Emotionality and Fantasy

“I can connect with love, it’s hard for me, but I can; when I connect, I feel it here,” says Leonor, while gently and intensely touching her chest.

The Eight character is not particularly emotional; however, among the three subtypes, the Sexual Eight is the one who can show or feel emotion the most. We emphasize feeling because, in this character, even emotions become bodily sensations and take the form of

impulsive actions. There will always be a reaction to any feeling. It’s very typical for a Sexual Eight to ask: “What are you going to do with that or what do you want to do?” after hearing someone express what they feel.

The emotional world of the Sexual Eight is complex yet simple. Being a character of action, they are not deeply involved in emotions: emotions serve as a springboard for action. If they feel sad, they ask themselves what they are going to do about it, what they need to do to stop feeling sad, or what to learn from it. This happens with all emotions. Those that connect them to vulnerability are the ones they want to get rid of; those that connect them to euphoria or power, they will do everything possible to keep alive. In both cases—whether vulnerable or powerful—the experience will be intense.

The simplicity lies in this feel-react pattern, very basic and visceral. The complexity begins with the emotions that are denied, which are many: fear, envy, shame, guilt, sadness, vulnerability, tenderness, helplessness, and frustration, among others. The person with this character is not aware that they feel these denied emotions, but the fact is that they do. Not being in contact with them leads to harmful actions or reactions toward themselves and others.

The Sexual Eight is a counter-phobic character: not having contact with fear leads to dangerous situations for themselves and others. It also leads to very intense experiences—necessary to feel something amid so much desensitization and hardening. There is a lot of fear of contact with vulnerability and fragility, as we will see. The reality is that so much fear was experienced in childhood—due to abandonment, abuse, and lack of boundaries—that vulnerability is denied. This denial is, first, to survive, and second, not to lose power.

“I did feel very sad, very lonely, because what my mother did was lock me up, and I felt a lot of loneliness, sadness, emptiness, and fear. And I am very afraid of emptiness, loneliness, and sadness. It’s something very deep inside me.” — Gerard

Often, fear is masked as distrust, a feeling that places the person above others—the exact opposite of being vulnerable. The person with this character can also cloak it in strength and domination, as is the case with their social phobia, where what appears to be an antisocial trait, showing no vulnerability, actually reveals that they don’t care about others.

In the case of envy, it is not recognized or faced. The envied person is despised, placing oneself above them, always finding a reason why the envied person does not deserve what they have—usually because they obtained it dishonestly.

As for shame, it is a feeling that is neither named nor faced. It is as if feeling shame were for idiots, for people who don’t respect themselves, for weak people.

Guilt is similar: feeling guilt is almost cowardly, and that would never be acceptable for a Sexual Eight. This is one of the crazy ideas that accompany and help denial. In reality, they do not connect with guilt because it is the direct path to the pain of the other and to the pain and damage this character causes—for example, through possession. If the Sexual Eight experiences their partner—or intimate bond—as their property, they can decide and act upon it. They objectify it, dehumanize it. If the Sexual Eight connects with the harm they do to the other and with guilt (no matter the order) and feels pain, they can see the person and not the thing they have in front of them. This is the path of renouncing possession. This renunciation brings them face-to-face with fear and the wound of abandonment. These, in turn, connect to vulnerability and fragility: two feelings not only denied but experienced as dangerous.

Guilt is a gateway to empathy, pain, and sensitivity—qualities this character also experiences as dangerous. For all these reasons, a Sexual Eight has great difficulty connecting with it. The problem is not only disregard for others’ feelings but also for their own, which can lead them to do things against their true values.

However—and despite all this—the Sexual Eight is the most emotional subtype of the Eights: “Compared to the other subtypes, the sexual is the most emotional, the self-preservation is pure action, and the social is the only intellectual Eight,” explains Claudio Naranjo.

Contact with pain is not easy. The heart, in this character, is very closed and hardened. It is not easy to access it, although when achieved, the connection with what is happening—in this case, pain—is very deep. Something unexpected—a piece of music, for example—can make them connect with themselves and enter the pain, connecting with vulnerability and fragility.

“There is a crazy idea in the subconscious, which is that vulnerability equals danger of death. And in my case, another one, which is that crying is useless.” — Bittor

Feeling vulnerable is difficult for a Sexual Eight: a violent, defensive, automatic reaction appears. However, it is an emotion that, if learned to be lived with, may not trigger the same suffering.

“That moment when you can either burst into tears or burst into fights. After my grandfather’s death, leaving the funeral home and having experienced so much pain around me and within myself; also wanting to hug my father but not being able to because he wouldn’t let me, and connecting with helplessness, the impulse was to go have sex. Since I hadn’t been able to release the pain in a tender way, I wanted to release it in a violent sexual place. I didn’t do it because my sister arrived and I was able to hug her, and there I broke down crying.” — Gerard

“At that moment, I was vulnerable, realizing that I was a victim; and in that place, I found a need to arm myself as much as possible. So, don’t touch me in vulnerability, and don’t come and ask me ‘how are you?’ I don’t want that. It doesn’t comfort me that you come. I think it’s about not allowing oneself to stay there, in vulnerability, in tenderness, in a situation that was making me fragile.” — Jesús Pérez

When faced with possible pain, the Sexual Eight can also withdraw, turn inward, and appear cold. It’s a kind of disconnection in the face of the possibility of being hurt or having been hurt.

“I have a lot of difficulty realizing when I’ve been hurt; suddenly, I would notice myself very cold, very withdrawn. Now, when I see myself like that, I start to ask what hurt me, because I have a lot of trouble recognizing what hurt me, but not so much trouble noticing I’m cold.” — Bittor

“In that situation, in withdrawal, I let loose the flamethrower. Now it’s a scalpel, now I cut you with a knife. Now it’s cold. Now I’m ‘detached.’” — Jesús Pérez

Another possible reaction to pain is revenge. This is directed at someone—usually the partner—and it doesn’t stop until it is carried out. In a neurotic state, this revenge does not leave them satisfied; when they see the other in great pain, the Sexual Eight may begin to become aware of the harm caused. At the same time, there is something neurotic in this process: it’s as if, by seeing the other broken, they can come closer again.

“When I reach that breaking point, I go back to seek contact. It’s like, now from here there can be reparative contact; before, I didn’t trust you, but now that I’ve blown you up, now there can be reparative contact.” — Leonor

Contact with pain, vulnerability, and fragility is very frightening. It sensitizes and places the Sexual Eight character in a space they experience as dangerous, even as a place of death. This is because, in childhood, in many cases, it was exactly that: fragility was crushed and vulnerability abused. Hence the constant search for power over others.

With personal work, a Sexual Eight can come to connect with their emotions, even the most painful ones. They can cry again and feel pain.

“For me, one of the most healing experiences was crying. I had gone fifteen years without crying. The first day I cried, I cried for two straight hours. I committed to it and wanted to recover the ability to cry, and it took me a year and a half of work.” — Bittor

And they can get emotional about something that’s touching them in that moment, although the hardest work is becoming moved by themselves again. There is a punishment

of softness and tenderness: they are lived with a lot of contempt, outwardly and inwardly. Emotion is confused with submission.

“If I let myself fall into the neurosis, lambs disgust me, because I consider that their fucking submission has ruined me, me and my own. What the hell is this about submitting to what’s screwing you over?” — Bittor

“What helped me in therapy, one of the key things, was that my therapist told me, I give you permission to cry. I asked him: ‘Isn’t that surrendering?’ and he told me: ‘No, that’s taking care of yourself.’” — Gerard

“The first thing with mom and dad was anger.” — Leonor

The house specialty for a Sexual Eight is anger. It’s the fixed emotion through which practically all experiences are lived. Everything can be a reason for anger, even what wasn’t yesterday. This is partly due to the disconnection from the rest of the emotions. Anger is a feeling that makes them feel power over the other and over the situation, not always over themselves, since if it also touches on impotence, the Sexual Eight goes straight to violence. This can manifest in different ways: sometimes explicitly, other times by creating tension in the environment. It’s not done intentionally; it just happens. Everything becomes tense and dense in the person’s conviction that they are right.

“I think we hold up very well in war-like environments, and war has a lot of tension. Not everyone can handle tension; that’s one of my assets.” — Bittor

Anger covers up many of the emotions mentioned earlier.

“I think I get angry because if not, I get bored, and I’d rather die than get bored, or than feel sad or see my fear. I’d rather get angry, break everything, have sex, disorganize myself, get intense. That’s where the lust is. Otherwise, there’s this idea that I’m going to die.” — Jesús Pérez

Anger can lead to rage, explosion, and violence, and after this comes distrust and, again, “withdrawal.” The hoarding of self. They close off and are no longer accessible. We put “withdrawal” in quotes because:

“That’s what I think we tell ourselves, but really we’re not withdrawing because we’re still there, holding, enduring the pull. Heating up the atmosphere. Creating tension.” — Jesús Sallabera

What is really happening most of the time is that they are feeling pain, but since it’s denied, they “don’t realize,” they react aggressively against the person who hurt them or caused

them pain. It’s almost constant contact with rage. All this mostly happens within intimate relationships—partners, family, and close bonds.

As for fantasy, the Sexual Eight is not a particularly imaginative or dreamy character. In this character, fantasies can appear where they feel powerful and admired.

“I remember being 10 years old, dreaming that I was the heroine of my handball team. It was a kind of daydream I used to have before sleeping: I imagined that we were in a very important handball competition and that I, despite the physical pain since I was injured, scored the winning goal.” — Leonor

There is a need for validation in this character that is neither easy nor readily recognized. That is, it can be demanded, probably already with anger because there is also a belief that they deserve it, but the other person doesn’t see it. One sign of this need is all those fantasies where they end up feeling admired and, above all, valued by others. They don’t easily connect with this need for recognition, since it again places the person in a vulnerable position; this need comes from a deep feeling of devaluation that originated in childhood.

“In relationships, there are many fantasies of betrayal and deceit, as if the other always wants to deceive me or is doing so, and all the instinct and character support this belief. The fantasy is that the partner is going to leave, betray me because they are not actually in love with me.” — Leonor

Devaluation appears again, along with an avoidance of fear—in this case, abandonment—through distrust, which puts them in a position of power instead of vulnerability:

“There I become suspicious, reactive, tough, and I squeeze her, because there is a crazy idea in me that if I hold her tight enough, she won’t be able to leave. Obviously, in the end, what happens is that I end up suffocating her.” — Leonor

In intimate relationships, when they have been hurt or when the person of this character feels frustrated or betrayed, they will almost instantly fantasize about taking revenge on whoever inflicted the pain.

This is a narcissistic character in the archetypal sense of the word, so fantasies appear where they see themselves as better, unique, sometimes as if what they are saying were a human truth.

“This intervention as a therapist, surely no one else can do it. Only me. It’s a very narcissistic part, a voice that constantly reminds me how well I do, how good I am.” — Leonor

This type of fantasy prevents the person from connecting with insecurity, doubt, or again, vulnerability. Also, these fantasies relate to the subtype: leaving an indelible mark on the other person.

“So indelible that we might even meet and recognize each other life after life, as if it were possible to intertwine our souls beyond this existence.” — Leonor

Many fantasies appear where they fight and show strength, especially when feeling rage, impotence, or pain. Fantasies where they do something bad and get caught or put in jail, thus avoiding contact with guilt and going straight to punishment. These also relate to the belief that they are bad or that there is something wrong with them.

Imagination and fantasy are generally not easily accessible for people of this character because it would lead them to consider that there is a world not directly “visible,” a mysterious world that cannot be controlled. This would place them in a position of insecurity that they cannot sustain, plus the mystery itself cannot be dominated by anyone.

The consequence is that they can lose creativity very early on by being too connected to what is concrete, tangible, and graspable. There is too much attachment to the powerful and decisive persona to dare to let themselves be carried away by fantasy.