So, since the Type Six chapter of Naranjo's book is in the 6 forum now, I decided I'll put the Type 8 one up here.
Chapter Four
SADISTIC CHARACTER AND LUST
ENNEA-TYPE VIII
1. Core Theory, Nomenclature, and Place in the Enneagram
The Spanish dictionary from the Spanish Royal Academy—where I dictate this chapter —says concerning lust that it is a “vice consisting in the illicit use or disordered appetite for carnal pleasures,” and gives the additional meaning of “excess in certain things.”
It is the latter definition which coincides with the meaning given to the term by Ichazo in his exposition of Protoanalysis, and we may view the former., i.e. the more common sense of the term., as its derivative or corollary. I will therefore use the word “lust” to denote a passion for excess, a passion that seeks intensity, not only through sex, but in all manner of stimulation: activity, anxiety, spices, high speed, the pleasure of loud music, and so on.
Lust is mapped in the enneagram next to the upper vertex of the inner triangle, which indicates a kinship to indolence, to a sensory-motor disposition, and the predominance of cognitive obscuration or “ignorance” over “aversion” and “craving” (at the left and right corners respectively). The indolent aspect of the lusty may be under-stood not only as a feeling of not- alive-enough-except-through-over-stimulation but also in a concomitant avoidance of inwardness. We may say that the greed for ever more aliveness, characteristic of the lusty personality, is but an attempt to compensate for a hidden lack of aliveness.
Opposite to envy on the enneagram, lust may be said to constitute the upper pole of a sado-masochistic axis. The two personalities, VIII and IV, are in some ways opposites (as these terms suggest), though also similar in some regards, such as in the thirst for intensity. Also, just as a masochistic character is in some ways sadistic, there is a masochistic aspect in the character of lust; and while a sadistic character is active, a masochistic disposition is emotional: the former reaches out without guilt towards the satisfaction of its need; the latter yearns and feels guilty about its neediness.
Just as the envy-centered character is the most sensitive in the enneagram, ennea-type VIII is the most insensitive. We may envision the passion for intensity of ennea-type VIII as an attempt to seek through action the intensity that ennea-type IV achieves through emotional sensitivity, which here is not only veiled over by the basic indolence that this ennea-type shares with the upper triad of the enneagram but also by a desensitization in the service of counter- dependent self-suffciency.
The characterological syndrome of lust is related to that of gluttony in that both are characterized by impulsiveness and hedonism. In the case of gluttony, however, impulsiveness and hedonism exist in the context of a weak, soft and tender-minded characterological context, while in lust the context is that of a strong and tough-minded character.1 As usual, the character stands in polar opposition to each of those connected with it by the inner ow of the enneagram: just as ennea-type II is over-feminine and sensitive, ennea-type VIII is over- masculine and insensitive; and just as ennea-type V is intra-punitive and shy, ennea-type VIII is extra-punitive and bold. In each case the transition from one to the other can be understood at the same time as a defense and a transformation of psychic energy. The anti-social personality disorder described in DSM-III may be regarded as a pathological extreme and a special instance of ennea-type VIII The broader syndrome may be better evoked through Reich’s label of “phallic narcissistic”2 character or Horney’s description of the vindictive personality. The word “sadistic” seems particularly appropriate in view of its position opposite the masochistic character of ennea-type IV.
2. Antecedents in the Scientic Literature on Character
As we turn from literature to the observation of character in Psychiatry and Psychology, we nd that the personality we are considering corresponds to that designated by Kurt Schneider3 as “explosive” (preferring this term to Kraepelin’s earlier expression “excitable”). Of these “explosive psychopaths” he tells us that they are disobedient and deant and that they are very well known in life and in clinical experience, those who “at the least provocation become enraged or even violent without any consideration; a reaction that has been appropriately called a short-cut reaction.”
In a similar vein, Scholtz4 describes a “moral anesthesia” of people “who know the moral laws perfectly well, but don’t feel them and because of this, do not subordinate their behavior to them.” In tracing the history of “the aggressive pattern” of personality, Millon 5 points out that “toward the end of the XIXth century, German psychiatrists turned their attention away from the value-laden theories of the English alienists and toward what they judged to be observational research.” And at this time Koch proposed replacing the label “moral insanity” by “psychopathic inferiority.” Still this label reflected the belief of a physical basis for the syndrome. It had been already Kraepelin’s opinion in the second edition of his major work,6 that “the ‘morally insane’ suffer congenital defects in their ability to restrain the gratification of their immediate desires.” By the fifth edition he changed the name to “psychopathic states” and by the eighth described psychopaths as deficient in either affect or volition. Among the personality peculiarities of these he listed subtypes: the excitable, the unstable, the impulsive, the eccentric, the liars and swindlers, the anti-social and the quarrelsome.
Millon also reports that it was Birnbaum, who (in 1914), writing in Germany at the time of Kraepelin’s nal edition, was the rst to suggest that “sociopathic” might be a more appropriate term for the majority of these cases. One of the most insightful pictures of the “psychopaths” or “sociopaths” has been from Cleckley,7 who counts among the main traits in this syndrome guiltlessness, incapacity for object love, impulsivity, emotional shallowness, supercial social charm, and inability to profit from experience.
As Millon points out, Cleckley’s contribution was significant in drawing attention to the fact that antisocial personalities are found not only in prisons, but in mainstream society “where tough hard-headed ‘realism’ is admired as an attribute necessary for survival.” In spite of this observation, I don’t see that anybody has pointed out the identity of the syndrome in question with Reich’s “phallic narcissistic” personality to which I turn now.
Reich’s description was first presented at the Vienna Psychoanalytic society in 1926 and was later included in his Character Analysis. He observes that in terms of physique this character is predominantly athletic, “hardly ever an aesthenic type,” while his behavior is never cringing, but usually arrogant, either coldly reserved or contemptuously aggressive. The “narcissistic element, stands out in the attitude towards the object, including the love object, and is always infused with more or less concealed sadistic characteristics.”
“In everyday life, the phallic narcissistic character will usually anticipate any impending attack with an attack of his own. The aggression in his character is expressed less in what he does and says than in the way he acts. Particularly he is felt to be totally aggressive and provocative by those who are not in control of their own aggression. The most pronounced types tend to achieve leading positions in life and are ill suited to subordinate positions among the rank and file … Their narcissism, as opposed to that of other character types, is expressed not in an infantile but in a blatantly self-confident way, with a flagrant display of superiority and dignity, in spite of the fact that the basis of their nature is not less infantile than that of the other types.” He observes too that “relationships with women are disturbed by the typical derogatory attitude toward the female sex.”
In Fromm’s characterology8 we find our ennea-type VIII under the label of the “exploitative orientation,” concerning which he observes that here the person “does not expect to receive things from others as gifts, but to take them away from others by force or cunning,” that “their attitude is colored by a mixture of hostility and manipulation” and that “one finds here suspicion and cynicism, envy and jealousy.” In the DSM III the more delinquent extreme of ennea-type VIII is found under the label of anti-social personality, for which the following diagnostic criteria are given:
1. Inability to sustain consistent work behavior
2. Lack of ability to function as a responsible parent
3. Failure to accept social norms with regard to lawful behavior
4. Inability to maintain enduring attachment to a sexual partner and promiscuity
5. Irritability and aggressiveness
6. Failure to honor financial obligations
7. Failure to plan ahead
8. Disregard for the truth as indicated by “conning” for personal prot, etc.
9. Recklessness
In his discussion of antisocial personality Millon recommends that “we progress beyond moral and social judgment as a basis for clinical concepts,” and in line with this he quotes in Disorders of Personality the following descriptions of criteria proposed in his formulation of the “Active Independent Personality”—which served as the initial working draft for what was ultimately labeled as “antisocial personality” by the DSM III task force.
1. Hostile affectivity (e.g., pugnacious, an irascible temper flares readily into arguments and attack; exhibits frequent verbally abusive and physically cruel behaviors).
2. Assertive self-image (e.g., proudly characterizes self as self-reliant, vigorously energetic and hard headed; values tough, competitive and power oriented life style).
3. Interpersonal vindictiveness (e.g., reveals satisfaction in derogating and humiliating others; contemptuous of sentimentality, social compassion and humanistic values).
4. Hyperthymic fearlessness (e.g., high activation level evident in impulsive, accelerated and forceful responding; attracted to and undaunted by danger and punishment).
5. Malevolent projection (e.g., claims that most persons are devious, controlling and punitive; justifies own mistrustful, hostile and vengeful attitudes by ascribing them to others).
In a paper read before the Association For The Advancement Of Psychoanalysis and which appeared in the American Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1948, Horney proposed to change the expression “sadistic” in reference to character and proposed a psychodynamic interpretation of “openly aggressive vindictiveness,”9 in contrast to self-effacing vindictiveness (ennea-type IV) and “detached vindictiveness” (ennea-type V) deviating from Freud’s sexual theory. Again we find descriptions of this character in Our Inner Conflicts and in Neurosis and Human Growth, where vindictive character is regarded an expression of the more general “solution of mastery” or expansive solution (to which I have made reference in connection with ennea-type I). This is a way of being where the individual identifies more with his gloried self than with his despised self.
Also “the appeal of life lies in its mastery. It chiefly entails his determination, conscious or unconscious, to overcome every obstacle—in or outside himself—and the belief that he should be able, and in fact is able, to do so. He should be able to master the adversities of fate, the difficulties of a situation, the intricacies of intellectual problems, the resistances of other people, conflicts in himself. The reverse side of the necessity for mastery is his dread of anything connoting helplessness; this is the most poignant dread he has.”10
In the specific form of the “expansive solution” that concerns us, Horney describes the main motivating force in life: “the need for vindictive triumph is a regular ingredient in any search for glory. Our interest therefore is not so much concerned with the existence of this need but with its overwhelming intensity. How can the idea of triumph get such a hold on an individual that he spends all his life chasing after it? Surely it must be fed by a multitude of powerful sources. But the knowledge of these sources alone does not sufficiently elucidate its formidable power. In order to arrive at a fuller understanding we must approach the problem from still another vantage point. Even though in others the impact of the need for vengeance and triumph can be poignant, it usually is kept within limits by three factors: love, fear, and self-preservation. Only if these checks are temporarily or permanently malfunctioning can the vindictiveness involve the total personality—thereby becoming a kind of integrative force as in Medea—and sway it altogether in the one direction of vengeance and triumph … it is the combination of these two processes—powerful impulse and insufficient checks—that accounts for the magnitude of vindictiveness.” As we see in the description thus far, Horney cannot omit from her interpretation the psychopathic aspect of this character: insufficient checks. It is as if the person thought that, just as he suffered in the past humiliation and limitation at the hands of tyrannical or neglectful parents, it is now for him to turn the tables and have his pleasure, even at the expense of the pain of others.
It seems that Horney, through allegiance to the concept of vindictiveness, here over- generalizes to include ennea-type IV as in her reference to Medea (an envy type) as an example. While the envious person may commit a crime of passion, the lusty one can be criminal not out of recklessness so much as out of generalized hostility, insensitivity, and as an anti-social orientation. Other than this, however, the portrait continues to t the lust type. “He is convinced that everybody at bottom is malevolent and crooked, that friendly gestures are hypocritical, that it is only wisdom to regard everyone with distrust, unless he has been proved honest. But even such proof will readily make room for suspicion at the slightest provocation.
“In his behavior towards others he is openly arrogant, often rude and offensive, although sometime this is covered with a thin veneer of civil politeness. In subtle and gross ways, with or without realizing it, he humiliates others and exploits them. He may use women for the satisfaction of his sexual needs with utter disregard for their feelings. With a seemingly naive egocentricity, he will use people as a means to an end. He frequently makes and maintains contacts exclusively on the basis of their serving his needs for triumph: people he can use as stepping stones in his career, influential women he can conquer and subdue, followers who give him blind recognition and augment his power. He is a past master in frustrating others —frustrating their small and big hopes, their needs for attention,reassurance, time, company, enjoyment. When others demonstrate against such treatment it is their neurotic sensitivity that makes them react this way.” Another expression of his vindictiveness, according to Horney, is that “he feels entitled both to having his neurotic needs implicitly respected and to being permitted his utter disregard of others’ needs or wishes. He feels entitled for instance to the unabridged expression of his unfavorable observations and criticisms but feels equally entitled never to be criticized himself.”
She goes on to comment that “whatever accounts for the inner necessity of such claims, they certainly express a contemptuous disregard for others.” When these claims are not fulfilled, they assume a punitive vindictiveness “which may run the whole gamut from irritability to sulking, to making others feel guilty, to open rages … the undiluted expression of these feelings also serves as a measure to assert his claims by intimidating others into a subdued appeasement.” Horney’s vindictive arrogant person becomes furious at himself and scolds himself for “getting soft.” The need to deny positive feelings is intimately related to the need for triumph, for “the hardening of feelings, originally a necessity for survival, allows for an unhampered growth of the drive for a triumphant mastery of life.” She does not fail to point out this personality’s characteristic self-reliance: “For a person as isolated and as hostile as he, it is of course important not to need others. Hence he develops a pronounced pride in godlike self-sufficiency.”
She elaborates on the pride in the honesty, fairness, and justice of the vindictive person. “Needless to say, he is neither honest, fair nor just and cannot possibly be so. On the contrary, if anybody is determined—unconsciously—to bluff his way through life with a disregard for truth, it is he … But we can understand his belief that he possesses these attributes to a high degree if we consider his premises. To hit back or—preferably—to hit first appears to him (logically!) as an indispensable weapon against the crooked and hostile world around him. It is nothing but intelligent, legitimate self-interest. Also, not questioning the validity of his claims, his anger, and the expression of it must appear to him as entirely warranted and ‘frank.’ “There is still another factor which greatly contributes to his conviction that he is a particularly honest person and which is important to mention. He sees around him many compliant people who pretend to be more loving, more sympathetic, more generous than they actually are. And in this regard he is indeed more honest. He does not pretend to be a friendly person; in fact he disdains doing so.”
Finally, I quote Horney’s observations on the little sympathy this kind of person has for others. “This absence of sympathy has many causes, lying in his hostility towards others and in his lacking sympathy for himself. But what perhaps contributes most to his callousness toward others is the envy of them. It is a bitter envy—not for this or that particular asset, but pervasive—and stems from his feeling excluded from life in general. And it is true that, with his entanglements, he actually is excluded from all that makes life worth living—from joy, happiness, love, creativeness, growth. If tempted to think along too neat lines, we would say here: has not he himself turned his back on life? Is he not proud of his ascetic not-wanting and not needing anything? Does he not keep warding o positive feelings of all sorts? So why should he envy others? But the fact is, he does. Naturally, without analysis his arrogance would not permit him to admit it in plain words. But as his analysis proceeds he may say something to the effect that of course everybody else is better o than he is.” Which brings us back to an earlier comment, that just as the gist of envy can be seen as repressed lust, lust may be seen as repressed envy.
Though intended to be a description of temperament rather than character, Sheldon’s Somatotonia11 should not be left out of this discussion, for just as cerebrotonia reaches its maximal expression in ennea-type V, somatotonia clearly finds its maximum in ennea-type VIII. “Constitutionally related to mesomorphic development (skeleton, muscles and connective tissue) somatotonia expresses the function of movement and predation,” says Sheldon.
I list below the twenty main somatotonic traits that were used by Sheldon in his research.
1. Assertiveness of Posture and Movement
2. Love of Physical Adventure
3. The Energetic Characteristic
4. Need and Enjoyment of Exercise
5. Love of Dominating, Lust for Power
6. Love of Risk and Chance
7. Bold Directness of Manner
8. Physical Courage for Combat
9. Competitive Aggressiveness
10. Psychological Callousness
11. Claustrophobia
12. Ruthlessness
13. Freedom from Squeamishness
14. General Noisiness
15. Over maturity of Appearance
16. Horizontal Mental Cleavage
17. Extraversion of Somatotonia
18. Assertiveness and Aggression under Alcohol
19. Need of Action When Troubled
20. Orientation Toward Goals and Activities of Youth
The connection between somatotonia and the lust type rearms the original idea of a constitutional factor behind psychopathic personality—though not necessarily that of the constitutional “defect.” It is easy to conjecture that the strategy of vindictive self-assertion, that is to say, sadistic character, would be implicitly preferred by one who comes into life with a constitutionally determined orientation to action and a disposition to fight.
In Jung we can recognize our ennea-type VIII under the label of the Extraverted Sensation Type12, though only in its aspects of realism and lusty orientation and not in that of dominance, for Jung curiously tells us that (at least “on the lower levels”) this type who “is the lover of tangible reality, with little inclination for reflection” has “no desire to dominate.” In spite of this discrepancy, Jung’s reference to Wulfen’s description of der Genussmensch; his commentary to the eect that the type “is by no means unlovable,” on the contrary “his lively capacity for enjoyment makes him very good company”; plus his observation to the eect that conjectures beyond the concrete are of no interest to him and that the main pursuit is the intensication of sensations, leave little doubt as to the character’s identity, which is confirmed through the observation of his or her exploitativeness: “Although the object has become quite indispensable to him, yet, as something existing in its own right, it is none the less devalued. It is ruthlessly exploited and squeezed dry, since now its sole use is to stimulate sensation.”
The anti-social inclination of the extraverted sensation type is also insinuated by Jung who remarks that his easy-going attitude accepts indiscriminately everything that happens and that “although this does not by any means imply an absolute lawlessness and lack of restraint, it nevertheless deprives him of the essential restraining power of judgment.” In the domain of homeopathic medicine the remedy best fitting ennea-type VIII is Nux Vomica, made from the seed of Strychnos nux vomica, that is the natural source of strychnine. Because is has been typically prescribed for physical states of excitation and overstimulation, it has been called “temper medicine” (Tyler).13 Hahnemann wrote: “Nux is chiefly successful with persons of an ardent character, of an irritable, impatient temperament, disposed to anger, spite, or deception.”
Catherine R. Coulter describes the personality for which Nux Vomica is most remedial as irritable, power-driven, and prone to addiction. “Turning to the bottle in times of depression, this type can become abusive and even violent; he is the alcoholic wife-beater or child-abuser.” She reports, quoting Hahnemann, that he is “fiery and hot-tempered” and “a human powder- keg that is set o by the least spark.” He can also be “tight, testy, and agitated in manner.” She remarks that “these are the outward signs of a psychic restlessness and inability to let events move along at their own natural pace. If things are going too smoothly at home or work, he proceeds to stir them up. He constantly raises contentious issues or voices contradictory opinions.”
Particularly confirmatory of the ennea-type VIII disposition is Coulter’s observation of the type’s refusal “to even try curbing his temper… . Even the shrewd and successful businessman can forget himself completely in a petty temper outburst defying all civilized rules of behavior and acting heedless or unaware of the impression he may be making on others.”
Similarly fitting is the observation that “Nux Vomica may resort to ‘invective mixed with indelicate expressions’ (Hahnemann), or ‘profanity’ (Boenninghausen).” Also the non intellectual disposition of ennea-type VIII (shared with ennea-type IX) is echoed in the description of the Nux personality’s reluctance to concentrate, impatience, and unsuitability to intellectual work.
In regard to authority and power Coulter comments on the type’s “authoritarian nature” both in the home and in the workplace, and she adds: “But when Nux is too ambitiously pursuing his interests and trying to reach the top, he not only ‘uses’ others to raise himself up but, to gain his ends, is occasionally willing to trample underfoot those of unlike mind, or who are merely in his way.”
This discussion of Nux Vomica would not be complete, however, without remarking that the description of its associated personality also includes traits contradictory to those of ennea- type VIII. While Coulter claims that the above described traits can coexist with over-sensitivity and perfectionism, I believe that it is not the same individuals who show such traits, but that in the description of “Nux personality” these traits are observations of not only ennea-type VIII persons but also some of the angrier varieties of ennea-types I and IV. It definitely does not apply to ennea-type VIII to say that “the type’s pain threshold is extremely low” (an ennea- type IV trait) or that “his fussy, precise nature, he is never contented or satisfied and is [constantly] disturbed by his surroundings.”14 Particularly characteristic of ennea-type I is the following: “Nux Vomica is more likely to criticize from virtue (he is everything he accuses others of not being—organized, efficient, clear-thinking) and to be ‘reproachful’ (Hahnemann) of faults or defects that differ from his own, while being reasonably tolerant of those that are similar to his.”
3. Trait Structure
Lust
Just as anger may be regarded the most hidden of passions, lust is probably the most visible, seeming an exception to a general rule that wherever there is passion, there is also taboo or injunction in the psyche against it. I say “seemingly” because even though the lusty type is passionately in favor of his lust and of lust in general as a way of life, the very passionateness with which he embraces this outlook betrays a defensiveness—as if he needed to prove to himself and the rest of the world that what everybody calls bad is not such. Some of the specific traits that convey lust, such as “intensity,” “gusto,” “contactfulness,” “love of eating,” and so on, are intimately bound to the constitutional stratum of personality. A sensory- motor disposition (the somatotonic background of lust) may be regarded as the natural soil in which lust proper is supported. Other traits, such as hedonism, the propensity to boredom when not sufficiently stimulated, the craving for excitement, impatience, and impulsiveness, are in domain of lust proper.
We must consider that lust is more than hedonism. There is in lust not only pleasure, but pleasure in asserting the satisfaction of impulses, pleasure in the forbidden and, particularly, pleasure in fighting for pleasure. In addition to pleasure proper there is here an admixture of some pain that has been transformed into pleasure: either the pain of others who are “preyed upon” for one’s satisfaction or the pain entailed by the effort to conquer the obstacles in the way to satisfaction. It is this that makes lust a passion for intensity and not for pleasure alone. The extra intensity, the extra excitement, the “spice,” comes not from instinctual satisfaction, but from a struggle and an implicit triumph.
Punitiveness
Another group of traits intimately connected to lust is that which could be labeled punitive, sadistic, exploitative, hostile. Among such traits we can find “bluntness,” “sarcasm,” “irony,” and those of being intimidating, humiliating, and frustrating. Of all characters, this is the most angry and the one least intimidated by anger.
It is the angry and punitive characteristic of ennea-type VIII Ichazo addresses in his calling the fixation of the lusty “revenge.” The word, however, has the drawback of being associated with the most overtly vindictive of the characters, ennea-type IV, whose hatefulness sometimes manifests in explicit vendettas. In this overt sense type VIII is not strikingly vindictive; on the contrary, the character retaliates angrily at the moment and gets quickly over his irritation. The revenge which is most present in ennea-type VIII is (aside from “getting even” in the immediate response) a long-term one, in which the individual takes justice in his own hands in response to the pain, humiliation, and impotence felt in early childhood. It is as if he wanted to turn the tables on the world and, after having suffered frustration or humiliation for the pleasure of others, has determined that it is now his turn to have pleasure even if it involves the pain of others. Or especially then—for in this, too, may lie revenge.
The sadistic phenomenon of enjoying the frustration or humiliation of others may be regarded as a transformation of having to live with one’s own (as a byproduct of vindictive triumph), just as the excitement of anxiety, strong tastes, and tough experiences represents a transformation of pain in the process of hardening oneself against life.
The anti-social characteristic of ennea-type VIII, like rebellion itself (in which it is embedded), may be regarded as a reaction of anger and thus a manifestation of vindictive punitiveness. The same may be said of dominance, insensitivity, and cynicism along with their derivatives. Punitiveness can be regarded as the fixation in sadistic or exploitative character —and we may credit Horney and Fromm for being ahead of their times in stressing these last- mentioned characteristics.
Rebelliousness
Though lust itself implies an element of rebellion in its assertive opposition to the inhibition of pleasure, rebellion stands out as a trait on it own, more prominent in ennea-type VIII than in any other character. Even though type VII is unconventional, the emphasis of this rebellion is intellectual. He is a person with “advanced ideas,” perhaps a revolutionary outlook, while type VIII is the prototype of the revolutionary activist. Beyond specific ideologies, however, there is in the character not only a strong opposition to authority, but also a scorn for the values enjoined by traditional education. It is in virtue of such blunt invalidation of authority that “badness” automatically becomes the way to be. Generalized rebellion against authority can usually be traced back to a rebellion in the face of the father, who is the carrier of authority in the family. Vindictive characters frequently learn not to expect anything good from their fathers and implicitly come to regard parental power as illegitimate.
Dominance
Closely related to the characteristic hostility of the ennea-type, is dominance. Hostility may be said to be in the service of dominance, and dominance, in turn, regarded as an expression of hostility. Yet, dominance also serves the function of protecting the individual from a position of vulnerability and dependency. Related to dominance are such traits as “arrogance,” “power seeking,” “need for triumph,” “putting others down,” “competitiveness,” “acting superior,” and so on. Also related to these traits of superiority and dominance are the corresponding traits of disdain and scorn for others. It is easy to see how dominance and aggressiveness are in the service of lust; particularly in a world that expects individual restraint, only power and the ability to fight for one’s wishes can allow the individual to indulge in his passion for impulse expression. Dominance and hostility stand in service of vindictiveness, as if the individual had early in life decided that it doesn’t pay to be weak, accommodating, or seductive, and has oriented himself toward power in an attempt to take justice into his hands.
Insensitivity
Also closely related to the hostile characteristic of ennea-type VIII are traits of toughness, manifest through such descriptors as “confrontativeness,” “intimidation,” “ruthlessness,” “callousness.” Such characteristics are clearly a consequence of an aggressive style of life, not compatible with fear or weakness, sentimentality or pity. Related to this unsentimental, realistic, direct, brusque, blunt quality, there is a corresponding disdain for the opposite qualities of weakness, sensitivity and, particularly, fear. We may say that a specific instance of the toughening of the psyche is an exaggerated risk-taking characteristic, through which the individual denies his own fears and indulges the feeling of power generated by his internal conquest. Risk-taking, in turn, feeds lust, for the type VII individual has learned to thrive on anxiety as a source of excitement, and rather than suffering, he has—through an implicit masochistic phenomenon—learned to wallow in its sheer intensity. Just as his palate has learned to interpret the painful sensations of a hot spice as pleasure, anxiety—and/or, rather the process of hardening oneself against it—has become, more than a pleasure, a psychological addiction, something without which life seems tasteless and boring.
Conning and Cynicism
The next two traits can be considered intimately connected. The cynical attitude to life of the exploitative personality is underscored by Fromm’s traits of skepticism, the tendency to look upon virtue as always hypocritical, distrust in the motives of others, and so on. In these traits, as in toughness, we see the expression of a way and a vision of life “red in tooth and claw.”15 In regard to conning and cunning, it should be said that ennea-type VIII is more blatantly deceptive than type VII, and is easily seen as a cheat, the typical “used car salesman” who knows how to bargain assertively.
Exhibitionism (Narcissism)
Ennea-type VIII people are entertaining, witty, and often charming, yet not vain in the sense of being concerned with how they appear. Their seductiveness, bragging, and arrogant claims are consciously manipulative; they are geared to gaining influence and elevation in the power and dominance hierarchy. They also constitute a compensation for exploitativeness and insensitivity, a way of buying out others or making themselves acceptable despite traits of unaccountability, violence, invasiveness, and so on.
Autonomy
As Horney has remarked, we could not expect anything other than self-reliance in one who approaches others as potential competitors or targets of exploitation. Along with the characteristic autonomy of ennea-type VIII is the idealization of autonomy, a corresponding rejection of dependency and passive oral strivings. The rejection of these passive traits is so striking that Reich postulated that phallic-narcissistic character constitutes precisely a defense against them.16
Sensory-motor dominance
Beyond the concepts of lust and hedonism, rebellion, punitiveness, dominance, and power- seeking, toughness, risk taking, narcissism, astuteness, is in ennea-type VII the predominance of action over intellect and feeling, for this is the most sensory-motor of characters. The characteristic orientation of ennea-type VIII to a graspable and concrete “here and now”—the sphere of the senses and the body-sense in particular—is a lusty clutching at the present and an excited impatience toward memory, abstractions, anticipations, as well as a desensitization to the subtlety of aesthetic and spiritual experience. Concentration on the present is not simply as a manifestation of mental health as it could be in other character dispositions, but the consequence of not deeming anything real that is not tangible and an immediate stimulus to the senses.
4. Defense Mechanisms
When we consider what mechanism may be most characteristic of lusty-vindictive character, we are at rst struck by how this personality disposition gravitates in a direction opposite to the repression of instinctual life that Freud emphasized in the neurosis in general. Indeed, while the inhibition of sexuality is apparent in most characters (except in ennea-types II and to some extent VII) and the inhibition of aggression is even more generalized, it is the non-inhibition of these that characterize lusty impulsiveness. Yet in his interpretation of phallic-narcissistic character, Reich expressed the view that this whole orientation to life may be understood as being of a defensive nature: a defense against dependency and passivity. We will say that the over “masculine” type VIII strives through an excessive assertiveness and aggression to avoid a position of “feminine” powerlessness—a powerlessness that would involve submission to societal constraints and resignation in regards to his own impulses.
Also, in order to compensate for feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness evoked by his disregard of others the individual has engaged in a process of guilt denial and in a repression (in the broad sense of the term) of the super-ego rather than of the id. This rebellious turning against inhibitions in an attitude of solidarity with the intrapsychic under-dog doesn’t seem to have received a specific name in psychoanalysis, though it may be regarded as akin to denial to the extent that there is a disavowal of internalized authority and its values. Since Freud used the expression “denial” (verleugnung) mostly in connection with the disavowal of external reality, I prefer not to bring it to this discussion except metaphorically, and simply point out the need for a more specic term that denotes repression that is not of the instinctual side of conflict but of the counter-instinctual. An expression like “counter-repression” or “counter- identification” might serve the purpose—the latter particularly since rebellious traits are understandable as inverse identifications with behaviors and attitudes expected by society and the parents. The opposition of type VIII to type IV in the enneagram suggests, however, that “counter-introjection” may be even more specific for, unlike type IV, who all too regularly brings bad objects into his psyche as foreign bodies, ennea-type VIII is the opposite of one willing to swallow and is most ready to spit out what doesn’t agree with his wishes.
Equally characteristic of the ennea-type VIII manner of repressing is the specially developed capacity to keep pain out of awareness—a condition in which the person may be unaware of a high fever or of an infection in the middle ear, for instance. At the psychological level, the insensitivity to psychological discomfort of tough-minded, sadistic individuals involves a relative insensitivity to shame and explains a seeming absence of guilt. I think this also explains the typical attraction of lusty people to anxiety (and risk) which is not avoided but “sadistically” transformed into a stimulus, a source of excitement (an act of sadism against self). This characteristic elevation of the pain threshold that may be understood as the basis of both callousness, as a giving up of the expectations of love from others, and the turning against societal standards, we may call desensitization.
5. Etiological and Further Psychodynamic
Remarks17 Constitutionally the ennea-type VIII individual tends to be mesoendomorphic, and on the whole this ego type is the most mesomorphic18 of all, which suggests that the individual’s “choice” of an assertive and pugnacious interpersonal style has been strongly supported by his constitution. It is also one of the most ectopenic19—and a corresponding lack of cerebrotonia may be posited as the background of this highly extraversive disposition.
It is possible to imagine that the influence of genetically determined somatotonic temperament on character formation is not simple but indirect, inasmuch as a noisy child or one who is excessively vehement in his desires can easily elicit rejection or punishment which, in turn, will stimulate both self-assertion and rebellion. The following vignette illustrates such indirect effect in regard to what appears to be an inborn adventurousness: “I remember as a four year old child running on the beach toward the infinite. They searched for me in a motor boat, and found me beyond the reach of vision. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I am looking at the stars.’ Then my father beat me up.”
It may be generally said that the ennea-type VIII individual has implicitly decided to seek outside the home a better life, and it is not uncommon to find that he has left home early. A lack of care or even an actual lack of home-like environment may be a factor (as in delinquent children in areas of great poverty), and also it is my impression that violence in the home is more frequent than in the life histories of other characters, and in such cases it is easy to understand the development of insensitivity, toughening up, and cynicism.
Yet in other instances the factors leading to disappointment in parental love are not so evident, notably when one among several children manifests these characteristics and others do not. We may think that in such instances a common experience of punishment has been experienced and interpreted differently so that one brother becomes submissive in the expectation of parental love and the other, more humiliated and angry, becomes adventurous in the search for a better environment. Occasionally a factor in the development of this character is identification with another family member, as in the quotation below where pain and the same-type modeling have coincided: “Since I was little I had felt invaded. It was like the invasion of barbarians. Violently assaulted and it was my grandmother who was the boss. My grandmother was distinctly an ‘VIII,’ and I was her right eye; I was the first and the inheritor of all her story.”
In other instances the stimulus for rebellion has been a tyrannical type VI father, which is an understandable background for one who is not only rebellious but who has learned to survive through intimidation.
Though it may be broadly said that ennea-type VIII, like type V, has pessimistically given up on the search for love to the point of cynically doubting good motives and tending to perceive expression of positive feelings as sentimentalism, we may also speak, as in other characters, of a substitution of an original love wish. Just as in type I, search for love becomes a search for respect, and it is in respect that the “proof of love” is felt to be. In ennea-type VIII the “proof of love” is implicitly felt to be in the willingness of the other to be possessed, dominated, used, and—in extreme cases—beaten up. Correspondingly, all these behaviors and attitudes become, in the course of time, love substitutes.
6. Existential Psychodynamics
The over-development of action in the service of struggling in a dangerous world that cannot be trusted is perhaps the fundamental way in which ennea-type VIII character fails to constitute full humanness. To elucidate further its existential interpretation we need to understand the vicious circle by which not only ontic obscuration supports lust, but lust, in its impetuous grasping of the tangible, entails an impoverishment of tender qualities and subtlety which results in a loss of wholeness and thus in a loss of being. It is as if the lusty character, in his impatience for satisfaction, shifts to an excessively concrete notion of his goal as pleasure, wealth, triumph, and so forth—only to find that this reaching, substituted for being, leaves him forever dissatisfied, craving intensity.
The situation may be explained through the paradigm of the rapist—an extrapolation of the lusty predator’s approach to life. He has given up the expectation of being wanted, to say nothing of love. He takes for granted that he will only get what he takes. As a taker, he could not succeed if he were to be concerned with the fancy of other people’s feelings. The way to be a winner is clear: to put winning before all else; likewise, the way to having one’s needs met is to forget the other. The world without others of the more anti-social ennea-type VIII, however, is no more full of true aliveness than that of the schizoid ennea-type V. Just as the schizoid misses the experience of value and being through the loss of relationship, so does the psychopath, in spite of seeming to be contactful, involved, and brimming with intense emotion.
The paradigm of rape can also serve as a background to a further discussion of the semblance of being which the sadistic type fails to know that he is pursuing. The concreteness of a wish that is excessively sensate (here an interest in sexual pleasure not coupled with an interest in relationship) is an image through which we may reflect on how the concretization of the healthy drive for relationship, far from orienting itself to the reality of the situation (as “realistic phallic-narcissists” claim), involves a blatant lack of psychological reality. The situation conveys asexualization of lust-centered personality as a result of the repression, denial, and transformation of the need for love.
Hidden as it may be behind the enthusiastic expansiveness, jollity, and seductive charm of the lusty, it is the loss of relationship, the suppression of tenderness, and the denial of the love need that result in the loss of wholeness and sense of being.
Ennea-type VIII pursues being, then, in pleasure and in the power to find his pleasure, yet through an insistence on overpowering becomes incapable of receiving—when being can only be known in a receptive attitude. By doggedly claiming satisfaction where a semblance of satisfaction can be imagined, much as Nasruddin seeks his key in the market place, he perpetuates an ontic deficiency that only feeds his lusty pursuit of triumph and other being substitutes.
1The connection between gluttony and lust has been observed long ago, it seems, for we may read in Chaucer’s, “The Parson’s Tale” (op. cit.): “After gluttony, then comes lechery; for these two sins are such close cousins that oftentimes they will not be separated.”
2Quoted in Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964).
3op. at.
4Scholtz, F., Die Morelische Anästhesie (Leipzig: 1904).
5op. cit.
6Kraepelin, E., Psychiatrie: Ein Lehrbuch, 2nd.ed. (Leipzig: Barth, 1887).
7Cleckley, H., The Mask of Sanity (St.Louis: Mosby, 1941).
8Fromm, Eric, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964).
9Our ennea-type VIII.
10Horney, Karen, Our Inner Conicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1992).
11Sheldon, W.H., The Varieties of Temperament (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942).
12Jung, C.G., op. cit.
13Coulter, Catherine R., op. cit., Volume 2, all excerpts on Nux Vomica quoted by permission of the author from pp. 3- 46.
14op. cit., pp 12-13.
15Fromm, Erich, op. cit.
16Reich, Wilhelm, Character Analysis, translated by Vincent Carfagno (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972).
17In his chapter on antisocial personality in Cooper et al.’s Psychiatry, William H. Reid reviews some evidence for organic correlates of this syndrome. “The most reliable data stress autonomic characteristics that indicate lowered levels of baseline anxiety, lessened autonomic reaction to some forms of stress, and changes in speed of autonomic recovery from such stress.” According to him “no early developmental experience, or set of experiences, is highly predictive of later sociopathy,” though he adds that “the most important single issue with respect to fathers appears to be whether or not they are ‘sociopathic’.” For “antisocial fathers have been consistently associated with antisocial or criminal behavior in ospring in a statistical sense.”
18i.e., one in which the constitution is mostly “athletic” and secondarily “visceral.”
19That is, low in ectomorphia—that is to say the slender aspect of constitution.
