Passion In The Sphere Of Instinct: How Envy Works In The Self-Preservation Subtype

The Self-Preservation 4 represses envy and is unaware of the impulse that leads to comparing itself with others or the feeling of lack. Even sadness, which is so central to this Enneatype as an existential climax, is not allowed. The individual locks emotions within an inner world that lacks expression, making it difficult to recognize them as emotional characters. One could say that the feelings connected to the experience of being deficient have reactively evolved into the ability to endure and sustain the sacrifice, suffering, and effort that life entails. The ability to suffer and strive becomes a necessary trait of their identity in order to survive. To understand how effort has been formed and the role it plays in the intrapsychic and intersubjective structure of individuals, it is important to first consider the biographical conditions of people with these traits and how they interact with other elements.

Different authors confirm, in clinical settings, a deficit in the adequate development of subjects corresponding to this subtype in a negative atmosphere, often involving one or both parents sharing the same type of character. While this condition cannot be generalized, its presence within a working group is noteworthy.

Bribring discusses a depressive feeling in childhood as the basis for later depressions. This is related to a childhood traumatic feeling of helplessness, arising from the frustration a child experiences when their needs are unmet, leading to a loss of vitality, self-esteem, and the inability to provide what he calls "narcissistic substitutes." As one Self-Preservation 4 patient puts it: “Whatever I did, nothing was ever right. My mother criticized me a lot. She told me I was very selfish..."

Markson considers that moral masochism and depression are inseparable. In the case of E4, one can speak of a masochistic-depressive syndrome. In this syndrome, three vital capacities are compromised: the feeling of entitlement, operational personal efficacy (success), and initiative. The primary condition involves having felt like an unhappy child, a source of sorrow and disappointment for the parents, and having failed in attempts to repair the damage for which they may feel responsible. Hostility and guilt are consequences of these conditions. As one patient recounts, “My parents wanted a boy, and I came, a girl. I did things so that my mother would be fine, but things went the other way.”

The Self-Preservation 4 feels that they are not entitled and are unable to act effectively in the world and with others to achieve a pleasurable, successful response. However, the E4 does not stop “doing”, making it the most active of all E4 characters. Action is its most developed psychic function, consistent with the belief that it is not worth feeling or asking many questions about what is happening; it is time to solve, help, and collaborate to keep themselves and others alive. Among the most active subtypes in the Enneagram, the Self-Preservation 4 is indeed the one who dedicates itself most devotedly and efficiently to work, both at home and outside of it. It is their mission and, at the same time, their identity as a “survivor.”

In understanding depressive-masochistic characters, it is valuable to mention Bleichmar’s work on narcissistic disorders, which form the foundation of the low self-esteem often found in the Self-Preservation 4 character. For this subtype, these narcissistic disorders arise from a primary, uncompensated narcissistic deficit. In the Self-Preservation 4 biographies, children are not “admired” in their need for recognition and support from their parents. On the contrary, they are frustrated and devalued.

“What an ugly girl, you have a face that is not even worthy of being on the handle of an umbrella.”“Shut up, what do you know about life?”“My mother always compared me to my sister. She was the good one, the beautiful one.”“When I asked for a skirt because I was tired of inheriting my brother's pants, my mother told me it looked like a friar had made my mouth, and she kept asking, who did I think I was?”

Subjects with this character often ask themselves, "Why ask if they’re not going to give it to me?" They believe the other will not respond to their needs, so they take what is theirs, making them the most contradictory of the envious. At times, when they believe they will not receive anything, they deny their needs, internalizing the idea of not having a right. Their parents also fail to provide a valued image with which they can identify, and in many cases, at least one parental figure exhibits a masochistic character. The masochism of the parents is transmitted not only through identification with the self-deprivation they impose but also through a sense of guilt they instill in the children when the children experience joy in ways the parents cannot.

“My father worked in the fields in the morning and at night at a gas station. I always remember my mother working at home or taking care of relatives, being the first to get up and the last to go to bed. When my father worked at a party, I couldn't leave until he arrived. I didn’t go out with my friends because I saw my mother having a bad time and I couldn’t afford to have a good time. I absorbed the effort.”

The Self-Preservation 4 has been unable to build a valued self-image and has not been able to compensate for the deficit. Alongside this, there are high ideals and a strict critical awareness in both of its variants (Bleichmar):

a. Regarding the non-acceptance of extenuating circumstances to achieve ideals or deviations from the norms or values under which conduct is judged, they act as a severe judge: “Whatever the cost.” b. In a high degree of hostility toward themselves, they elevate ideals and degrade self-representations, often arriving at the most negative conclusion possible. A common idea among many Self-Preservation 4s is: “Try hard and not succeed.”

Bleichmar’s contributions about masochism are also relevant for better understanding the Self-Preservation 4. According to Bleichmar, masochism, in its strictest sense, refers to the conscious or unconscious search for physical or mental suffering, self-harm, self-punishment, or self-deprivation. These conditions are codified in such a way that they generate pleasure on another level. Displeasure, therefore, becomes a condition for obtaining pleasure, albeit through a complicated circuit.

In understanding this character, it is essential to consider the value that certain traumatic interpersonal situations hold for the subject, who must transform what is painful into something pleasant to adapt or defend against it. Alternatively, they may actively seek displeasure because they fear it might occur unexpectedly.

When nothing can be done to prevent something from happening, or when there is a fear of being surprised by forces outside their control, one way to cope with suffering is to give a positive character to what is, in fact, an undesirable presence: the narcissization of frustration.

At first, we are not dealing with true masochism, since displeasure is not sought. However, in its presence, a degree of narcissistic pleasure is maintained by rationalizing the inevitable as unavoidable.

What begins as a defensive act later becomes fixed into a form of narcissistic satisfaction in two stages: one of defensive narcissism and the other of addiction to deprivation or suffering, which ultimately becomes sought after because it grants the sense that one is directing their own destiny.

Within this framework, effort in the Self-Preservation 4 becomes a driving force of life, understood as a form of control and a defensive transformation of the traumatic situation.

To observe how the Self-Preservation instinct is energized in people with this character, we refer to the biographies of Self-Preservation 4 individuals, where we find, alongside parental figures and family conditions, other very early experiences of danger to life and physical integrity. These experiences initially involve a struggle and effort for survival:

“I was born with very little weight, just one kilo. So, I started fighting for survival. Two months later, I suffered poisoning and had to fight for my survival.”

In other cases, the experiences reflect a deconstructing childhood anguish, where the physical, psychic, or emotional integrity of the subject feels threatened, and/or persecutory anxieties arise, making survival feel once again endangered. In the family, the need to focus all energy on physical survival has been overvalued, transmitting a sense of precariousness. As a result, primary, concrete goods must be ensured at any cost, often disregarding emotional or social needs.

In any case, in all situations, there is an effort associated with how to face and/or overcome them:

I had to leave town, no matter the cost; I couldn’t stand it. The feeling of staying here was one of death, suffocation in every way. It was vital for my survival to get out.

For me, the effort is linked to endurance. If it’s a work or training context, or one of material survival, I can bear the unspeakable. I drink it in. I can’t play games with it. But if survival isn’t at stake, I can’t stand it.

This effort is made autonomously. Self-Preservation 4 is the most counterdependent and neither melodramatic nor blatantly competitive.

Through the effort, the individual achieves narcissistic gratification. However, through this action, the pursuit of well-being or the proposed goals is not the primary objective; rather, it serves to provide the person with an idealized identity. In this narcissistic aspect, the Self-Preservation 4 needs to see themselves and be seen by others as a good father, friend, or committed person.

My friend was sick for a long time, and I would rather visit her and stay with her than leave her. I felt comfortable, recognized by my family.

Care and dedication to others compensate for low self-esteem. Through effort, the individual tries to placate the superego and alleviate the guilt stemming from the hostile desire to harm the original caregivers. This hostile desire has its roots in continuous frustrations from parents toward the individual’s initiatives—constant demands for loyalty and devotion through suffering, coupled with repeated failure to produce a pleasant response from caregivers.

It doesn’t stay with me, as I’m already making enough of an effort. I discover myself in the chorus of a song: “May the parched death not find me empty and alone, without having done enough.”

On the other hand, the hostile desire that is part of the Self-Preservation 4’s severe critical conscience translates this subtype into demand. However, through this requirement, the Self-Preservation 4, instead of demanding from others, demands from itself:

For me, the effort sometimes involves feeling like I’m solving things that otherwise wouldn’t be done well. For example, I take care of my son; if I’m not careful, I end up doing everything.

Additionally, there are behaviors where the effort is understood as an intrapsychic motivation, where the other acts as a mere instrument.

In certain conditions, the conduct is aimed at the other to establish a particular type of relationship with the subject. In such a way, based on anxieties and desires directed toward the other, certain behaviors are set in motion to provoke a specific effect—namely, ensuring that the other doesn’t attack, abandon, or fail to love us.

Berliner points out in a study on the genesis of masochism in intersubjective terms how hostility and parental abuse determine that the subject, frightened by aggressiveness, seeks suffering as a way of inducing guilt and love for the parents they fear.

Menaker emphasizes that the hostile parental attitude is internalized. The subject who mistreats themselves by submitting and lowering themselves before the other is acting defensively in response to perceived persecution. The frightened subject seeks to placate the opponent through the unconscious technique of showing that they are not someone to be rivaled. Thus, the Self-Preservation 4 becomes smaller, criticizes itself, places itself in a subordinate position, relinquishes its rights to the other, presents itself as incapable or ignorant, adopts self-destructive attitudes, and suffers as a result. This leads to a double gain: first, the suffering is less than the persecutory anguish, and second, it creates a sense of security that counteracts phobic or paranoid anxieties. By lowering itself, the subject keeps idealized objects in place, thus creating "gods" to whom they humiliate themselves. Additionally, this suppresses their own aggression toward the object due to hostile behavior.

The effort is also viewed as an instrument to gain the love and recognition of others. Here, the behavior doesn’t attempt to avoid attack but rather becomes a form of self-aggression, a form of bribery to prevent abandonment: "I am good, I work hard, I deserve to be loved. I’m going to get 9s and 10s so they’ll look at me."

Other times, through suffering and effort, a bond is maintained with the mother or father, who made the child or adolescent the confidant of their suffering. In this way, the child experiences the infinite pleasure of being in intimacy, feeling privileged to receive confidences.

As I grew older, my mother became more involved in her relationship issues with me. I felt obliged to accompany her so she could cry and unburden herself to me. This way, I also felt I had a place within the family—this was how she saw me.

Through effort, the Self-Preservation 4 also covers up their sadism. They sacrifice themselves to make the other feel guilty, to induce feelings of fault.

I take care of everything at home too. If I don’t do it myself, things aren’t done well. If I come to work sick, there’s no excuse for not showing up.

This dynamic takes on particular characteristics in love relationships. Lastly, considering the above and without oversimplifying, we would like to mention Tarachow’s review of the Self-Preservation 4: “Masochism is the technique of someone who cannot be direct.”