Transformation Process And Therapeutic Recommendations

The therapeutic transformation of the Social 2 includes a path of humanization that could be defined as feeling "just one more."

The beginning of the awareness of the compensatory nature of my work and the harmful part underlying my impulse to offer support began in the SATs. Claudio Naranjo often uses meetings by enneagram types. I remember the profound effect it had on me to recognize myself as similar to others of my type.

On one hand, I felt a great emotional peace, comparable to having found my lost flock. On the other hand, a slight sense of anxiety, wrapped in the mystery of the mathematical precision in the character description offered by the enneagram, and the proof of this accuracy in the statements of people in the groups.

When I finally met other Social 2s and shared in the group, I realized that the traits I boasted about and believed to be proof of my uniqueness were, in fact, programmed

character traits present in all my fellow neurotics. I realized that, until that moment, I had managed to feel superior to all other E2s, which allowed me to keep the illusion of being unique and special. That’s when a fracture began in my character, due to the fact of perceiving its conditioned and automatic nature, which no longer allowed me to identify with it in the same way as before.

The biggest obstacle for a Social 2 in the therapeutic process will be asking for help, as their identity is based on the belief that they don’t need help and cannot show any limits or "defects." If they reach therapy, their greatest effort will be to declare their problems. They may ask for help while simultaneously denying that they have asked, and show from a position of superiority that they already understand their dynamics and know the way out. In doing so, they prevent the therapist from entering areas they fear and will constantly control the situation.

The disdain for authority and the great desire to be the authority themselves interfere with recognizing the therapist as someone who can guide them. On the contrary, they will try relentlessly to make themselves very understanding towards the professional, showing empathy for their work, tiredness, or eventual problems, which the Social 2 will undoubtedly sense, and, above all, will be extremely seductive.

This repeats the role they had in their family: occupying the father figure, losing their place as a child. Distrust of authority and the competition to demonstrate their grandiosity will be the dynamics in the therapeutic relationship. Additionally, their neurotic need for acceptance by showing themselves as magnificent will resurface, and they will find it difficult to believe that the therapist understands or values them if they open up about their shortcomings.

Another characteristic of the Social 2 will be trying to put themselves on the same level, attempting to become friends with the therapist by talking about social, mundane, or professional topics. For the professional, it will be essential to cut through such rationality to reach more intimate topics.

A key therapeutic skill, especially in the early stages, will be to accept the person with this character without attacking their need for superiority and, with patience, create a bond where they can experience that asking for or feeling a need is not related to lacking value. And to wait until they can appreciate a nurturing and guiding presence that respects them, giving them a place.

It is crucial for the therapist to be cautious of their own narcissistic need to be indispensable and create dependency, as this would be a doorway to competitiveness with their Social 2 patient.

Another area that requires thorough work is their passion for territorial conquest. The satisfaction this character seeks is being seen and feeding their grandiose image. Narcissistic games of thinking themselves the best, the most experienced, and the leader, mask a lack of experience with maternal love. They have not encountered a gaze into their deep being, a secure bond that allows them to trust that love exists.

It is these same narcissistic games that prevent them from connecting with the deep loneliness they experienced as a child. They are also unaware that the high expectations from their family for them to be the trophy, the great winner, exposed them to social environments that were inappropriate for their age; they are unaware that there was child exploitation.

People with this character often deceive themselves by telling a happy family story, where they were loved. Of course, they were loved, but under very stressful conditions for a child.

The Social 2 is unaware that their own father or mother competed with them, pushing them into a battle for superiority where they lost emotional containment and protection. Anyone who now approaches them with the intention of protecting them will be met with distrust and challenge. This can also be repeated with the therapist, who will need to have the patience to maintain the accepting attitude toward a spoiled child with adult shoes.

Additionally, in the relationship with authority, they may feel the same ambivalence they had with their parents: On one hand, they were praised and encouraged to be great, and on the other hand, humiliated in their most natural needs or when expressing emotions. The void of a true caring and intimate relationship is filled with their grandiose self. Giving voice to the child who lost their childhood early is experienced as humiliating. Asking for help or being affectionately received connects them with a position of inferiority. Their response has been to cool emotions, create distance, and also to despise those they cannot conquer or those who set limits.

It is a crucial therapeutic stage for them to realize the falseness of their grandiosity. The Social 2 cannot tolerate confrontation because there is no one who can put limits on them. There is a risk they will quickly escape the process of growth and self-awareness if they sense a threat to their crazy certainty of being the best. Therefore, this attack on narcissism must go hand in hand with the realization of their wounded and unseen inner child. A creature who was hurt in their healthy pride and had to build an inflated self-image to avoid feeling criticism and humiliation for being a child.

It will be important to distinguish between humiliation and humility, as Claudio Naranjo has often explained when talking about the virtue of the Social 2, which is humility. Being small has been humiliating for the Social 2; having emotions or illnesses has been humiliating too. It can also be humiliating for them to encounter someone greater than themselves. By not

touching on humiliation, they fail to recognize the value of others; they do not acknowledge that someone else might have a gift or talent worthy of appreciation.

There is a possibility that the "patient" Social 2 will remain in the therapeutic process if the therapist can accept with compassion this emperor-like child, valuing the ability they’ve had to progress in life, until they can give value to their emotional inner world and see the ridiculousness of their worldly successes. Most importantly, seeing how their grandiose narcissism is their prison, their sentence to loneliness and coldness, and realizing — and this is very important — their lack of love.

Another field to work on is the recovery of their natural instinct. The Social 2 is a seducer and pretends to have sexual freedom, but their seduction, especially in the Social subtype, is aimed at taking control of the other. They know how to invent attraction and love, but they do not know intimate love; in the end, they don’t know how to love. This also impacts their children, as we described in the section about love. We see the great difficulty this character has in having warm, physical contact. Above all, they don’t know how to play. Playing is wasting time, and even more than that, it would be to be on equal terms and let go of the control of the great Napoleonic general.

Free play, with the natural joy of the inner child, could also help them have a fuller sexual life and deep pleasure, instead of relying on an exhibition of sexuality, unleashing sexual cannibalism, or selling sex to gain admiration.

To achieve this freer and more natural instinct, bodywork, such as massage or dance, can help them release and listen more subtly to their body.

The search for sexual confirmation characterized part of my life. I actively sought any form of learning that could increase the effectiveness of my power of seduction and sexual fascination. To succeed in my flings, I also put myself through countless small challenges, forcing myself to overcome any form of shame, discomfort, fear of rejection, humiliation, and pain from loss...

Over time, I surpassed many limits this way and became expert enough in relationships to have a very rich and varied sexual life. However, little by little, the superficiality of this type of relationship put me in touch with a feeling of emptiness and distressing disorientation. Disorientation when the naive belief that fulfillment could coincide with the full liberation of Eros and libido crumbled.

Due to their difficulty in putting themselves in the other’s place and feeling genuine empathy, an important step will be for them to become aware of the behaviors that cause harm. Becoming aware of treating others as instruments for their own success will open the

door to learning friendship, whether as a loving companionship or as admiring love for the other.

This character must develop sincere empathetic fraternity, regain a sense of humanity, and learn to navigate loneliness.

It will be important for them to see the selfishness behind their false generosity and their lack of ethics in pursuing glory.

I came to therapy to search for the causes of suffering and trying to increase my well-being and strength. When I discovered the harm I was causing with my character, I changed direction, starting to worry more about what I was doing to others.

I then set the goal of increasing the well-being and strength of others more than my own, and developing empathy more than self-awareness. Self-analysis stopped being the search for points where I felt weak, and became the search for those where I saw myself as impure and unconsciously acting as an explorer.

The most important thing is that they realize the consequences they have on others when they use them to feed their thirst for adoration, exploit them in their conquest of success, and manipulate them to appropriate their qualities. In the therapeutic process, a very effective technique is the "hot seat," where the patient is guided to put themselves in the other’s place to feel their emotions. This also teaches them to listen and receive feedback without justifying themselves or quickly donning the mask of the indifferent.

In the process of self-awareness, group work is very effective, where peers can return how they feel the Social 2 as distant, hard to reach, and cold, and how difficult it is to find them in intimacy and camaraderie among equals.

It is important for them to cultivate true belonging to a group, without escaping when they don’t feel like the most important or special, without fleeing from their wounded pride.

In my drawing, I painted my tendency to win over the weak with an apparently warm color, the color of altruistic love. I was deceiving myself by using parental mania to justify, in my inner consciousness, the criminal act of selfishly exploiting the fragility of people for narcissistic confirmation.

In the process of awareness, this person realizes how success is a substitute for being, how it covers up their feeling of emptiness and low self-esteem.

This is a very difficult dynamic to work with because, for someone "abundant," we could say there’s no sense in coming down from the throne of fullness. As we know, it is easier for

someone who feels deficient and lacking to want to leave that hell. For the Social 2, it’s as if they had to leave paradise.

This is the slowest transformation, which is achieved with the awareness of the prison they live in, of how they destroy themselves, and of how truly alone and loveless they are.

If they open up to their pain, they can learn to love. If they feel their loneliness, they can realize they are not immortal and begin to give meaning and sacredness to small gestures, to the everyday actions of their life. If they learn that they are just one more, perhaps they can value life more and make it sacred.

The relationship with the practice of meditation is ambivalent. A Social 2 may use meditation and the spiritual path as tools to improve their narcissistic self-perfection. Their grandiose self can take advantage of the achievements made through meditation to feel they have more potential to be superior to others. With this character, we truly face the risk of spiritual materialism, as Trungpa Rinpoche has described. It is very easy for them to charlatanly pose as a guru promising the salvation of the world (their main delusional idea).

On the other hand, it can be very difficult for them to meditate because stopping the mind and action for this character means coming into contact with an emptiness they interpret as lack. Similarly, it’s hard for them to engage with a master, which requires deep devotional love and a commitment to the teachings with an attitude of obedience and respect for high spiritual values.

The reparative gesture of the Social 2 is to kneel with their head bowed. Learning to fall and rise again, humbly and without hiding.