E3 Academic Equivalencies: Conservation, Sexual and Social Subtypes

In general, Enneatype III, Vanity, stands out as a notable absentee in academia. After researching the works of various psychoanalytic and psychological authors to draw connections between the definition of E3 in the Psychology of the Enneatypes and other academic definitions of psychological or psychopathological types, the overarching conclusion is that this Enneatype lacks any reference to pathology or neurosis. As a result, it consistently appears “normal,” to the point where its social conformity might be perceived as desirable.

Hence, it could be inferred that its potential “pathology” or “neurosis” lies precisely in this: an excessive pursuit of conformity and adaptation to the environment and others. This includes avoiding conflict, seeking acceptance and approval, falsifying oneself, and succumbing to self-deception.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Vanity does not appear as a diagnostic category in the DSM-IV. While it is an indication of underlying narcissism, in American literature, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is more closely associated with Enneatype VII. As Claudio Naranjo explains in Character and

Neurosis, the absence of Enneatype III in the DSM suggests that the recognized pathologies constitute a more external or visible layer of psychopathology:

“[E3s] may live very ordinary and perhaps successful lives without clearly recognizable interpersonal defects, harboring mainly a spiritual psychopathology—loss of interiority and of true spiritual experience.”

Narcissism is a fundamental aspect of the Vain character. Let us begin by exploring certain diagnostic features outlined in Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Although these refer to more severe psychiatric conditions, they contain specific traits of the E3 structure.

The key element in narcissistic personality is the inadequate regulation of self-esteem, which becomes dependent on external evaluation, making the individual highly susceptible to criticism. In response, the narcissist constructs an inflated self-image, placing themselves on a polarized scale of virtues or flaws, superiority or inferiority, relative to an idealized standard. This defensive strategy detaches them from their true self and shields them from potential feelings of failure.

In essence, this character displays exaggerated self-importance in a grandiose manner. They overestimate their capabilities, embellish their talents, implicitly devalue others’ merits, strive to feel superior or unique, and expect recognition as such, demanding excessive admiration.

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), this description of Narcissistic Personality Disorder corresponds to Enneatype III:

“They may be concerned about whether they are doing things well enough and how they are perceived by others. This is often manifested by a consistent need for admiration.”

There is a clear tendency to occupy prominent social positions and engage with influential people in socially esteemed gatherings (a trait primarily seen in the Social 3 subtype). With a constant need for attention and admiration, which may come across as pretentious, this character employs various social charms to receive special treatment.

Characterized by a lack of empathy and sensitivity to others’ desires and needs, this often results in exploiting others for personal gain. They tend to overemphasize their concerns with unnecessary details, display impatience, and harbor an envious attitude toward others’ achievements and possessions. Occasionally, they exhibit arrogant behavior, conveying a condescending or disdainful attitude while appearing emotionally distant or cold. Their fragile self-esteem compensates through friendships that make them feel special.

Associated Manifestations and Disorders

The fragility of their self-esteem makes individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder highly sensitive to criticism or frustration. While they might conceal it externally, criticism can torment them, leaving them humiliated, dejected, frustrated, and empty. In response, they may react with disdain or rage, boldly counterattacking and even causing harm to others. Such experiences often lead to social withdrawal or a facade of humility, serving to disguise and protect their underlying grandiosity.

Interpersonal relationships frequently suffer due to their pretentiousness, constant need for confirmation, demand for admiration, and disregard for others’ sensibilities. Although their ambition and self-assurance may lead to lofty achievements, these successes are often undermined by their intolerance of criticism or fear of failure. In other cases, professional performance may be low due to their aversion to taking risks in competitive situations. Persistent feelings of shame or humiliation, along with self-criticism, may result in social withdrawal, depressed moods, or dysthymia. Conversely, prolonged periods of grandiosity may correspond to hypomanic episodes.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder can co-occur with anorexia nervosa and substance abuse, particularly cocaine. Other comorbidities include histrionic, borderline, antisocial, and paranoid personality disorders.

Differential Diagnosis

Narcissistic Personality Disorder can be distinguished from Borderline Personality Disorder by its more stable self-image and lower prevalence of self-destructive tendencies, impulsivity, and abandonment issues.

Excessive pride in achievements, a relative lack of emotional displays, and disregard for others’ sensitivity differentiate Narcissistic Personality Disorder from Histrionic Personality Disorder. While individuals with borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic disorders all demand attention, narcissists seek admiration rather than mere attention.

Although narcissists and individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder share tendencies such as superficiality and exploitation, narcissists lack antisocial traits like impulsivity, aggressiveness, and dishonesty. Similarly, perfectionism and a belief in their superiority distinguish narcissists from individuals with Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder.

Suspicion and social withdrawal in narcissistic individuals stem from a fear of appearing imperfect, differentiating them from Schizotypal or Paranoid Personality Disorders. Finally,

grandiosity associated with manic or hypomanic episodes is distinguished from Narcissistic Personality Disorder by its association with mood disturbances.

Narcissism in Psychological Literature

Claudio Naranjo elaborates in Character and Neurosis how E3 individuals live for their self-image, embodying narcissism. However, the term has been used in various contexts to classify different characterologies. Otto Kernberg described narcissism as combining excessive self-centeredness, superficial adaptation, ambition, and fantasies of grandeur masking an underlying inferiority. Narcissists are charming when their neurotic needs are met but reveal cruelty when unsuccessful.

Naranjo notes that vanity is the passion for living through others’ eyes, driven by an exaggerated need for external validation. To achieve this, E3 individuals falsify themselves, adapting to situational expectations, suppressing emotions and needs, and disconnecting from their true selves. Kernberg metaphorically describes them as “masks within masks,” unable to distinguish between their image and true self. This alienation from authenticity creates a fundamental denial of feeling.

Winnicott’s concept of the false self illuminates E3’s core dynamic. When a parent fails to affirm a child’s intrinsic value, the child constructs a hyper-adapted false self aligned with external expectations, disconnected from spontaneity and authenticity.

In conclusion, narcissism is not exclusive to E3 but encompasses various character typologies, resonating profoundly with modern times.

Etiology of the Psychopathic Character

The psychopathic personality is rooted in the phallic phase of development, which begins around two and a half years of age. This phase marks a turning point as the child shifts their focus away from the mother towards the father and the broader world, expecting to obtain support and satisfaction. The transition begins with establishing their position within the family hierarchy—one of power—vying for attention from the parents and striving for supremacy in the competition among siblings.

At a time when their emotional, affective, and cognitive needs are beginning to develop fully, the future psychopathic child experiences frustration as their genuine projection of themselves into the external world is blocked. This frustration occurs when their curiosity and exploratory interest are stifled. The child must give up what they desire and find

satisfaction in the narcissistic needs of the father or mother in exchange for their support and affection.

The “psychopath,” corresponding to both Enneatypes III and VI, is thus anchored in the center of the Oedipus complex, specifically in the seduction by the parent of the opposite sex.

The hysterical psychopath (E3) maintains throughout life a constant need to secure their position of power—whether through control, beauty, sexual attraction, or efficiency. They are desperate to secure their place of power and constantly doubt their ability to maintain it. This leads them to be self-controlling and controlling of their environment because, structured in terms of the "other," their desires and achievements are not their own, but rather the desires of the "other" on whose approval they depend, resulting in profound insecurity and dissatisfaction.

The basic defense mechanisms are projection (mainly in the obsessive structure, corresponding to E6) and identification (more pronounced in the hysterical structure, which would be that of E3). In addition, the psychopath employs rationalization as a mechanism of emotional control, processing emotions with their head rather than their heart. They are the type of person who believes they feel. This defense serves, on one hand, to inhibit action as a control against the immediate acting out of impulses, and on the other hand, it contains anxiety about judgment and/or punishment.

Body Structure

The psychopath’s gaze is disturbing, used to control others. They employ it as a scanner to anticipate where danger may come from and keep it at a distance, or for seduction. The eyes tend to look through a slit in the eyelids, making them appear smaller. They use this gaze to determine who is interested, ensuring success in seduction, where they become the “hunter” and the “hunted.”

There is significant tension in the neck due to the need to always maintain a vigilant, controlling posture of the head, which acts as the engine that moves the periscope of the eyes.

With the chest shaped like a “V,” the upper body is overdeveloped, while the lower body develops less from the diaphragm downward. As one who holds back tender impulses, the chest and ribs are hard, making it difficult to depress the chest with the hand.

The diaphragm experiences significant blockage, especially during forced inspiration (paradoxical breathing). This diaphragmatic cut makes it difficult for them to connect with their feelings, emotions, and needs.

The abdomen is tense and firm, reflecting the containment of tender needs. The pelvis is slightly retroverted and disconnected from the rest of the body, preventing free and active sensory perception of the lower body. The buttocks are tight.

One of the most significant tensions in the legs is found behind the knees, in the hamstrings, indicating a fear of failure, surrender, and letting go. The feet tend to be wide, with a more pronounced instep than normal, a morphology better suited for jumping and movement.

The Conservation Subtype

The distinctive quality of the Self-Preservation 3 subtype is the tendency to go unnoticed, avoiding drawing attention by hiding aspects of themselves.

According to Claudio Naranjo, “In today’s psychotherapeutic practice, Enneatype III is usually diagnosed in Bioenergetic terms as Lowen’s rigid.” This type includes the Self-Preservation subtype, possibly with masochistic and narcissistic components.

Alexander Lowen describes several clinical cases that could well be considered Self-Preservation 3. One such case is David:

It was obvious to me that David was fighting against himself. On a feeling level—inside—he was scared to death. Yet, on an ego level—in terms of outward appearance—he was strong and powerful. That was the image he projected with his muscular body and his successful career as a surgeon. David operated on cases that might frighten others. He denied any fears and exuded self-confidence.

David had developed this image in his youth. He explained that he had tried to be the kind of kid a parent would love, a model son—smart, athletic, good-looking, and well-behaved.

But why did David seek therapy? Lowen clarifies:

David began by describing his reaction of rage when his son persisted in an action he had been told to stop. [...] David didn’t think he was wrong in ordering the boy to stop. What bothered him was the recognition that his reaction of rage was excessive. As he explained it, “I realized the enormity of my rage when I saw the look of fear in my son’s face. I thought

that he was afraid I could kill him, and I sensed that there was a murderous quality in my tone of voice and in my look.”

David was aware that his rage reaction was triggered by his son’s disobedience, which left him feeling frustrated.

Why did he act in such a disproportionate way? Lowen provides an answer by presenting David’s own comments:

He [David] said, “I saw that I was doing to my son what my father had done to me. I was a frightened kid, but until recently I denied I was afraid. I had moments of fear.”

Lowen illustrates with this clinical case how someone who presents themselves to the world as successful, confident, and trustworthy only shows a mere facade, which has nothing to do with something deeper within and can potentially become a real threat to their own child.

Another case is that of Ann. Lowen describes her as follows:

She had a constant smile on her face to show the world how happy and content she was. Yet this expression was belied by a tight, square jaw and a flat forehead, which gave her face a grim look. Ann was unaware of this contradiction. She was identified with the smiling, happy image and saw herself as a person who was responsible, considerate, and helpful. She had always been a “good” girl, doing what was expected of her and taking care of her younger siblings. After she grew up, she continued this pattern of behavior—it had become second nature to her. Yet on some deep level, it left her dissatisfied and unfulfilled.

Ann’s smile was a facade erected to hide her unhappiness from the world and from herself. The image of the happy young woman bore little relation to the reality of her being or her feelings. How did that image arise? Ann mentioned that her father used to tell her to put on a happy face, regardless of how she felt. No one would love a sad-looking person. So Ann denied her feelings and adopted an image that would be acceptable to her father. In the process, she sacrificed her true self.

These cases presented by Lowen show how the construction of an idealized image of a capable and valid person, expressed through objective and demonstrable achievements, which characterizes the Self-Preservation 3, is nothing more than a way to disguise, to themselves and others, a dramatic lack of self-love—consequence of having been forced to reject their own feelings in favor of something more acceptable. Even more dramatic is the fact that our culture precisely celebrates this as a non-psychopathological way of life.

Federico Navarro, an Italian neuropsychiatrist and follower of Wilhelm Reich, comments on the rigid character, and some insights may well be applied to the Self-Preservation 3

character. Navarro starts with the idea that anxiety is a manifestation of negative aggression directed towards oneself, dependent on a respiratory dysfunction caused by diaphragmatic blockage. All bodily and, hence, character rigidity is linked to deeper tension and blockage of contact through deficient breathing—not breathing to avoid feeling. The E3 is one of the most anxious of the Enneagram personalities, always on alert, and attempts to solve their anxiety in the wrong way—through action. Therefore, they don’t address the basic issue of the lack of internal contact.

The Self-Preservation subtype is more linked to survival issues. According to vegetotherapy, sleep, hunger, and sex are expressions of the Self-Preservation instinct. It’s an instinct related to the cervical ring, located in the neck. Navarro argues:

The limitation of neck movements reduces perceptual amplitude, and this makes the person lose sight of the whole, privileging the personal. Their worldview is narrowed and conditioned by their sociocultural environment and the ego ideal proposed that the person must achieve in order not to despise themselves. [...] As our society favors what is victorious, competitive, performance-oriented, and superior, the Atlas complex is reinforced, meaning the personality that carries the world on its shoulders, assuming many responsibilities and showcasing its efficiency.

Navarro completes his description of the rigid type as follows:

Due to the split between the head and the body (caused by neck stiffness), there is non-rational support, with a preference for social roles over social function. The idea of living for others and not with others ends up blocking their emotions, favoring technology over science and art.

Beyond these fragmented references in specialized literature, it can be stated that there is no academic equivalent for the Self-Preservation 3, due to its optimal social adaptation and the fact that the conventional criterion of personality pathology cannot register it.

The Sexual Subtype

In the Sexual 3, the passion is primarily focused on being loved. These individuals use seduction to attract and please, especially the opposite sex. The falseness consists of making the other believe that they will always be loved and cared for. They also believe this themselves and sacrifice instinct and desire to be what the other desires, with the fantasy that this will make them loved and accepted. Alternatively, they transform desire into seduction in order to be desired and loved.

As Claudio Naranjo pointed out, E3 coincides with what Fromm called the marketing orientation. A basic feature in this orientation is concern with self-presentation in a “personality market.” Sexual 3s seek success with their partners by selling themselves with sex appeal or attractiveness, offering intimacy, tenderness, care, and an “I will always love you” message. The strategy is complacency. They cultivate sexual attractiveness and manipulate their image to achieve that goal. Although they may appear cheerful and their attitude may seem optimistic, brimming with self-confidence and happiness, the Sexual 3 character is rather insecure and timid compared to the social and Self-Preservation subtypes.

Karen Horney describes ten patterns of needs: the need for recognition, the need for social prestige, the need for control… which, when exaggerated or distorted, become neurotic. These can be divided into three groups of adaptation strategies: submission, which is the movement of going toward; aggression, which is going against; and withdrawal, which is moving away.

The Sexual 3 presents an exaggerated need for affection and approval, and their movement is going toward, which is manifested in their behavior as compulsive seduction and indulgence to fill their insatiable hunger to be loved, due to their lack of intrinsic love for their inner child. As a child, they learned that rebellion is dangerous and that pleasing is the best strategy for protecting their heart: “If I can make you love me, you won’t hurt me, and I feel valued.”

Sexual 3s are willing to pay any price, enduring the greatest cruelty, to feel loved. Self-expression can no longer be spontaneous because it goes through an unconscious filter that scans the situation and people for any potential rejection. The strategy of guessing (an unconscious and automatic process) what is expected of them to be accepted is also generated.

All of this expresses the loss of healthy self-esteem, where one takes oneself as a reference. On one hand, there is pride, oriented toward their idealized being as a man or woman without shadows, with a need to avoid anything that threatens their self-generated and idealized image. On the other hand, this loss is experienced as an existential need to have a partner. Everyone has this need, but in Sexual 3, it becomes the neurotic obsession of having someone confirm that they are loved and support them in walking through life. This includes the belief that erotic love will solve all problems.

When the need to be loved is not satisfied, they plunge into anxiety, feel lost, and life loses its charm, due to the resignation and melancholy that arise when the lack of a partner or an unhappy relationship confirms their low self-esteem. It can lead to such an existential crisis that suicide is not uncommon in a Sexual 3 when they lose hope of finding the ideal partner.

Karen Horney speaks of morbid dependency to describe people who depend on their partner in a neurotic way, for whom erotic love is equivalent to “the keys to paradise.” The German psychoanalyst dedicates an entire chapter in her book Neurosis and Human Growth to this personality. There, she describes its dependency, which awaits the fulfillment of expectations of love and affection in relationships, and the annulment of its essence as an adaptive strategy. This is so profound that it implies enormous suffering.

This personality has a very controlling superego that constantly dictates how one should be: kind, without feeling personally hurt, even more loving and generous, etc. But the most important thing is to ensure that the relationship is harmonious at all times and to be loved by the partner through one’s beauty in image and behavior.

If the relationship is based on unhealthy patterns, the person experiences it as a failure, which motivates them even more to strive for it, preventing them from separating from unsatisfactory relationships. This leads to a double strategy in the Sexual 3: they cannot separate, which seems to be an “ability to give and love” (neurotically), and on the other hand, it helps strengthen the idealized self, with the idea that they deserve to be loved for so much kindness. This represses all uncomfortable and censored feelings in the unconscious, especially those that may conflict with the partner or lead to rebellion against others’ expectations and manipulations. There is a vulnerability that manifests as secret pride.

According to Horney, this personality represses its expansive instincts, which generates weakness. This weakness is compensated by the attempt to please and be liked, and it is also reflected in the choice of a partner who promises the instinctive strength they lack, thus protecting them. For Horney, the problem often starts with the partners they choose. In their relationships, the projected and admired strength is often expressed in the idealized person as violence and aggressive arrogance. Here, the Sexual 3 enters into conflict because the aggression of the arrogant person is so humiliating that it generates enormous repressed rejection within them. This type, Horney asserts, idealizes the ability to handle life with arrogance and aggression. As a neurotic adaptation, they try to resolve internal conflict and the loss of their instinctive strength by seeking ideal love outside themselves with a partner who compensates for the strength they have nullified.

As the Sexual 3 is a melancholic character with chronic yet subtle sadness, it can be confused with the Social E4. They easily perceive themselves as a victim and manipulate through identification with shyness, weakness, and delicacy.

For this reason, we believe that the Sexual 3 also falls into this dependent character, much like the Social E4, as mentioned by Claudio in his book Character and Neurosis for Enneatype IV in general. Unlike E4, the Sexual 3 avoids falling into an internal state that could be described as living in a “sea of tears” or a mentally addicted state to sadness,

victimhood, and lack. Instead, Sexual 3s compensate for the internal lack and dependence on a partner with projected images of an immaculate life and family, portraying a controlled fullness.

This would be the manifestation of the “AntiEros” of our time, which robs Eros of its strength precisely because life and death embrace in the surrender of essence, experiencing the fullness of life through death itself. A vital impoverishment expressed in the idealization of the perfect woman, with the aseptic and sterile beauty of Hollywood’s female stars, representing the Sexual 3 in the collective imagination. Thus, the life of the Sexual 3 revolves around the addiction to having an erotic partner who confirms what they most desire: to feel alive and complete again “when they finally achieve self-love,” believing they will find it in the loving attitude of the other.

We believe the Sexual 3 is a mixed character, being a hysteric rigid with oral and psychopathic traits, as well as narcissistic components. This character is formed from a wound in the oral phase, not having had sufficiently good mothering. This lack of a mother is attempted to be compensated for at the beginning of the Oedipal stage, through the desire for the father, wishing for what they didn’t have with the mother. Aspects of narcissism and psychopathy are fixed there.

In our literature research, we found descriptions that align with the Sexual 3 pattern. The characters described that most coincide with it are the phallic-narcissistic and hysteric characters described by Lowen as narcissistic subtypes (a rigid system with significant psychopathic components) and the hysteric personality described by Kernberg.

Claudio Naranjo recognizes the Enneatype III pattern in Kernberg’s description of the hysterical personality; we also find it fitting and recognize it as characteristic of the Sexual 3 subtype. This is Kernberg’s description, as quoted by Naranjo:

A predominant feature in women with a hysterical personality is their emotional instability. They relate easily to others and are capable of maintaining warm emotional commitments (with the significant exception of a response to sexual sensitivity). They are often theatrical and even histrionic, but their way of showing affection is controlled and has aspects of social adaptation. The way they dramatize their emotional experiences may give the impression that their emotions are superficial, but exploration will reveal the opposite: their emotional experiences are authentic. These women are emotionally unstable but not inconsistent or unpredictable in their emotional reactions. They lose emotional control only selectively, in front of some close individuals with whom they have intense conflicts, especially of a sexual and competitive nature. Although hysterical women are prone to emotional crises, they can distance themselves from these crises and evaluate them afterward with realism. They can cry easily and tend toward sentimentality and romanticism, but their cognitive abilities are intact.

As mentioned above, the Sexual 3 comprises components of the aforementioned hysterical personality or Lowen’s hysterical rigid character, which is equivalent, in men, to the phallic-narcissistic character. For Johnson, this character is a rigid system with significant psychopathic (narcissistic) components. In the transition from DSM-II to DSM-III, hysterical personality disorder disappeared from the official nomenclature of American psychiatry. In its place, histrionic personality disorder appeared, which in our opinion more clearly describes E2. Therefore, the Sexual 3 subtype is not represented in the DSM-IV.

Glen O. Gabbard distinguishes the hysteric disorder from the histrionic, stating that the latter exhibits florid and generalized emotionality, impulsivity, and crude and inappropriate seduction, all accompanied by a lax superego. In contrast, the hysterical character’s emotionality is restricted and confined; there’s sexualized exhibitionism, the need to be loved, good impulse control, and a subtly attractive seduction. It presents ambition and competitiveness with a strict superego and some obsessive defenses. This last description is the one that most aligns with the Sexual 3 subtype.

There is also a contrast between the hysterical and narcissistic characters. Hysterics are described as hypersensitive individuals who exaggerate feelings, while narcissists downplay them. Hysterics feel guilt and anxiety, whereas narcissists tend toward depression and emptiness. However, as Lowen points out, these distinctions are theoretical, as individuals often exhibit both hysterical and narcissistic elements, as well as anxiety and depression, at the same time.

In the hysterical-narcissistic character described by Lowen, a close relationship between narcissism and sexuality is observed. Similar to the phallic-narcissistic man, the hysterical woman described by Lowen is preoccupied with her sexual image. Her narcissism comes out in a tendency to be seductive and to measure her value by her sexual appeal. Being a woman, softness is her essential quality, and receptivity is evident. She, too, is self-confident, often arrogant, vigorous, and impressive, seducing with her “feminine” charms.

In his book The Language of the Body, Lowen revisits the relationship established by psychoanalytic writers between the hysterical character and the genital conflict that arises from the unresolved Oedipal situation. Every hysterical character approaches sexuality with an unconscious attitude derived from this situation, which expresses itself in ambivalence towards the sexual object corresponding to the girl’s attitude towards her father. For Lowen, the basis of the hysterical character structure is an ambivalent attitude towards the male. On the one hand, desire is blocked by a fear rooted in the original rejection of the child’s sexuality by the father; on the other hand, there is inhibited anger towards him from the repressed longing. Thus, repressed anger and pride prevent a direct approach to the male. Nevertheless, the woman uses sexual gestures to seduce and attract him, enticing

him into a sexually aggressive action. Sometimes, there is a show of resistance, overcome by force. Often, she submits and feels abused and innocent because she is unaware of her provocation. Under the apparent submission is an aggressive attitude that leads to sexual discharge. The pursuit by the male tends to repair the narcissistic injury suffered by the father’s rejection of the young girl’s sexual love. The pattern of response is: teasing, resistance, and then submission. This cycle is well represented in the movie Lust, Caution, where a woman seduces a powerful tyrant with the aim of deceiving him and becomes entangled in a story of infatuation and submission to his sadistic rule.

Lowen describes how, despite the rigidity and armoring of this character, the pelvis is more or less soft and sexually alive, with a sway of the hips that gives sex appeal. Although present in a rigid body where the superficial tensions are strong and limit the fullness of discharge, the personality is divided between genitality and tender, loving feelings. A characteristic of the rigid character, according to Bioenergetics, is the division between the heart and sexuality:

The hysterical character functions without symptoms as long as the balance between energy production and discharge is maintained. But so long as this balance is maintained at a level other than one close to full capacity, life is relatively unexciting and meaningless.

Feelings of boredom, being in a rut, and dissatisfaction are common in these individuals, who then pursue deeper feelings by flirting, seeking romance, and engaging in extramarital relations.

Lowen considers himself a phallic-narcissistic character, highlighting the close relationship he had with his mother and how he was the apple of her eye. This maternal or paternal need for control and possession diminishes the child’s sense of self. They are seen as a trophy rather than for who they are, leading to the ego becoming bigger than the self and the development of a narcissistic personality, confused between who they are and what they represent for others. Narcissists experience chronic insecurity and dissatisfaction, which is common in the Sexual 3 character. However, the description of narcissism that aligns more closely with the Sexual 3 is a type of narcissism described by Alexander Lowen. The creator of Bioenergetics designates narcissism as “the insanity of our time” and describes three types of narcissistic disorder based on the degree of self-alteration or loss:

1.Phallic-Narcissistic character, 2.Narcissistic character, and 3.Borderline personality.

The narcissist of the first type is the man dedicated to conquest. Reich describes him as someone positioned between compulsive neurosis and hysteria, specifically aligning with the male Sexual 3. Reich used the term “hysterical character” to describe a female

personality structure equivalent to the phallic-narcissistic man. Kohut described a narcissistically vulnerable type, prone to self-fragmentation. Glen O. Gabbard places these types as two opposite extremes on a continuum, calling the first oblivious narcissism and the second hypervigilant narcissism. The Sexual 3 character corresponds more to the narcissism of the second type, highly sensitive to reactions of others, inhibited and shy, directing attention more toward others than toward self, and whose feelings are easily hurt.

The Social Subtype

The reflections on the core narcissism of E3 presented in the preceding sections have allowed us to identify specific prevalent traits within the structure of the Social 3 subtype. However, from an intrapsychic perspective, the Social 3 subtype specifically exhibits what Bleichmar refers to as “secondary pathological narcissism” (Bleichmar, 1997). Faced with the inability to cope with certain narcissistic anxieties—ranging from pure disintegration anxiety to feelings of dissatisfaction, envy, dependence, boredom, or emptiness—the individual will develop compensatory attempts to boost their self-esteem. In this way, the grandiose sense of self-importance becomes a defensive mechanism that enables them to escape these anxieties.

Noteworthy intrapsychic mechanisms include a demanding and perfectionist superego that relentlessly demands a supply of achievements. Under this internal pressure, the person feels compelled to earn the admiration of this superego. Success makes them feel grand, while failures in love, work, or therapy make them feel inadequate.

On an interpersonal level, there is a tendency to denigrate or downgrade others in order to feel superior. When unsuccessful, they may socially withdraw, exhibiting a narcissistic, prideful abandonment, often conveyed through the message, “I don’t need you.”

The most common compensations are not so much fantasies and behaviors of omnipotence or megalomania (which are closer to Enneatype VII) but rather the use of material possessions, such as a nice house, a car, or a brand-name watch, which symbolize an idealized status. Social 3 narcissistic individuals often position themselves as equals to the therapist, seeking an alliance against others. They struggle with dependence, sharing their difficulties, and connecting with their own limitations.

Histrionics, a core aspect of the Vanity character, are particularly pronounced in the Social 3 subtype. The histrionic personality disorder, as defined by the DSM-IV, helps identify specific traits of the Social 3. The most notable diagnostic feature is the general pattern of excessive emotionalism and the need to be the center of attention. The Social 3 feels

uncomfortable, or even rejected, in situations where they don’t achieve this. Therefore, they will go to great lengths to impress others and keep the focus on themselves.

They exhibit seductive behavior, meticulously tending to their physical appearance. Their manner of speaking is primarily subjective and lacking in nuance, with assertive expressions but vague or diffuse arguments. They tend toward self-dramatization and exaggerated theatricality, often becoming the life of the party. Their emotional expression is superficial and changeable. They are highly suggestible, easily influenced by others, trends, or circumstances. In relation to authority figures, they tend to be trusting, believing that these figures will solve problems in extraordinary ways. Finally, these individuals often consider relationships to be more intimate than they actually are.

In terms of physical appearance, both male and female Social 3s typically have a lean body structure and a dry, more austere face, which can be described as a “beautiful mask.”

Emotionally, the social subtype exhibits traits of rigidity: it is more demanding, more perfectionist, more chameleon-like, more service-oriented, more efficient, more exquisite, more dynamic, entrepreneurial, competitive, and fierce (with an aggressive impulse close to the surface). They show more resistance to stopping and a greater need to release their anxiety through action. This subtype fears staying in a state of emptiness more than others. They often use literalness as an aggressive weapon and are more ruthless. Socially, they tend to be more successful and more mercantile. Their image is more diffuse than that of other subtypes, creating insecurity and a constant need for image management.