The Characteristic Neurotic Need

Our neurotic traits are those ways of defending ourselves from suffering that we learn early on, and they differ for each Enneatype. The pain of abandonment and not being recognized for their natural erotic needs, spontaneity, and animal expression, combined with the lack of respect for their privacy—having an invasive mother and an absent father—were the most painful wounds for the Sexual 5 as a child. They lost trust in their mother, their father, themselves, and life. In an attempt to heal this wound, they make trust the central theme of their affective life, with idealization as their most defining characteristic. They are looking for someone who meets their ideal of trust one hundred percent—an unattainable requirement.

Trust

The neurosis of trust manifests in two ways or, in other words, can be understood from two complementary perspectives. First, it is the demand that the other fully trusts and meets their ideal of perfection. Secondly, it is a total trust in the other. This idealization of intimacy is typified as a neurosis of intimacy.

This extraordinary need for trust results from the invasion of the sexual instinct by the passion of greed. It is still a "reversed trust" because taking possession of the other contradicts the act of trusting them. Fear compels them to ensure they are loved and not betrayed; then, they imprison the couple. The trust the Sexual 5 seeks is entirely insane. It is the madness of trusting that a prisoner will accept them back. And there is yet another "prison" that prevents truth: the inner struggle between trust and intimacy against the difficulty of trusting and making intimate contact. (Ultimately, a conflict between invading and being invaded).

It seems strange to talk about invasion and being invaded concerning an E5. Indeed, the sexual subtype, like the other E5 subtypes, has an aversion to invading and being invaded. However, in intimate relationships, the situation reverses, and aversion turns into an imperative desire. A person with this character invades the intimacy of others and also wants to be "invaded in their intimacy for reassurance," satisfying their vital need: trust.

They unconsciously know that this place will not be found in the other. Even so, they need an above-normal level of trust—the trust that the other will repair their loss of being. It is visceral fear with visceral hope, creating total chaos.

The act of trusting is constituted as a counterphobic attitude to deal with fear and its "phantoms" (the other) because they yearn to surrender to something complete despite the fear of losing themselves in that surrender. It is not bravery but reckless, almost suicidal, behavior—an unrealistic maneuver, like a child entering a lion’s den believing that covering their eyes will keep them safe.

Here operates the defense mechanism psychoanalysis calls identification with the aggressor. The intimate other is potentially an imminent and fatal danger for a Sexual 5, but they surrender to them anyway with maximum openness. Trust is, in a way, "free" from fear; it serves as a detour from the real fear.

We have already seen that a strong characteristic of the sexual subtype is possession: taking hold of the other’s intimacy. This is not the explicit invasion or possession seen in E8 or in the Sexual E6. It is, like any sexual attitude, a silent movement that is not clearly visible to satisfy the unhealthy need for intimacy.

Intimacy

The Sexual 5 is driven by a desire for intimacy with their partner or carefully chosen friends. However, this intimacy is unattainable: their relationships fail to reflect true interaction, resulting in a lack of genuine closeness. The longing for intimacy stems from a desire to be fully known by another person at the deepest level—once again, an unattainable

ideal—while fearing the journey into their own depths. The other person must also be entirely available to be truly known.

This "open and trusting" attitude is, in reality, pure distrust. To trust, the Sexual 5 feels the need to know everything about the other person. The couple must present themselves with perfect transparency and openness to total intimacy. Excessive trust and intimacy negatively reinforce one another. Someone with this personality needs reassurance that they are neither being betrayed nor about to be abandoned. Through this level of intimacy, they seek to know everything about the other person, including their deepest, most secret desires. They attempt to live in a hyper-aware state of fusion with their partner; intimacy becomes the guarantee of trust.

Trust creates an illusion of emotional abundance and unconditional love: surrendering oneself to completely trust another is a distorted form of surrender (greed). The fantasy involves being divinely loved by another human being, and in the dream’s sexual vulnerability, they try to "produce" this trust more and more.

They place the other person on a divine pedestal. However, by deifying someone who is not divine, true connection will never occur, nor will it repair the damage endured in childhood. In distancing themselves from their own inner self, they search outwardly for what is already available in their intimacy with themselves: true trust and authentic love. Ultimately, it is an attempt to reconnect with Being, but sought elsewhere, where they assume salvation lies.

"In childhood, I experienced the precariousness of life (illness, abandonment, and invasion) and the lack of love and protection. I found in my memories a way to shield myself, and in my fantasies, a way to live and hope for that idealized love." — Alexandre V.

Throughout their life, the Sexual 5 will await someone who can fill them with absolute love and utopian trust. This longing can even manifest in a spiritual teacher. Even the divine becomes contaminated by this idealization. "Today, the pursuit of romantic love is no longer the main focus of my life. I dare say I have managed to integrate it within myself. What I now seek is greater intimacy and trust with God and to truly know who I am. But I must admit that the expectation—the taste and the feeling I imagine I’ll have in this encounter (with God)—remains the same as before, back when I was devoted to seeking the eternal in a woman." — Alexandre V.

Beyond shielding from fear, trust thus deifies the couple, functioning as a mask that transforms the other into someone otherworldly. However, as a mask, it obstructs genuine contact and knowledge of the other. This represents the limit of the schizoid defense in the Sexual 5.

The desire to entrust their entire being to another stirs a fear of losing themselves. The result is a constant internal conflict, laden with guilt: the Sexual 5 knows, albeit unconsciously, that this state of trust is impermanent and illusory, and that the trust they seek in another must ultimately be found within themselves. Furthermore, this apparent total surrender and the illusion of immeasurable love are fragile because the individual knows they are not as reliable as their own ideal of trust demands, and their supposed love does not reach the heights of their fantasy.

Consider the story of Chopin and George Sand. The pianist, a Sexual 5, demanded absolute love from Sand, yet his heart already belonged to Delfina Potocka. This superficial intimacy, saturated with fear and distrust, reveals a connection devoid of real interaction.

We Find a Contradiction Here

In this drama of "having someone for oneself," to what extent is sexual intimacy truly desired? Moreover, how far do you want a relationship to go? Since its two fundamental aspects—trust and intimacy—are revealed as tyranny and hell in the interaction of the sexual instinct. The need for trust and its resulting intimacy—primary motivation and meaning in the life of the Sexual 5—is revealed precisely as its great deficiency, even its great lie: the escape from true intimacy and authentic connection.

Given the sense of discontinuity in life and the internal fragmentation and compartmentalization caused by Avarice, we can understand this demand for intimacy as the Sexual 5's attempt to reconnect their isolated internal parts. The function of the sexual instinct is to unite and reconnect. Through the exacerbated intimacy promoted by greed, a certain illusion of symbiosis arises. The act of intimately penetrating and being penetrated by the other—being united—creates the sensation of reconnecting one’s disconnected parts, starting with the body itself. At the same time, it is an attempt at detachment, to leave oneself. But then, attachment to the idealized other begins, and this other frightens them. Everything starts again in a vicious circle.

"My life is placed in the hands of those with whom I form a strong emotional bond. It is through them that I can perceive something of myself more clearly, less fragmented, and escape from the false images I fantasize about reality. But I lose myself in this, and the other person cannot give me such access, and, at a certain point, I cannot be so intimate with them either. Trust is like a sieve: too much intimacy, and suddenly, nothing. The balance of trust is always zero; there is always a deficit. So, life continues with zero trust. In another encounter, you might feel intimacy again; and then zero once more." – Anonymity.

The neurosis of trust sustains the illusion of paradise (a substitute for being). It also provides the illusion of merging with this absolute and unconditional love. But it is a form of blindness.

Furthermore, it is distrust. It is infidelity to oneself, a lack of intimacy with oneself, an inability to find the source of love within. The Sexual 5 does not trust that love is available (because of their greed, believing they have little) and turns the other into the source of love through intimacy (a distorted Eros). Ultimately, it is an attempt to return to the path of their deepest being, the space of sacred intimacy that the Sexual 5 so desperately seeks—unfortunately, not within themselves but with the other, in an insane manner.

The great mistake of the Sexual 5 is to promote trust as a substitute for the higher feeling (the one that leads to the depths, to deep intimacy with one’s own being, and ultimately with the sacred). The misunderstanding is exacerbated by the demand for this sacredness from the person in whom they have placed that trust.

The Story That Follows Gives Us Insight Into These Deviations

It is a testimony from childhood, after a period of experiencing one’s being. It is a testimony from childhood, following a numinous experience in the forest:

I had one of those life-changing experiences—a numinous experience, as Carl Jung would say—that some children tend to have. I was ten years old and not a particularly happy boy. From a young age, I felt an almost perpetual mild sadness and was completely disconnected from the world around me.

We were in the mountains, accompanied by other families. I joined the boys in playing cowboys and Indians, and they chose me to be the Indian. While running and hiding, I felt deeply connected with the trees, the river, the leaves on the ground—in short, with nature. I felt immense joy and the certainty of being part of everything around me. It was a vague sensation of power and security, of "returning home" and resting in peace.

The colors seemed more vibrant, and I noticed a greater luminosity in the forest. I ran through the trees and plunged into the river. I lost track of time and forgot about the game. I spent a few days in ecstasy. I was euphoric, exhilarated for no apparent reason, in love with no one.

Shortly after, I was overcome by existential helplessness; I felt immense loneliness, even in company, and a sense of being suspended in a desert-like limbo. It was as if I were condemned to live in this helplessness forever, as if life were inherently this way with no escape. And so it went for the rest of my childhood and adolescence.

The cure for this suffering came when I fell in love for the first time. I felt that loving and being loved without restrictions brought me back to that mystical childhood experience, so much so that I made divine love out of it and divinized that woman. That’s what sustained me. It strengthened me and gave me the confidence to face life, with my melancholic depression and family crises. Being in love protected me.

At sixteen years old, I reached the climax of my life’s narrative: in the midst of my emotional chaos, an overwhelming passion consumed me for two decades, unrequited. In fact, unrequited love has been the story of my life.

"Being in love and cultivating admiration for that girl supported and strengthened me in every other aspect of my life, in the fantasy of being loved and saved. This platonic love oscillated between the sadness of not being loved by her and the almost idyllic state of feeling it so strongly. My life practically revolved around this (everything else was unimportant). I became a seeker, trying to find relief and meaning for the pain that consumed me." – Alexandre V.