Childhood

Frequently, the man with a sweet tooth is a worshiper of his mother, and his life is oriented around an idealized image of a woman who represents the beginning and the end of all pleasures and good things in life. — Claudio Naranjo, The Enneagram of Society

The Myth of a Happy Childhood

The Social 7 has the notion that childhood is a carefree stage, as if all painful experiences were relegated to a dark corner in the recesses of the mind.

In contrast to the E4, which identifies with a devalued self and perceives something is missing, creating an inner emptiness that is fed by self-frustration, the Social 7 identifies with an idealized self and the fantasy of what it will be like when it achieves glory, nourishing itself on the vanity that this presumed success gives in the eyes of others.

By projecting into the future, displacing frustration, and denying pain, the myth of a happy childhood is constructed. What sustains the memory is the imagined experience, while traumatic biographical events are either censored or minimized in their emotional impact.

“I remember my childhood as a stage that was not necessarily very happy, and in fact, there are very few memories I manage to retain from it. Over time, I have thought that the cause of this lack of memory could be related to a process of selective childhood amnesia, to which my unconscious would have resorted as a Darwinian mechanism of adaptation and survival. A kind of neural pruning whose sole objective would be to remember only those scenes experienced as gratifying, or at least not too painful.” — Diego

The early dissociation of the E7 from their emotional experiences feeds a biographical account that isn’t necessarily misleading in itself, but rather because of the meanings attributed to it. Running away from home is seen as an adventure, loneliness becomes a place for contact with nature and the world, and failures and abandonment are simply changes in direction.

The tendency to distort facts in light of the denial of pain and frustration also applies retrospectively. Therefore, the past is simply the prelude to the wonderful future that awaits, covered not so much by the traumas suffered but by resilience.

The Good Boy

One of the dominant characteristics of the Social 7 relates to the role they play in their family, which we could summarize as the “good boy.”

“Today, I see that I tend to be good and lie to safeguard my image or my position as a misinformed person. I unconsciously used tools that were there as life preservers. With a tendency to manipulate actions to look good with others, let them walk all over me, and evade conflict.” — Anonymous

The rule that the Social 7 follows during their development is to play the role of measuring family imbalances. Very attentive to both the manifest and implicit needs of all members, and oppressed by the impossibility of solving the family's problems, they try to activate two types of behavior: distracting from the problems and, when that’s not possible, not creating others.

These two behaviors offset each other, so being a good child means responding to environmental demands in a functional way and at the same time remaining unnoticed. The

Social 7 is a child whose concern is not to create problems for the people who care for them, who are often overwhelmed by their own existential troubles. The standard behavior that guides their action is one that satisfies environmental demands and requires no energy investment, not even in terms of expectations.

Thus, the E7 grows up alone, imposing rules and roles. They try to help, anticipate the needs of others, be available, collaborate, and, when possible, enliven the family environment by creating a happy, serene, and light atmosphere.

The demand they place on themselves is to exert the least possible impact on their parents, not to be another burden. They progressively adopt an active transparency: neutral in the face of explicit demands and needs, and active when offering help and presence in the family in an apparently spontaneous and natural way.

Achieving this status in the family requires a great capacity for self-containment and self-gratification, which the Social 7 child develops through the imagined idealization of the effects their actions will cause. The neurotic balance of this behavior is the belief that they can alleviate their mother’s sadness or their father’s distress, thereby taking responsibility for some degree of adult happiness.

Some consequences of this behavior, more refined and sustained by a more structured relational strategy, are also found in the adult Social 7’s relationship with groups. They are present and reserved, attentive to the demands of others, available when necessary, and detached from group dynamics. Agreeable, able to tune in and relate to all group members, they are only superficially involved. They are not leaders, and their absence is not noticed. When present, their presence is an added value; they are capable of mimicry both when present and when absent. While not popular in the strict sense of the term, they communicate with many members of the group and leave a pleasant impression with their presence.

The Mother, When Love Is a Trap: A Poem About the Mother-Son Relationship

By Rabindranath Tagore

Mother, say, why are you crying and so sad, sitting there on the floor? Can’t you see that the rain is coming through the window and that you’re getting wet?

Hey, the gong is striking four, and my sister has to get back from school. What’s wrong with you, say, mother? Why are you so strange? Haven’t you had a letter from Dad today?

Today, the postman brought a letter to the whole town, I’ve seen it. Only Dad’s letters are kept in a sack for him to read. Mother, I’m sure the postman is very bad!

But don’t be sad about that, mother. Look, tomorrow there’s a town fair over there. Let the maid go and buy pens and paper. I’ll write all of Dad’s letters to you. And you’ll see how you won’t find any shortcomings.

I’ll write straight from A to K... Why are you laughing, mother? Do you think I can’t write as well as Dad? You’ll see, I’ll make a line on the paper with a ruler and I’ll be very careful, and I’ll make the letters really big.

And when it’s done, do you think I’ll be as foolish as Dad, who puts the letter in that ugly postman’s sack? I’ll bring it to you myself, right away, and help you spell it! I know the postman doesn’t like to give you the best cards!

Despite the story the Social 7 tells about themselves—describing an upbringing in a serene environment and a happy personal history—it’s about a child who went through a difficult situation. A mother who was present but not good enough, in the Winnicottian sense, due to physical or psychological difficulties, unable to empathically meet the needs of the child, especially during the oral phase of development.

A key element in the intrapsychic dynamics of the Social 7 is the partial failure of maternal restraint during the oral phase. The early stimulation of the child’s autonomy creates a vulnerable psychic zone. The unfulfilled oral need (hunger for love) brings about frustration, and that frustration becomes the path the child must follow to return home.

It is as though, in a very early phase of life, at the culmination of the oral phase, the child is invited to be autonomous in relation to maternal care. The mother abruptly interrupts the phase of maternal reflex, in which she adapts to the child’s demands, and gives, more or less consciously, a turn through which the child must adapt to the mother’s rhythms.

“Fifteen days after my birth, my mother gets sick; she has a postpartum infection and is hospitalized, interrupting her lactation period. My grandmother took care of me for a month. I feel, in a way, regressed, the deception for not having received what was due me, and a latent lack of trust in others was born in me.” — Testimonial Collected by Vincenzo D'Ambrosio

“The displacement of symbiosis to a level that is no longer physical (satisfaction of needs) but relational is typical of the Social 7. The pain that comes from the distance from the mother will be compensated by her loving gaze, full of gratitude. If you complete me, I will give you that look, which is my love.” — Testimonial, Aracaju Symposium, 2016

Here, the drive for conservation, founded on necessity, finds a diversion toward dependence on the narcissistic satisfaction of the social instinct. (In other words, the sweet tooth becomes a sweet tooth and diverts greed into relationships.)

The emptiness generated by frustration will become the engine for activating good behavior and finding momentary satisfaction in the idea of being the promoter of other people’s happiness. The unexpressed and unfulfilled need during the oral phase becomes the engine of a restless search. There will be no paradises in which to stop because there was no expulsion from paradise.

Like Peter Pan, the Social 7 has, as an alternative to the island that does not exist and where they are condemned to eternal childhood, the position of looking from a window at a mother nursing her child. Their story unfolds between an artificial paradise and an Eden they can only see from the window—where pleasure is seen but not tasted.

From a certain point on, intimacy means looking at each other from a distance, full of love, maintaining complicity from afar, knowing that they understand each other, and being the privileged confidant (even with respect to the father).

Like Peter Pan, the Social 7 has, as an alternative to the non-existent island where he is condemned to an eternal childhood, the position of looking through a window at a mother nursing her child. His story unfolds between an artificial paradise and an Eden seen through the window, where pleasure is observed but not tasted.

At a certain point, intimacy becomes a matter of looking at each other from a distance, filled with love, maintaining complicity from afar, knowing that they understand each other and being the privileged confidant (even in relation to the father).

In this respect, it can be understood as working with an anxious-avoidant attachment. In this type of attachment, the infant, after a period of separation from the mother, may show signs of anger or appear indifferent when reunited with her. Parents often behave with rejection or neglect towards the infant, tending to be emotionally distant, with a reduced capacity for emotional attunement and limited use of nonverbal communication channels.

Emotions tend to be pushed to the background in relation to the rational interpretation of events and internal states. For the regulation of internal states, the verbal cognitive level is used almost exclusively. This sometimes compromises social skills and makes it difficult to interact with peers. Several common aspects are evident in the biographies of the Social 7. These are critical experiences that cause emotional stress, creating in the child a sense of abandonment and a lack of confidence in the possibility of having needs adequately satisfied.

“Surgical intervention at three years due to a facial angioma. I remember very well a kind of green suction cup that came close to my face and the terror at the moment of anesthesia. When I woke up, I saw my cousin with her husband, unknown to me. I also remember that we played with some pegs. I didn't look up because in the bed next to me there was a little

girl, bandaged and burned. I was shocked and scared by her accident. I felt alone and disoriented. I thought I was lucky because I hadn't been burned. I remember very well the plastic base in which I put the pegs.” (Christine)

The lack of maternal care is internalized, as if feeling a need were something to which one has no right, something illegitimate. The lack of trust nurtures a deep alienation from oneself and one's own wants and needs. This renunciation of oneself manifests in a dramatic way, with a deep pain and a surface-level rage that, over time, transforms into the decision not to need anything from anyone.

“I'm not interested in anything offered to me. Thus, I become a lonely child; I often leave home without warning and force everyone to look for me.” (Testimonial collected by Vincenzo D'Ambrosio)

It is possible that there are no clear episodes of abandonment. Rather than great traumas, it is in the lack of quality and the distance in the relationship with the mother where the neurotic nucleus of the Social 7 tends to germinate. The son or daughter takes on the task of healing the mother's pain. The mother figure is consumed by her own burden of pain, often linked to a sense of significant loss, which can lead her into a depressive abyss.

The child is linked to the mother through a privileged relationship, as if they were the only one capable of understanding the burden of maternal pain. In fact, the child has the sensitivity to grasp its weight and uses all their resources to save the mother. These are not fabricated stories. In the biography of the Social 7, the child is often involved in the mother's ideas and suicide attempts, establishing the role of the savior in an increasingly coercive way.

The child progressively renounces expressing themselves and their existential project. They refuse to end a separation that would be healthy for them on an evolutionary level and remain trapped in a pathological relationship with their mother.

This role is manifested, psychologically or emotionally, through behaviors imagined to be functional for the mother's well-being and, therefore, through the mask of the child. Within this rational dynamic, the child crystallizes an evolutionary phase while the father, who functions as the active agent in the separation of the mother-child dyad, is subtly invalidated.

The father is often seen as a function of the family and not as an effective point of reference.

“Often, the violence occurred within the home, generally with explicitly violent fathers and psychologically violent mothers. The father's violence generates fear and

misunderstanding, and at the same time, his admiration is sought. The emotional absence of the father is also experienced as violence.” (Testimonial, Aracaju Symposium, 2016)

The paternal function is meant to help the child overcome symbiosis with the mother, bring them into the world, and help them learn the rules, particularly those of life. How can such a thing be realized with an absent father, whether due to work or an inability to assume that role? Seen through the child's eyes, the father is a powerless and distant figure, incapable of offering an affective presence or understanding the child's rhythms and needs.

Another relevant aspect is the confusion between force and violence, as the force within the childhood home often manifested itself alongside violence. In reaction to this paternal violence, the child develops impotence toward the father, as if the message "I can't handle him" were conveyed. In the conflict between the parents, the mother is perceived as the weak and fragile part, the victim who must be defended from the father.

“Violent verbal argument between dad and mom, like a child, feeling the fear, the pain, a lump in the throat, tension in all the muscles of the body, clenched fists, my heart wanting to come out of my chest, wanting to yell at them: shut up, don't argue in front of me. I'm a child; I didn't have the strength to tell them, it got stuck in my throat. Only when I managed to look at them angrily, wanting this disharmony in my environment to end soon, I looked for distractions for me and my parents, wanting to have a magic wand to dissolve that conflict immediately.” (Testimonial collected by Vincenzo D'Ambrosio)

The Social 7 child actually assumes a parental role with respect to at least one of the parents, abdicating the role of child in relation to both. Sacrifice is a behavior explained by the family of origin. It is a search for the highest position in the family at the expense of oneself. They all mutilate themselves, but the Social 7 will want to appear as the most mutilated of all. It is a way of adaptation that gives them a good place in the family.

This suggests a dynamic organization between obedience and rebellion, reflecting ambivalence toward the father figure.

“I remember that for several years I was afraid of my father. He was choleric and assumed an authoritarian educational style. I think my main concern was keeping him from getting angry. For no reason. And if possible, anticipate the demands so that everything remained calm. When he was available to talk, my father was really intelligent and stimulating.” (Christine)

Now we will explore the subtly anti-authoritarian behavior of the Social 7. Their solution is to hide from authority and act clandestinely. In doing so, guilt emerges. Additionally, an internal, non-explicit, and strong rebellion develops against the father, as compensation for the lack of courage to confront him directly.

The internal situation of the absent father is not anti-authoritarian; it is authoritarian. This results from the Social 7's relationship with the rules, of which they are unaware of their function in regulating behavior.

“My parents, as a teenager, called me insolent, cheeky, shameless, cynical, vicious, and playful on many occasions. I did not understand what was behind their perception, I wasn't like that. I just kept my engine running so I wouldn't get bored in life; I just wanted to get closer to whatever kept me excited and moving. I did not hide my great need for novelty, nor did I hide my great satisfaction with what was pleasant. But it wasn't out of shame. It’s not that I didn’t know the limits of modesty; I knew them, but I wasn’t interested in following them—they weren’t limiting my way of living. Although that also put me in a dilemma. If I showed myself as I wanted, they repressed me, so I sharpened my way of tricking from a tone of benevolence and, instead of appearing disrespectful, I dressed as altruistic.” (Xavier)

The internal choice of the Social 7, which develops indulgence, is to adapt to the context, to camouflage as long as this behavior is functional to their own well-being. For the rule, understood as a social law, to be respected, the fundamental assumption is missing: the recognition of the other, an adult, whose authority is considered.

As we have said, the Social 7 child grows up alone, and therefore it is they themselves who establish what is fair and what is not, the rules and norms, based on an instrumental good rather than a sense of justice: “I’m a good boy because that way you'll be happy.” Their adaptation is to anticipate and deactivate a demand; the ruler is simply a commodity. There is no real hetero-regulation and, therefore, no self-regulation, which is why, deep down, the Social 7 has a sweet tooth.

“Obedient to the force; there is no other possibility to get what I want.” (Carlo)

In other words, the function of authority is meaningless, and the inner father is, in fact, dichotomized in a love-hate ambivalence.

“Going against the father becomes the metaphor for going against the rules and authority. The omnipotent idea of being able to do whatever you want, of feeling free from limitations, has nothing to do with a genuine and deep connection with oneself, which results from the integration of the father figure.” (Testimonial, Aracaju Symposium, 2016)

In order to defend the bond with an idealized mother, it becomes natural to establish an implicit alliance, which in some cases can reach a deep identification, as if the child had to support her and deal with the mother's pain as if it were their own. We believe that this decision is one of the possible matrices of the sacrificial passion. It is to become a hero, a

hypothetical good father, or the savior of their mother, especially when she is objectively in difficulty.

All this ends up creating a strong opposition toward the father, who is often absent and who becomes the ogre of the fable. Especially when the dynamic between the parents is conflictual and the mother, in the eyes of the child, is seen as the victim. In this way, the father becomes the outcast, the evil to counteract, especially within himself.

As a secondary effect, the devaluation of the real father makes identification with paternal characteristics conflictual, perceived only through the distorting lens of his devaluation by the mother. The child seeks, desires, and at the same time rejects the father, who, with his affective distance, is perceived as the mother's executioner. The result is a conflict between an unacceptable part of themselves, which needs to be hidden, and the idealization of themselves as a good and positive hero.

Not having differentiated from the mother, the Social 7 does not reach the educational stage and fails to establish a confrontation with the father. The relationship with him is one of the first needs denied.

The conflict between the father and the mother is internalized as repeated traits in the psychic organization of the Social 7: the idealized mother in her role as a victim, and the father, a degraded figure, the expression of patriarchal forms, as if he were the sole promoter of such. The inner world is divided into good and bad, and the origin of all misdeeds shifts, in a Manichean way, to the father's function.

The son's foundation assumes the value of redemption and loses its potential for psychic integration, conferring powers on this psychological component that are perceived as extraordinary at the narcissistic level. The son will save himself, the mother, and the world. These are the premises of an undisguised and deviating identification with the divine son. In his alliance with the mother, the child imagines he will surpass the father, defeat him, and make up for his mistakes. The mechanism through which the social hero cannot fight against a father whom he devalues and does not recognize takes root. The only way to transcend him is by yearning for holiness, into another world and dimension.

With this abominable pact, the Social 7 denies himself the possibility of an authentic confrontation with the admiring paternal love, which will never be enough and which conditions the perception of himself as a kind person. He will be able to use only maternal love, compassionate love. But it is the love for the poor and for victims that he can subtly and instrumentally dedicate to others, not to himself.

The preceding paragraphs highlight the existential check of the Social 7, divided into a double set of identifications between the paternal and maternal figures. This division leads

him to reproduce within himself an edition of the dramatic triangle: savior-victim-executioner.

The process of the formation of the personality of the Social 7 is based on the identification with the person who exercises the maternal function and the assumption of feminine relational modalities, while the desire to identify with the father figure remains unmanifested.

On the other hand, the identification with the unconscious savior is due to the assumption of the characteristics of the executioner and generates a dynamic conflict that is evident in the difficulties of the Social 7 in intimate relationships.

The evolution in terms of introjection could be reconstructed in this way: The patriarchal mind of the Social 7 is based on the image of the victim of patriarchal power, that is, the mother. In the inner family of the Social 7, the feminine-maternal-compassionate is manipulative and unfaithful, while the admiring masculine-paternal is a denied desire. The natural and balanced evolution of the inner family resides in integrating the father, redefining the mother function, and accepting the son function.

In phenomenological terms, the patriarchal mind of the Social 7 is dominated by an impoverished son function in terms of attachment to organismic energy. It is not a true child function; it is the caricatured aspect of a father function, imploded and made impotent by an exclusionary and falsely compassionate maternal function.

The only authorized masculine resource is intelligence, which, deprived of its instinctive base, is functional only to power games and is bent on selfand hetero-seductive functions (and not, as in the case of an E5, inclined to the creation of theories). The process of identification-counter-identification is also very clear with respect to gender identification. Neither men nor women Social 7s adhere to aesthetic and behavioral gender clichés and tend toward androgynous flattening, resulting from amplifying masculine characteristics in the female Social 7, and feminine characteristics in the male Social 7.

Not all Social 7s were the object of more or less explicit violence in the family. For some, the encounter with a violent reality occurs in normal schooling, military schools, or religious communities—places marked by dogmatism, which censor action and thought to a certain degree.