inner child” onto their child, and this leads to overprotection and attachment to the child that is expressed in the form of a highly limiting relationship for the child.
Although they are egoistic, the avaricious are likewise so with themselves. They do not give themselves satisfactions; they push themselves and feel that they must carry out worthy deeds to give life a meaning.
In partner love, problems derive from their lack of availability, from their demand not to be subject to demands, from their isolation and scant empathy. Coexistence and matrimonial decisions—which entail a loss of privacy and of exclusive control over their own lives—are difficult. Sexuality may not be intense and may be perceived as another demand.
Love for God, whose demands are less patently present that those of their fellow man, become to a certain extent a substitute for human love, though this same love for God weakens if it does not rest on a sufficient experience of human love and love for oneself. However, it is easier and less conflictive to relate to an ideal object. Correspondingly, admiration-love (love of a child for its father or mother) is more developed in this character than generosity.
Point V, next to point IV, corresponds to a character that is also closer to the exploited than to exploiters: the “schizoid” character, those who “look as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths,” the weak. This is an impotent character, in the sense of having very little capacity to do, to move things. These are people who when faced with any kind of effort feel that it is not worth it, that “it’s not going to work out for me.” On the social plane, this impotence contributes to things staying as they are. I come from a country, Chile, in which this character is very common, and this leads to stagnation. People do not dare to take on commitments because they feel that this does not lead anywhere.
What social pathology is associated with this form of being in the world that is more a case of not being in this world? The ailment of those who feel that they are not here and those who are the observers of the world, a species of extraterrestrials who are waiting for the show to end. A sociological manifestation of this is what E. Durkheim, in his study on suicide, called anomie: what occurs when a person dissociates so much that he or she loses the meaning of life. This occurs a lot with beggars, with isolated people who, as they do not have sufficient social ties, lose their system of values; values that always require a relationship, that have to be fed by contact with the world, that have to be nourished by interaction with others. Otherwise, they grow old. And then the person who is in the world without being of it starts to feel: “What for? I don’t believe in anything, nothing matters at all, life has no meaning.”
We live in an age in which the neurosis of meaninglessness abounds. Many people suffer from this, something which in ancient times did not occur, or at least was not noteworthy. An existentialist, Viktor Frankl, was the one who coined the term “neurosis of meaninglessness.” It was a novelty, it had occurred to nobody until then that many people suffered from this affliction. Today it is an ill that affects almost everyone, since even quite social people have a relatively superficial sociability and share the intimate loneliness of the schizoid. We are losing the relationship with our neighbor; we do not live family relationships as the ancients used to; we do not have a sense of community comparable with that of other ages; there is no public life like before; we are much more isolated; we are more individualistic; and to the extent that we are emptier, we have lost meaning. The modern world is cold, scientific, mechanical, and abstract. All these ills of society have been well caricatured in the film Dr. Strangelove, in which Peter Sellers, a mad professor, is about to press a button and destroy the world. This is a completely rational and cold mentality, like that of our world, more indifferent each day.