Other Characteristics and Psychodynamic Considerations

Idealization

Idealization, the main characteristic of the Social 5, can actually be considered excessive idealization, which occupies a central place in the empty and impoverished world of this miser, giving him a false sense of accomplishment and self-importance. This happens both with people he considers important and with himself, as he identifies with his ideal part, the one that leads him to love "perfect" and transcendental things.

The ideal of the Social 5 is "totemized"; he classifies the things around him based on what he considers sacred or unworthy and valueless. Through the demanding lenses of his totemic ideal, he judges people, knowledge, and above all, himself.

Most representatives of this Enneatype have an idealized father figure in a distant or even nonexistent relationship. To compensate for this distance and the lack of paternal-filial intimacy, the Social 5 transfers his admiration to an "object" or an important person, whom he highly values. He believes that to be loved and admired by this great entity (or people covered in surplus value), he needs to be equally great. Due to his great need to be accepted by those he admires most, his idealization masks his devalued self-image. Thus, a permanent conflict arises between his "real self" and his totemic demand. Otto Kernberg emphasizes that primitive idealization:

"It complicates the tendency to see external objects as totally good or bad, artificially and pathologically increasing their quality of 'goodness' or 'badness.' Primitive idealization creates unrealistic, powerful, and wholly good images; this may reflect the interaction with the diagnostician, treating him as an ideal, omnipotent, or divine figure, from which the patient is unrealistically dependent. The interviewer or some other idealized person may be seen as potential allies against equally powerful (and equally unrealistic) 'all bad' objects."

Rationalization

It is worth reminding them that the E5 is the most intellectual of the intellectual types. Given their great difficulty with contact and expression, they think and interpret experiences, which makes them good observers and develop a strong capacity for analysis and synthesis, seeking to deepen the topics that interest them. Their passion is aimed at capturing as much information as possible in each case. By rationalizing their experiences, they transform emotions and sensations into information.

The Social 5 tends to be impersonal, avoid intimacy, and relate from the mind. Thought prevails over emotions and action, as they base their connection with the world on ideas and theories and always seem to be right. In fact, they speak with such certainty and use such elaborate arguments that, even if wrong, it's easy to convince the interlocutor. This attitude of being right leads to arrogance, placing the type above others, making them cold and distant, and pulling them away from people. This superiority coexists paradoxically in their psyche with simultaneous inferiority.

The tendency to rationalize makes their experiences incomplete because they hardly relate the emotion experienced to the corresponding intellectual content. This disconnection from the emotional world is closely tied to another of their characteristics: compartmentalization.

Compartmentalization

A typical defense mechanism of the E5, compartmentalization plays an important role in the internal dynamics of the social subtype. As the Social 5 is strongly identified with their idealized world and with the social instinct being most affected by their passion, it is in this area that they exercise the most control over their emotions and feelings.

Thus, compartmentalization is a form of division and an excellent defense against the fear of exposure. Since it is always hiding something, compartmentalization serves to separate different internal "characters," which are never in the same room of their house. Each character represents an emotion, thought, or desire that is not connected because they live separated by the thick walls of the many rooms in their inner house. Compartmentalization protects this character from being aware of what they avoid seeing or feeling. Sometimes they realize their feelings, but still, when it's time to express them, they cannot.

This blockage is an ego defense that protects from why, exposure, and expression of negative emotions such as pain, anger, or frustration. This causes great discomfort, in addition to linking them to events (which goes against their tendency to isolate) and exposes their image to judgment from others and themselves.

Through compartmentalization, the Social 5 loses not only emotional contact with the people around them but also the emotion linked to past experiences. Their memories are

like a silent black-and-white movie, in which we see the image but miss the colors and sounds to complete the scene.

Detachment

Detachment is less evident in the Social 5 than in the other two subtypes, as they are more predisposed to social relationships. It is more emotional detachment than physical. But although this E5 has more physical presence and is more sociable, they are still seen as distant, reserved, and withdrawn.

Often, they seem indifferent to the presence of others in their life. If they lose contact, they act as if they don't need it and easily give up the expectation of gaining anything from a relationship. They don’t seek the encounter. It is a pathological detachment that avoids the need for contact and hides behind a mask of indifference.

On the other hand, they cultivate an extreme attachment to themselves. A Brazilian representative of this character once said that they were "saving themselves for when carnival came," paraphrasing a song by Chico Buarque. However, that carnival never came in their life. They also said they had "the feeling that somewhere there's a party I wasn't invited to." In fact, it was they themselves who avoided contact, clinging to their own comfort.

Lack of Action and Low Energy

The E5 generally suffers from a certain difficulty with action. This characteristic is not unfamiliar to the social subtype, who delays action not only due to their tendency to accumulate energy but also because of the compulsive need to avoid contact and conflicts. Their lack of action can be understood as an expression of resignation, a tendency to flee from experience even before having lived it.

However, among the representatives of the Social 5, we find some who are very dedicated to their work, to which they attribute great meaning and value. They direct all the energy they save in other areas of their lives to serving an ideal, in the pursuit of doing work they consider important.

Normally, the Social 5 is portrayed as a person whose achievements occur more slowly, not only because of their physiology or their fragile and desensitized body (similar to the ectomorph type of Sheldon), but mainly due to the belief that one cannot have enough energy and must retain and save it. Their greatest difficulty is putting energy into

relationships and people, which makes them feel drained and feeds the self-deception that they don't have enough to give. This is their greed: little availability for relationships, especially for others' demands.

In relation to concrete achievements, the criteria and demands the E5 imposes on their Totem, with so much intellectual and spiritual ambition, end up delaying the accomplishment of projects and make them never feel sufficiently prepared to put their energy into the world. Thus, this miser becomes a mere observer of life and wastes opportunities and talents.

Hidden Atmosphere

The great idealization and attachment to themselves of the Social 5 lead them to a lack of transparency in personal relationships, with which they try to protect themselves from exposure and rejection. Due to their resistance to being seen—especially in the realm of intimacy—the representative of this subtype maintains an ideal image. They always hide something within themselves, like the keeper of a treasure or a very valuable secret that must be revealed gradually.

Mysterious and shy, communication is not their strength, and they seem like a quiet person with little humor. They tend to speak in generalities or abstractions and lack transparency and fluency in communication. Often, they know what they have, but their blockage with words prevents them from expressing themselves directly, communicating what they want bit by bit. They seem absent, with lapses, leaving gaps and unfinished sentences.

The difficulty in showing their true intentions or even revealing their feelings and desires creates a concealment of their truth. Sincerity and transparency are, for them, important virtues to be conquered.

Desensitization

The Social 5 presents a strong polarity between insensitivity and hypersensitivity. On one hand, their great detachment from feelings and instincts makes them appear cold and distant, seemingly uninterested in emotional involvement. Their center of gravity resides in their intellectual world, distancing them from their sensitive side and protecting them from being vulnerable or dependent. They are apathetic, walking around with a mask of indifference and an apparent "I don't care" attitude. In general, they are insensitive to the needs of others.

On the other hand, there is an exaggerated vulnerability and extreme sensitivity. Behind this insensitive mask, there is a needy, hypersensitive, and fragile person. Specifically, they are very vulnerable, easily offended, and hurt. Just like the fragile crab needs its shell for protection, the Social 5 protects themselves from their exaggerated vulnerability by becoming cold and distant. They prefer to close the windows of their home and live in the shadows of a house where sunlight doesn't enter, but they can secretly live a dreamy and fantastic life, a life poor in actions but rich in thoughts.

Ernst Kretschmer speaks of the insensitivity/hypersensitivity polarity of the Social 5 and its schizoid aspect:

"But the key to schizoid temperaments is obvious to anyone who knows how to understand well that most schizoids are not simply hypersensitive or cold, but at the same time, in highly variable proportions, moreover. From our schizoid material, we can extract a whole chain that starts with what we usually call the Hölderlin type, ultrahypersensitive, vitreous, constantly wounded, all nerves, and ends with those cold, rigid, almost inanimate ruins of the most severe dementia praecox, who, indolent like cattle, nap in a corner of the establishment."

Resignation and Difficulty Saying No

Resignation is part of an infantile strategy of "not needing" and giving up on their desires. They are good people who don't know how to establish boundaries for invasion. They obey compulsively, in a kind of stoic renunciation in the face of the world. They end up accepting the other person's desire, even if they don't like or want it. They seem impassive and hide possible contradictions. They consent because they don't know how to say no. Even in the face of their great need for intimacy, they often don't dare to close the door because their shyness prevents them from telling the other: "Not here."

They know how to wait. As a child, they didn't want to cause problems or discomfort. As they couldn't get what they needed through force or seduction, they chose the path of resignation. Perhaps because there weren't enough warm hearts around them, they "understood" that anything they did would lead to loss, so it is better to live resignedly with little.

Their resignation reveals a difficulty with conflict and protects them from confrontation. As Karen Horney said, "Find the solution in detachment."

In the Social 5, which hides behind a mask of "nothing is happening here," confrontation is almost never direct. They prefer to keep their frustration to themselves, letting it show more through distance and cold opposition. However, this "solution of distancing" does not

reduce the frustration regarding the needs and desires that, even if not expressed, continue to exist at the bottom of the social scale. Often, they wear a mask of consent, but they are internally frustrated.

Withdrawal from the battlefield and disinterest in the fight are typical strategies of the Social 5, who adopts a "not caring" stance. This way, they feel less bothered by internal conflicts, reaching an apparent inner peace. The absence of conflicts can only be achieved by renouncing active living, leading the Social 5 to a process of vital restriction and reduction of their growth potential.

Arrogance

Arrogance is one of the main characteristics of the Social 5, who seeks affirmation of their self-importance in knowledge. They are someone who always has solid arguments to support their ideas.

It is difficult for a Social 5 to give up their own theories, as knowledge is a valuable asset to them. They are a "stubborn head" attached to their ideas. They maintain a teaching attitude as if they are always the ones instructing. They find it hard to put themselves in the learning position that most people have. As Naranjo states, by seeking this added value, the Social 5 implicitly despises ordinary life and ordinary people.

However, this arrogance is not that of someone who feels very special or indispensable, but of someone who feels important because of the accumulated knowledge, not due to a sense of intrinsic value. Their arrogance is a defense, a compensation for their low self-esteem and fragile self-worth.

They are arrogant in the E5 withdrawn and self-sufficient style, with that defensive carefreeness that makes them seem cold. Absorbed in their world, they ignore the presence of others and avoid contact, as if they don’t see the people passing by them. Their schizoid behavior is presented as an attitude of "not needing" or "not caring" about the presence of others.

Finally, arrogance is visible in their great difficulty in accepting help, having discovered autonomy and independence at such an early stage.

They avoid confronting the need they have for others, as they suspect that the expected support will never come or, if it does, will cause an uncomfortable sense of debt.

Idealization of Poverty

The word greed, suggesting a retaining attitude, is often associated with covetousness. By cultivating the fantasy that one day they might lack money or energy, the Five tends to accumulate and save both.

The miser lives with little because their mind is not oriented towards abundance.

The Social 5 manifests this detached attitude of living with little with a kind of taboo against greed. They are misers who don't know how to collect. They don't feel comfortable admitting their greed in the face of the idealization they have of spirituality and the detachment from worldly things they nurture within.

The Social 5 finds in the idealization of poverty a justification for renouncing their desires and ambition. Acknowledging their own desires and fighting for them requires energy they don’t want to waste. Deep down, action is very difficult for them, and they prefer to find justifications not to commit and convince themselves that they need nothing. So, it’s better to remain silent, feeding an apathetic wait.

It is very important for this subtype to recognize their greed, rescuing the desire to have before letting go. Wanting and acknowledging their own desire would be walking in the opposite direction of their usual renunciation.

Their renunciation of the world and knowing how to live with little blurs with the ideals manifested by certain evolved people, such as the character Siddhartha from Hermann Hesse, who always said: "I know how to fast, I know how to think, and I know how to wait."

The following passage from Milarepa’s poem, considered a saint in Tibet and representative of this subtype, speaks of renunciation and the idealization of poverty: "I am the man called Milarepa, I possess non-desire. Since I do not struggle to earn money, first, I do not suffer from the work of obtaining it; then, I do not suffer to save it, and finally, I do not suffer trying to accumulate more. It is much better and happier to have no possessions."

We also find the idealization of poverty and attachment in Farid ad-Din Attar's description of greed in his epic book The Language of Birds:

Then the owl came, with a look of astonishment, and said:

"I chose a ruined house to live in. I am weak; I was born in ruins, and I find pleasure in them, but not to drink wine. I found hundreds of inhabited places, but some have problems, others have hatred. He who wants to live in peace must go, like the drunkard, to the ruins. If I, unfortunately, live among the ruins, it is because that is where treasures are hidden. In this way, the love for treasures led me to the ruins, for they only exist amid them. There, I hide

my request from everyone, hoping to find a treasure not guarded by a talisman. If my foot finds a treasure, my anxious heart will be free. I also believe that the love for the Simorg is not fabulous, as it is only experienced by fools; but I am far from firm in its love, I only love my ruins and my treasure."

Internal Sense of Deprivation

In the Enneagram map, the passion of Greed is found next to Envy, and thus, the Five shares with the Four a feeling of low value and internal deprivation. The type is in constant contact with the feeling of lack and experiences a strong sense of emptiness.

Behind the totemic mask of the Social 5, we find a solitary child with a narcissistic wound and a low sense of self-worth. The internal deprivation is based on their devalued self-image, built from feelings of inferiority and a deep identification with a guilty and devalued subpersonality. Regardless of how small the drop is, all these characters share the same feeling of not being seen and not being sufficiently nurtured by maternal warmth, with an abandonment wound hidden behind the mask of indifference.

This dynamic repeats internally. The Social 5 lacks self-love. They do not clearly see their needs and do not sufficiently satisfy their emotional and instinctual thirst. The Totem reinforces the feeling of inadequacy because, compared to their ideal, they are constantly devalued and diminished. Little life grows in the shadow of the Totem, making their internal ground barren and infertile. The Social 5 feels this deprivation both in their internal world and in their emotional bonds.

Meanness

To name the fixation of the greedy, Naranjo understood that it was redundant to speak of meanness, as both terms point to the same retentive and ungenerous attitude. The Social 5 is mean to others and to themselves. The neurotic strategy of minimizing needs is strong in this character. They are never aware of what they need, or, from another perspective, they have learned not to need. Their awareness of need has diminished to the point where they no longer know what they want or desire. They have learned to give up their desires with a special talent for delaying satisfaction. They can endure great privations without caring about their neglect. They surrender to their own fatigue, forgetting to fuel their body, whether with food or rest.

On the other hand, they have great difficulty being empathetic. They do not understand the importance that others give to certain needs they consider dispensable. The first question

when faced with someone else's need is: "What is this for?" "If I deprive myself of this, couldn't you do the same?"

We may ask whether the Social 5 is ungenerous because they have an arid emotional world or if, on the contrary, they become increasingly barren due to their lack of dedication and generosity. But one thing is certain: the first person they are mean to is themselves. Internally, they live in such a narrow place that they barely fit into themselves. As a result, in their internal world, there is no space for the other. Even the feeling of friendship is lived more in the realm of the ideal than in practice.

Although, of all the miserly ones, the Social is the one who cultivates friendships the most, their window for relationships remains narrow. And even if they have a wide circle, these are pseudo-relationships, contacts with little commitment and almost no intimacy.

Autistic Traits

The social subtype, even being the most communicative of the Fives, has a strong tendency toward introspection. We could say they live like a ghost, unnoticed. Their presence is often imperceptible in the environment, just as they abstract themselves in the presence of others. Refugees in their internal world, they live in their abstract mind. They withdraw so strongly that they can experience deep dramas and anxieties without anyone knowing. This is the autistic trait of this schizoid character, who does not make contact and has not learned to communicate. They live in an intense attachment to their internal world, along with a kind of intolerance to the experience that would come through contact. Hence their tendency to become solitary and hermetic. The trait of unsociability or "autism" in the schizoid can be understood both by their hypersensitivity and by their insensitivity toward others. Of a very sensitive nature, they defend themselves as much as possible from external stimuli, closing doors and windows to live an imaginary and dreamy existence, poor in experiences and facts, but rich in thoughts and imagination.

In extreme cases, psychiatry describes autism and catatonia. In autism, the person isolates themselves to the point of no longer recognizing the other. Catatonia, which is a form of schizophrenia, involves a total loss of action and movement, a paralysis combined with the feeling of not wanting to belong to the world. It is clear that these are amplifications and extremes of characteristics that are more subtly found in the Social 5, but their strategy of detachment and disinterest in the world leads them to become more and more attached to themselves.