Therapeutic Recommendations

The E1 desires recognition: they have a neurotic need to be acknowledged and always feel inadequate if they are not given priority in terms of authority and command. This desire to be valued is an obstacle to their growth, and letting go of the image of grandeur, cleanliness, efficiency, and control will be a necessary step for their transformation. The pretense of being perfect needs an executive instrument. How can I achieve perfection? By demanding, demanding, demanding. Even through torture. With sacrifice and using only my own means, because they are the only valid ones. The goal is to improve, improve, and improve... Show these parents, sometimes both, sometimes especially the father, but also

the mother, what I am capable of. Therefore, one must stop demanding, and realize that this is a disturbance.

The challenge here, as with other characters with a high degree of narcissism, will be to feel part of a meaningful community. The big obstacle will always be learning to ask for help, to recognize oneself as needy. Deep down, there is a lack of trust in their peers. But the Social 1 is also afraid of being unpleasant if they clearly say no. Consequently, when they do, they express themselves with excessive vehemence and determination, exploring everything they have accumulated. The search for serenity, an equanimity that allows the passage from one emotional state to another without attachment, is key to their development.

It is especially recommended to cultivate any therapeutic, spiritual, and emotional work related to tenderness and erotic love to recover and repair a childhood in which the child was not recognized as such and was disconnected from their natural instinct and emotional world. Free play, manual work, dance, movement, therapeutic massage... contribute to this.

The SAT Program has always recommended two virtues to be cultivated by E1s: acceptance and serenity. On these pillars, people with this character can explore the possibility of creating a new repertoire of behaviors and attitudes, characterized by surrender to a higher will, that of life, but also to a worldly, material, and spontaneous will: that of the body and the senses.

Inadaptability is organized around decisions like:

• "If things happen in a certain way and I don’t like them, I’ll do it my way." • "Even when I need help, it's better not to depend on others; I probably won’t get what I need and, in the end, I’ll have to manage on my own." • "I have to work hard and make an effort for it. I’ll be strong so I can face life and overcome my limits and my incapacity." • "I won’t be stopped by fever or illness, I’ll always be on my feet." • "I won’t be problematic, so I’ll be loved." • "I’ll strive to be worthy, then I’ll be recognized and have the right to live in this world."

The therapeutic recommendation would be to clearly break with each of these decisions.

An important issue to address is dealing with the inherent failure in their "successes," especially in work relationships where the E1’s authority role is very strong. This helps to accept the viewpoints of some people that were previously judged as clearly bad or insufficiently argued. This new appreciation of people and opinions that were not valued or heard before can mean an abandonment in which new emotions and experiences can be

lived: an unknown existential enrichment, and perhaps the discovery that they weren’t bad nor lacking in arguments.

The feeling of losing control that can accompany these actions can, at the same time, generate a new vivacity and connection with instinct.

Engaging in service work, donating, and helping the community, alternating with leadership or professional development, also brings a lightness to social relationships; it’s like becoming smaller, stepping out of the spotlight.

There is a story by Stefan Zweig, The Eyes of the Eternal Brother, which is very revealing. As the book’s review on the Acantilado website states, the book tells the story of Virata, a just and virtuous man, the kingdom’s most famous judge, who, after voluntarily experiencing in his own flesh the condemnation to darkness reserved for the most bloodthirsty murderers, discovers the absolute value of life and recognizes in the eyes of the eternal brother the intrinsic impossibility of any judicial act. Virata becomes, after his renunciation, an anonymous man who, once dead, is awaited by an even more permanent oblivion, that of history, which continues its course without the most just man of all time. The level of dedication of the once merciless judge could not be deeper. He gives up everything, even his self-importance. He accepts his condemnation to oblivion with lightness. "He who has no homeland owns the world - we can read it... he who has abandoned everything owns all of life, and he who has no guilt enjoys peace."

The cultivation of serenity may be accompanied by greater determination in the meditative practice, as is the case with Virata from Stefan Zweig. Experiencing stillness while visualizing scenes of rejection and anger can have a real transformative effect.

Cultivating listening, deeply opening oneself to hear the other, accompanying the other, giving oneself time and space for this, can change the perspective with which we look not only at the other but at the rest of the world; everything that is not "me." Acceptance can be enhanced by delving into the subjective depths of the subjectivity of many who were previously not even noticed by the elitist Social 1.

Possibly, the role in which the character of the Social 1 manifests most rawly is that of parents (regardless of gender), where fixations are projected almost unnoticed, where introjection and projection are nearly indistinguishable. The person wants the best version of themselves for their child, that is, the Great Cross. In any case, it is always necessary to continue paying close attention to the balance between the directive function of the parents, which is still necessary, and the acceptance of the uniqueness of the children, with their challenges and their desire for freedom.

These two processes, listening to the other and educating children, become one and the same, something like including the individuality of the other in my space: the ancient and wise commandment to consider others as oneself. The classic Gestalt recommendation to exaggerate symptoms is a good help in the process of a Social 1. Exaggerating some of the characteristic interventions, such as arrogance, listening too much to oneself, lofty aspirations, etc., makes the neurotic pattern more evident and relaxes the consequences it usually carries. Although it's not the same, it resembles laughing at oneself or, at least, smiling as a result of being caught in the act.

After a good therapeutic session with a patient of the same subtype, the latter, egocentric, murmured to themselves: "relax, relax, relax," recalls Fernando Gómez, for whom meditation becomes very important in the process. The practice of self-observation and investigation, maintained over years, but still stimulated by a basic dissatisfaction, is leading me back to a position very similar to the starting point of my adolescence: questioning existence in its entirety, the existence of the world and my own. What I could call a healing process was accompanied by an understanding of the nature of the real and the very cognition that perceives and elaborates it.

As a philosophical development, this positioning opens up to an infinite number of paths that cannot be covered here, but the therapeutic potential of these analytical meditations seems to me to deserve brief attention. Repeatedly drawing attention to the simple fact of existence as a singular and inexplicable event and staying there, inhabiting wonder, has a transformative effect that deserves to be explored. I would say this brings clarity, calm, and order to the incessant flow of impulses, feelings, and ideas. In a way, this reminds me of what Fritz Perls recommended when working with dreams; when the message of a dream brings an excess of content, when it overflows the capacity of consciousness, he proposed the repetition, like a mantra, of the phrase "this is my existence, this is my existence." In another measure, this also brings to mind the famous phrase with which St. Augustine begins his Confessions: "Our hearts are restless; only in You, Lord, do they find rest."

Antonio Ferrara highly recommends theater:

• "In Transformative Theatre, I change characters to give life to an unknown character of the patient, off-script. I take risks and experience moments of emptiness and anxiety. In this case, deductive logic doesn’t work. I wait for creative inspiration, and when I put it into action, the actor experiences their transformation, and if this results in therapeutic outcomes, I have proof that it worked. The real experience gives me evidence that the cure works."

Many people with this character say they were older than their age from a very young age. Therefore, it is important to reconnect with the fact of being a child. Theater and any form of cultivating spontaneity will also help in this regard.