Transformation Process and Therapeutic Recommendations

"If we lived madness and followed it, it would become wisdom." — Claudio Naranjo

The first step to initiate transformation is awareness. It may seem trivial to say it; however, it is an act that demands authentic humility. The difficulty does not lie so much in identifying the character traits typical of the Social 7 and attributing them to oneself, but in giving up manipulating them and accepting the shadow of the character.

The deep identification with his idealized image will lead the Social 7 to easily accept aspects of his character such as the search for holiness, kindness, compassion, and altruism. Thus, he may easily locate himself on the enneagram map proposed by Claudio Naranjo. The real difficulty lies in going beyond those traits, which are intimately perceived as better and advantageous within a path of psycho-spiritual growth, and overcoming that image constructed with so much pride, searching for the narcissistic core that sustains that attitude.

In this first phase, the experience of working in a group of the same subtype is fundamental because it activates the character's first demon: frustration. The group promotes a process of reflecting on others that normalizes, evidences the impossibility of differentiating oneself within a group of peers, and exposes the competitive need to stand out as extraordinary within the group.

Starting from the frustration, it is possible to observe the different behaviors with which the Social 7 avoids the emotional contact they activate to avoid the pain that derives from it: devaluation of the group, the task, and the rules; isolation; compensation; deviation toward gambling and cynicism. The repetition of analogous behaviors, apparently light and fatuous, gradually reveals the passive-aggressive and destructive charge, circumscribing the basic neurotic need: the search for visibility as an extraordinary being.

“I realized how tedious it was for people to be with someone who thought he always had an answer for everything and who seemed to fear nothing. He seemed to want to use all my sarcasm for the sole purpose of alienating anyone and thus finally ensure a 'prosperous solitude.' I also realized that my disbelief was not at all passive; quite the opposite. Behind my 'good boy' face hides a leviathan who tried to add people to fatten his dark and hopeless world. And one day I also saw that in my own children and in the avoided depression that I had wanted to instill in their little hearts, luckily without being very successful. They and my wife have always been my real saviors, the only ones who managed to remove the clouds from that sunless sky that lived in me for so many years.” (Diego)

Once this first layer of neurotic behavior has been cleared, it is essential to look for what lies behind it: the attempt to avoid pain. One must intentionally renounce self-description as neurotic and open to an authentic biographical narrative. The first thing is to demystify childhood itself. Telling others about one's biographical sufferings, describing the violations and deprivations of one's own being, and beginning to open a compassionate door toward one's own childhood vulnerability is a different step from simply manifesting the endured suffering of a neurotic type — the painful melancholy on which the Social 7 feeds so much.

Coming into contact with one's past pain is the first act of "conscious suffering" that the Social 7 needs for its evolution. Revealing one's being allows one to go through the first doors: arrogance hidden as false humility, shame, fear of rejection, and the admission of needs.

“I told myself that I started the therapeutic process out of intellectual curiosity and a need to change jobs. When asked about my childhood in the first sessions, my answer was that I had had a very happy childhood. That was stated in the manual with which I presented myself to the world. It had never let me tell the truth of what I had experienced. Neither myself nor others. It took me two years to put a 'but' into my childhood. And for several more years, I had to understand that I started the psychotherapeutic process because the life I had invented for myself had been broken, and I was depressed and disoriented.” (Luis)

Self-Observation

The change of character requires patience, trust, and a certain amount of discipline — resources with which the Social 7 is not endowed. It is useful to train in making contact with one's own character structure and intentionally attempting to act out alternative behaviors. It is not about changing, but rather simulating, a "as if" that allows the mechanisms of one's own character to be revealed little by little.

Only the gradual knowledge and testing of the character in the face of its repeated traps can motivate the Social 7 for a real change, which involves a profound process of restructuring the internal intrapsychic balances.

Perceiving loneliness, isolation, basic distrust, and the intrinsic devaluation of emotional and relational selfor hetero-manipulation mechanisms, fully understanding the level of unnecessary (neurotic) suffering that this character self-inflicts, are required steps to authentically found motivations for change.

One of the first therapists who attended me asked me, after reading my autobiography: “The pain. Where do you have the pain?” (Luis)

The Social 7 has a neurotic drive for improvement, a longing for holiness, and a neurotic aversion to painful frustration. These three elements, coupled with the tendency to filter experience in the light of identification with its idealized representation, create character armor that hinders the possibility of real change. Indulgence, quackery, and the yearning for holiness work together to maintain the status quo.

Any potentially transforming element is neutralized in harmony with the belief system, through a work of intellectual assimilation and ethical and moral relativization. Very quickly, the Social 7s know what they have to do and how they have to be to manifest the change. Their strategic mind leads them to sabotage themselves, unconsciously disguising their internal reality. Keep in mind that the defense mechanisms are sophisticated and not at all obvious for this character. Breaking the compulsion to bend and rationalize, and opening up to feeling, are sometimes insurmountable obstacles in the short term.

In order to avoid this intrinsic tendency of the character structure, it is necessary, in the first phase, simply to put oneself to the test: constantly exercise doubt about what one says and thinks. Act and consciously observe the functioning of the character and seek, as a support base to get out of the character structure, coherence between the two worlds: the sensitive-emotional and the intellectual, the intimate and the public.

Meditation and the Body

We have extensively described how the use of the mind is the Achilles' heel for this character structure, which is so airy and prone to mystification. It is almost intuitive to root the transformation work in the body. Feel the hunger. Feel the emptiness. A valid help comes from meditation: panoramic attention to all somatic and mental events allows the Social 7 to observe the breadth of distracting strategies available to their body.

"My first step on the path of transformation was a ten-day vipassana meditation course in the Goenka tradition. The proposal is to lead a monastic life: get up at four, meditate ten hours a day, not speak, not write, not socialize... What attracted me was the extraordinary nature of the proposal and the possibility of earning the medal for completing it. I didn't even know what the course was about. It was the first time in my life that I stopped and began to observe what happened to me every day. I left the course with the medal for my ego and also with a fracture in my armor that forced me to continue working on myself." (Luis)

The discipline of holding on to the breath can gradually reduce attachment to transient phenomena. In meditation, the Social 7 tends to produce visions and follow its imaginative mind in mystical prospects, losing connection with the here and now. In daily practice, reeducation is useful to help one listen to their own body in terms of physiological needs: sleep, hunger, tiredness, sexual desire, and physical pain. Introducing a discipline of monitoring these somatic sensations and basic physiological needs is essential.

Begin to nurture yourself by cultivating, through the exercise of sobriety, a taste for things and the enjoyment of what is present. Cultivate sensuality and a connection with the body, which can become a guide for the satisfaction of needs anchored in the here and now. Meditation allows you to begin to distinguish between neurotic and real needs.

Punctual and panoramic attention to the body activates a balancing mechanism against the mind’s superpower in the Social 7, progressively developing an antidote to flight and evasion. First, listen to the body, feel it, and later discover its needs and potentialities.

"I cannot say if this is of a certain Enneatype, but being able to enjoy the body immediately connects us with the basic instincts that we have. To think that I can integrate myself from the consciousness of my body, awakening the pleasure and pain of my body, realizing what I like, being able to be attentive and discover the bodily sensations when I don't like them. Being more attentive to my corporeality has given me a sense of hope; it is like having found a meaning in life." (Xavier)

Casual activities that tend to reduce the body's overall arousal level and help develop specific attention to changes, even subtle ones, in vital parameters, such as yoga or tai chi, are useful. The connection with one’s body helps retake the compass of life in search of real satisfaction, giving greater possibilities of connecting with one’s childlike dimension.

"Today I discovered that movement, anger, or strength is a good thing that my life needs. Trusting my instinct gives me a sense of authenticity because I don't hold back and swallow things. It's like meditation: to abandon oneself in the breath and then let it go, solarize and realize, live and expand." (Xavier)

The Mind

A difficult task for the Social 7 is learning to observe how their mind moves, recognizing the strategies, traps, and illusions, and, above all, not getting trapped in the labyrinths and mirages they build with it.

The invitation for all Social 7s is to realize that, in reality, they are a special being to the extent that we all are, and not to feel the need to do something to deserve it. In the emptiness of being, in doing without an objective or planning, and in giving without strategy, the Social 7 will be able to honor life as true human beings. They will get the vivid feeling of being normal, of being one more grain of sand in this vast desert: that cures them.

Ideation (strategic or fanciful) is a powerful activator that also sustains a certain psychophysical excitement. The difficulty, therefore, is like Ulysses’ encounter with the sirens: to observe without getting caught up in the workings of the mind. Again, cling to an internal witness who observes— a practice achieved through meditation, working with lucid dreams, and the guided use of some psychotropic substances.

A useful exercise is to watch ideas germinate in your head and observe the planning that follows. Let's not forget that Ichazo pointed out planning as the cognitive fixation of the greedy character. Being able to get out of that exciting mental spiral and ground those ideas into reality, making a calm choice, and carrying out the ones you want, is important. The sicker a Social 7 is, the fewer actions they will take, and the more they will stumble through life. The most accomplished examples of people with this character have managed, in part, to lead their dreams into action and make them real. Jules Verne, Anton Chekhov, José Martí, or Francisco de Assis managed to channel that synthetic, jumping, and creative mind to produce for the world: novels, stories, social transformations…

In mental operations, it is important to combine the capacity for realization with the visionary capacity, creativity with sustainability. This way, they can connect the pleasure of planning with the pleasure of carrying out the plans. In everyday life, this means assuming global responsibility for an action, carrying it out, starting with the most common behaviors: assuming a commitment, fulfilling it within the established deadlines, doing one thing at a time, working in depth rather than just transversally, and leaving space to savor what you are doing.

The observation of the mind leads to a progressive disidentification from mental phenomena, of which the Social 7 feels intimately proud, and gradually deactivates the effects of some ideations. The recognition, not only of the content of one's own irrational convictions but also of the way in which they operate, involving the entire organism, leads to recognizing the connection between ideation and manic emotional activity. This helps to reestablish a global balance more linked to the here and now. It is a discipline of detoxification from the pleasure of mental activity.

Exercising a considered use of verbal intelligence, not for fantasy but for communication and the definition of one's position, gradually leads to an experientially conscious use of the mind, which becomes a virtuous antidote against quackery: words as bridges and not as sleight of hand. Manifested ideas serve as possibilities to define boundaries and accept limits.

"Specifying thoughts is also a factor that plays into the interpersonal. Being able to communicate feelings is suffocating; it seems to put us on pause, and stoically, we escape from feeling what they're telling me, traveling to a calmer, more peaceful, happier place. Saying what we feel may seem like harakiri because it’s going to hurt, but after expressing anger or disagreements, I realize that nothing is wrong, and it heals me." (Xavier)

Making thoughts present and visible through words and actions is a strategy that exposes the tendency toward quackery, which has become a mental drug, and gradually weakens its effect on the person. There is a verbal-visual axis that makes the word a way to control, manage, and defend cognitive fixation, so that any element of self-knowledge can be used to close the narcissistic nucleus on itself. More than studying, this character needs to be experienced, to express themselves from their truth, and to sweat to get in touch with their intimate reality and their neurotic way of functioning.

"I remember a regressive type of work: I noticed pain in all parts of the body, as if something was pressing from the inside, wanting to come out. Like a beast that wanted to free itself and, in doing so, scratch its skin. I invoked the help of therapists in every possible way: lying to me, squirming, crying, throwing glances. I never verbally asked for help. So, I was able to figure out how it works." (Christine)

Self-transformation: Changing the Intrapsychic World

The intrapsychic world of the Social 7, as we discussed in the chapter on love, requires a re-founding of new balances in the dynamics of the inner father-mother-son family. For this to happen, it is important that certain transitions in the realm of reality be promoted, if

necessary through a therapeutic path. This can involve a reparative process for incomplete stages in intrapsychic development.

A fundamental aspect of emancipating the patriarchal mind is the redefinition of the internal representations linked to the father and mother. Generally, this involves completing the process of separation from the mother and fostering a connection with the father. This need not occur on the plane of reality, but it is essential that the psychic dimensions of the paternal and maternal figures be cleansed of the historical-biographical emotional narratives that fix them. A full reintegration, independent of childhood traumas, can then be achieved. The first step, as mentioned earlier, is to acknowledge the pain associated with these transitions, live through it, and integrate it into one’s own experience.

Recognizing the unfulfilled need for a mother who was not sufficiently attuned to the child, and the denied need for a father, whether feared, absent, or introjected as "bad," allows one to work through the pain generated by these biographical wounds and emancipate oneself from them. This enables the continuation of existential fulfillment on a plane of genuine emotional autonomy.

The transformation manifests as autonomy—a capacity to care for oneself and others, deep emotional empathy, and a connection to all the erotic vitality of the son function, as described in Claudio Naranjo’s map of the three loves. Going through the experience of primary pain allows for the reintegration of parts of oneself, making the child function available for the full expression of spontaneity. The evolutionary passage consists of reaching the possibility of experiencing and expressing one's emotions, particularly everything related to emotional pain.

"When we were eleven years old, a group of seven children got lost in the woods. It started to hail. They all cried desperately. I took command. And I led them to the camp. I just felt excited. I felt extraordinary. I felt useful and superior, like when I consoled my mother. Fear and pain do not belong to me; they are of the world." (Luis)

Openness to anger is also important, as aggressiveness is often expressed passively. It is a sign of integration to be able to express anger functionally and directly in interpersonal conflicts. Developing an internal army without becoming militarized, being able to be direct without becoming violent, is key.

This also means being able to embody the inner character of the "bad boy." Being unpleasant, disrupting the group, and "disinfecting" oneself by remembering that one is not as good or wise as they appear.

"I experienced a burning rage, which in the days that followed led me to hate to the point of imagining and wanting to kill the people who at that time were directing the work and had

not helped me. I remember the embarrassment and anger at telling him days later. And my relief to see them openly laughing at my threats." (Christine)

The direct expression of rage differs from the petulant and demanding groans with which the Social 7 expresses himself when, in full manifestation of sacrifice, he enters a crisis due to social saturation.

The path to real self-acceptance includes confronting one's ugly parts, acknowledging limits, and truly giving up the idea of saving the world and becoming a saint. This leads to a sense of the loss of meaning in one’s own life, whose deep meaning must be found in the simple unraveling of self. A frustrating, yet necessary resizing.

The transformation of the E7 begins when they lay down the cross they unconsciously acquired and became a passionate bearer of. It continues when, touched by revealing grace, they realize their absurd mission and can finally laugh at it, finding their place in the world, just one among many.

Healing often requires a healthy, real therapeutic relationship, capable of withstanding the attacks of distrust the Social 7 carries, always seeking guides, men, and more extraordinary experiences. The relational experience of being in a restorative relationship will allow the E7 to go through the necessary crises of derealization. The ability to be only human, not divine, enables the Social 7 to surrender to an adult, full, corrective love, and then transfer this to real affections. Surrendering to a love that fully embraces them allows the Social 7 to progressively align with their own vital movements, cultivating greater emotional and relational spontaneity.

Recognizing needs as such, including care from others, and practicing asking and receiving is essential. The work of opening up to love involves accepting the affection that comes from others, becoming small, vulnerable, and worthy of receiving, integrating what comes from the environment without overcompensating or feeling guilty for receiving. Begin to view your inner child, who has been deprived of love, with genuine compassion, and recognize its divine nature.

The key concepts in the restorative therapeutic process are sweetness, limits, firmness, and equanimity. The rhythm must be gradual, and the setting should be able to contain its discontinuity. The persistent sweetness of the maternal; the firmness of the paternal; equanimity as the ability not to intervene or manipulate, allowing the child's spontaneity to manifest once again. Laughing spontaneously, I believe, shows better than any other expression the change in the Social 7. Irony and the capacity for detachment become gifts, accompanied by that smile of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, which Claudio Naranjo often quotes.

Living becomes less serious, less intense, and sometimes even less exciting. At times, the lack of passion is felt. The intensity is recovered on a horizontal plane, less adrenergic, more encompassing, and linked to the capacity for prolonged emotional contact with others. It becomes a more authentically horizontal exchange, and if service appears, it is no longer contaminated by sacrifice. Thus, the Social 7 can contemplate what is good both for others and for themselves.

Eros appears occasionally, making the sight poignant. Relationships become physically encompassing; contact is no longer merely symbiotic, but also transformative and exciting. These and other things relate to what Naranjo defines as sobriety—the virtue that the Social 7 must cultivate in their psycho-spiritual growth journey.

One of the definitions Claudio Naranjo gives for sobriety is doing what must be done at the right time. It means following what is instinctively linked to the sacred naturalness of the child, which emerges urgently in its vital needs and, in an adult and wise relationship, aligns with reality.

False sobriety is one of the traps encountered on the path of transformation through the enneagram, according to Claudio Naranjo’s perspective. The ability to pervert virtue and neuroticize it is common in this character, so we will share some testimonies about the misuse of sobriety as an obstacle in the process.

*"When looking at myself, it’s been easy for me to take myself as a moderately sober person. Compared to my E7 acquaintances, I haven’t seen too many signs of gluttony. I settle for food, comforts, whims, easily. Barely centered, in moments of intimacy and isolation, a little attached to food, reading, smoking depending on what... and nothing else. It’s relatively easy for me to let go of habits. I don’t fight for money, nor—for recognition... Not even for immediate spiritual achievements, nor for power... I have almost infinite patience, and a capacity for renunciation and conformity superior to those around me.

Looking at myself recently, in the light of whether I’m allowing my real tendencies to surface, leaning on my true intrinsic spontaneity, I see these capacities for renunciation and control as excessive. I eat very little sober. Is it that my sobriety is to be exerted on my automatic tendency to take the sober paths?

It seems to me that in my case it has more to do with restricting my care for others and turning attention to my truth."* (Francis)

In the development of virtue, we see that the Social 7 tends to have only an intellectual understanding of it. Therefore, their behavior is subjected to self-manipulation strategically consistent with this presumed understanding. In simple terms, just as in childhood the

Social 7 was a "good child," in their spiritual path they adapt their behavior to what they suppose is the image that certifies their development.

"I have used the knowledge I had of the process, in this case virtue, in a totally instrumental way to maintain the neurosis. I have enjoyed my adaptation to frustration, cultivating in a very narcissistic way the idea of being in the full exercise of virtue, while fully sinking into my neurosis. Virtue, the cognitive knowledge of virtue, has been a revolving door for me. I have been bad for years, in which I was so lost that I didn’t even have the strength to differentiate between neurotic and necessary pain. Until I said enough. I think this had to be done: stop adapting to the impositions, stop giving up, stop breathing with half a lung. Stop waiting for death to be happy. I don’t think that’s sober at all; I believe that sobriety is a step, the umpteenth step, towards vitality." (Christine)

In the first phase, more behavioral, the E7 will need to become sober in their actions with the world. They must stop the narcissistic multiplication machine of social situations where they appear good or extraordinary. In general, they feel superior to other E7s because they can restrain themselves, while others cannot. But their addiction is different. The other E7s are more clearly selfish, sexual, or exploitative. For the Social 7, it is important to contain themselves in their behavioral games of appearing extraordinary in front of others and the group. Above all, they must place limits on their idealized fantasies of themselves and their mission in the world.

In the second phase of deepening, the E7 will have to bring sobriety to the intimate, deeper sphere, exploring the motivations behind their small actions. They must stop doing relationships with themselves and others simply to be seen as extraordinary. They must start doing what needs to be done, beyond the image they wish to project in the group or their inner heart.

In the third phase, they will be able to let go of sobriety as a guide and surrender to life’s flow. They will no longer work for their little ego but will be just another drop in the sea. The Social 7 is one who must clip their wings in order to take root and grow.