Hello Fives. For those of you who are interested, here's the Type 5 chapter of Naranjo's 'Character and Neurosis'.
AVARICE AND PATHOLOGICAL DETACHMENT
ENNEA-TYPE V
1. Core Theory, Nomenclature, and Place in the Enneagram
As a spiritual “missing of the mark” or spiritual hindrance, avarice must have naturally
been understood by the church fathers in more than its literal sense, and so we see confirmed
in Chaucer’s “Parson’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales , a reflection of the spirit of his time:
“Avarice consists not only of greed for lands and chattles, but sometimes for learning and for
glory.”1
If the gesture of anger is to run over, that of avarice is one of holding back and holding
in. While anger expresses greed in an assertive (even though unacknowledged) way, greed in
avarice manifests only through retentiveness. This is a fearful grasping, implying a fantasy that
letting go would result in catastrophic depletion. Behind the hoarding impulse there is, we may
say, an experience of impending impoverishment.
Yet, holding on is only half of ennea-type V psychology; the other half is giving up too
easily. Because of an excessive resignation in regard to love and people, precisely, there is a
compensatory clutching at oneself—which may or not manifest in a grasping onto possessions,
but involves a much more generalized hold over one’s inner life as well as an economy of
e ort and resources. The holding back and self-control of avarice is not unlike that of the
anger type, yet it is accompanied by a getting stuck through clutching at the present without
openness to the emerging future.2
Just as it can be said of the wrathful that they are mostly unconscious of their anger and
that anger is their main taboo—it may be said of the avaricious that their avarice is mostly
unconscious, while consciously they may feel every gesture of possession and drawing up of
boundaries as forbidden. It might be said that the avaricious is internally perfectionistic rather
than critical of the outer world, but most importantly the difference between the two ennea-
types lies in the contrast between the active extroversion of the former and the introversion of
the latter, (the introversion of a thinking type that avoids action).
Also ennea-type I is demanding while ennea-type V seeks to minimize his own needs and
claims, and is prone to be pushed around in virtue of a compulsive obedience. Though both
types are characterized by a strong super-ego, they are like cops and robbers respectively, for
the former identifies more with its idealized superego-congruent self, while ennea-type
Videntifes with the overwhelmed and guilty sub-personality that is the object of super-egoic
demands.3
The polarity between pathological detachment and the attachment of holding-on echoes
the polarity in ennea-type I between anger and an over-civilized compulsive virtue. Neediness
in ennea-type V is deeply hidden in the psyche, behind the veil of indifference, resignation,
stoic renunciation. And just as perfectionism nurtures the anger that sustains it, we may also
say here that the prohibition of needs (not simply from their satisfaction but even from their
recognition within the psyche) must contribute to the impoverishment of life that underlies the
urge to hold on.
Ichazo’s word for the fixation corresponding to ennea-type V is “stinginess,” which stands, I
think, too close to “avarice”—the ruling passion or emotion. “Meanness” with its connotation
of an unknowing failure to give would come closer to capturing the dominant aspect of the
ennea-type V strategy in face of the world: self-distancing and the giving up of relationships.
Still better, however, is to speak of being detached, withdrawn, autistic, and schizoid.
2. Antecedents in the Scientific Literature on Character
Just as the image of the anankastics that we find in Schneider smacks of a certain
contamination with the schizoid (in that Schneider emphasizes formality as an expression of
insecurity) there is in Kurt Schneider’s concept of the “sensitive”—the personality disposition
that most resembles our schizoid—some emphasis on the obsessive element, for he tells us that
the more esthenic (i.e. assertive) among these have excessive “moral scruples.” There is no
doubt, however, that Kurt Schneider has in mind our schizoid when he describes the sensitives
as those “subjects that have an increased capacity for impressions with regard to all kinds of
experiences without the ability of expressing them.” He speaks of a “retentive elaboration of
all experiences that is turned against the self.” And adds that “the sensitive individual seeks
firstly the blame for every event or failure in himself.”4
The syndrome of aloof retentiveness has not only been observed but also received much
attention in contemporary psychology.
Aside from the possibility that the schizoid form of retentiveness probably contributed to
Freud’s abstraction of an anal character, it corresponds to the syndrome described by Ernst
Kretschmer, pioneer of systematic characterology. When in his study of schizophrenic patients
at his clinic he described the syndrome that he proposed to call schizoid, the following were
the main group of traits he observed to be the most frequent:
1. Unsociable, quiet, reserved, serious (humorless)
2. Timid, shy, with ne feelings, sensitive, nervous, excitable, fond of nature and books
3. Pliable, kindly, honest, indifferent, silent
Groups two and three stand in certain opposition to one another, forming a contrast
similar to that he described between depression and elation in his cyclothymic type.5 “If we
want to give a short account of the basis of the schizoid temperament,” he says, “we must say:
the schizoid temperament lies between the extremes of excitability and dullness, in the same
way that a cycloid temperament lies between the extremes of cheerfulness and sadness.”
Both among his patients as among the bearers of what he proposed to call “schizothymic”
temperament (among his “normal” acquaintances), Kretschmer had the merit of pointing out
the polarity between hypersensitivity and insensitivity in this personality: sometimes it is one
or the other that is the chief characteristic, while in others an alternation or a transition from
early “hyperaesthesia” to late apathy. More generally, I think, we may say the individual is
characterized by an exaggerated vulnerability and by a self-protective distancing from his
excessively ne and vulnerable feelings. I quote Kretschmer again:
“He alone, however, has the key to the schizoid temperament who has clearly recognized
that the majority of schizoids are not either over-sensitive or cold, but they are over-sensitive
and cold at the same time, and, indeed, in quite different relational mixtures.” “Out of our
schizoid material we can form a continuous series, beginning with what I call the ‘Hölderlin
type,’ those extremely sensitive, abnormally tender, constantly wounded, mimosa-like natures,
who are “all nerves”- and winding up to those cold, numbed, almost lifeless ruins left by the
ravages of a severe attack of dementia praecox, who glimmer dimly in the corner of the
asylum, dull-witted as cows.”
This polarity, Kretschmer emphasizes, is not to be found in the middle of the range. He
finds individuals like Strindberg, who said of himself: “I am hard as ice, and yet so full of
feeling that I am almost sentimental.” “But even in that half of our material, which is
primarily cold, and poor in a ective response, as soon as we come into close personal contact
with such schizoids, we find, very frequently, behind the affectless, numbed exterior, in the
innermost sanctuary, a tender personality-nucleus with the most vulnerable nervous sensitivity,
which has withdrawn into itself and lies there contorted.”
The unsociable (or “autistic”) characteristic of his schizoid is something that could be
understood either in relation to hypersensitivity or to insensitivity toward others, as in the case
of those sensitive natures that “seek as far as possible to avoid and deaden all stimulation from
the outside; they close the shutters of their houses, in order to lead a dream-life, fantastic, poor
in deeds and rich in thought (Hölderlin) in the soft mulled gloom of the interior. They seek
loneliness, as Strindberg so beautifully said of himself, in order to “‘spin themselves into the
silk of their own souls’.” Kretschmer’s view on schizothymia was further elaborated by Sheldon
who endorsed Kretschmer’s threefold conception of human constitution, interpreted the
“aesthenic” body-build as “ectomorphia” (originating in the predominance of the embryonic
ectoderm), and viewed the schizoid disposition as a variable in temperament that he called
“cerebrotonia.”6
Related to ectomorphy, “cerebrotonia” appears to express the function of exteroception,
which necessitates or involves cerebrally-mediated inhibition of both the other two primary
functions, somatotonia and viscerotonia. It also involves or leads to conscious attentionality and
thereby to substitution of symbolic ideation for immediate overt response to stimulation.
Attendant upon this latter phenomenon are the “cerebral tragedies” or hesitation, disorientation
and confusion. These appear to be the by-products of over-stimulation, which is doubtless one
consequence of an over-balanced investment in “exteroception.” Though Sheldon is more
concerned with variables than with types, it is clearly in ennea-type V that we see the highest
expression of both ectomorphic constitution and cerebrotonic traits, among which Sheldon lists
the following twenty as most distinctive:
1. Restraint in Posture and Movement, Tightness
2. Physiological Over-Response
3. Overly Fast Reactions
4. Love of Privacy
5. Mental Over-intensity, Hyper-attentionality, Apprehensiveness
6. Secretiveness of Feeling, Emotional Restraint
7. Self-conscious Motility of the Eyes and Face
8. Sociophobia
9. Inhibited Social Address
10. Resistance to Habit and Poor Routinizing
11. Agoraphobia
12. Unpredictability of Attitude
13. Vocal Restraint and General Restraint of Noise
14. Hypersensitivity to Pain
15. Poor Sleep Habits, Chronic Fatigue
16. Youthful Intentness of Manner and Appearance
17. Vertical Mental Cleavage, Introversion
18. Resistance to Alcohol and to other Depressant Drugs
19. Need of Solitude when Troubled
20. Orientation Toward the Later Periods of Life.
Many of these traits express the over sensitive aspect of the temperament (Physiological
Over-response,Hyper-attentionality,Apprehensiveness,ResistancetoHabitsand
Unpredictability of Attitude), while others have to do with inhibition and with moving away
from others, such as Restraint in Movement, Secretiveness, Sociophobia, Inhibited Social
Address.
Introversion, the gist of the variable, seems to constitute a convergence of both: a
movement away from the outer to the inner, and sensitivity to inner experiences.
Moving from the realm of temperamental dispositions to character proper, we observe that
“compulsive” or “anankastic” character in the European usage corresponds to ennea-type V and
not ennea-type I as the syndrome called “compulsive personality disorder” in the DSM III. This
is immediately apparent from the opening lines of V.E. von Gebsattel in his pioneering essay
on the existential analysis of the anankastic disposition:7 “What always fascinates us in
encountering the compulsive person is the unpenetrated, perhaps impenetrable, quality of his
being different. Seventy years of clinical work and scientific research have not altered this
reaction. Kept alive by the contradiction between the intimate closeness of the presence of a
fellow man and the strange remoteness of a mode of being completely different from our own,
the a ect of psychiatric amazement never ceases.”
Addressing himself to the anankastic psychopaths of Schneider and others through the
study of a case, von Gebsattel observes a mode of being in the world that I have
already alluded to in the description of avarice at the beginning of this chapter: a getting stuck,
a blocking of the life process.8
While Sheldon, more than Kretschmer even, undertakes to study a temperamental
disposition—which may be the soil of a character but not a character itself—Karen Horney,
speaking out of her psychotherapeutic experience, was to describe the crystallization of an
interpersonal strategy: the neurotic disposition to move away from people and conflicts, the
“solution of detachment.” Like Sheldon—who, in spite of the arbitrariness of his rating the
components of temperaments from one to seven, may appear to be correct in stating that these
may be found in different degrees and combinations—Horney might well have come to
distinguish degrees and forms of expression of the tendency to move away from people. Yet it
is at the same time clear that just as cerebrotonia does, sociophobia (in the sense of
compulsive avoidance of sociability and relation) clearly culminates in the schizoid disposition,
and it is the picture of ennea-type V that we gather from her discussion of the “solution of
detachment.”
I quote from Neurosis and Human Growth 9: “The third major solution of the intrapsychic
conflict consists essentially in the neurotic’s withdrawing from the inner battlefield and
declaring himself uninterested. If he can muster and maintain an attitude of ‘don’t care,’ he
feels less bothered by his inner conflicts and can attain a semblance of inner peace. Since he
can do this only by resigning from active living, ‘resignation’ seems a proper name for this
solution”. “Resignation” she clarifies, “may have a constructive meaning. We can think of many
older people who have recognized the intrinsic futility of ambition and success, who have
mellowed by expecting and demanding less, and who through renunciation of nonessentials
have become wiser. In many forms of religion or philosophy renunciation of nonessentials is
advocated as one of the conditions for greater spiritual growth and fulfillment: give up the
expression of personal will, sexual desires and cravings for worldly goods for the sake of being
closer to God. Give up personal strivings and satisfactions for the sake of attaining the spiritual
power which exists potentially in human beings. For the neurotic solution we are discussing
here, however, resignation implies settling for a peace which is merely the absence of conflicts
… His resignation therefore is a process of shrinking, of restricting, of curtailing life and
growth,”
The distinction she draws here is similar to a parallel one which we drew between
genuine virtue and the false virtue of moralism. It is the case of an introversive, rather than an
extraversive, form of religiosity, where neurotic renunciation stands in place of a healthy
capacity to forgo gratification. Horney tells as that the basic characteristic of neurotic
resignation is distinguished by an aura of restriction, of something that is avoided, that is not
wanted or not done. “There is some resignation in every neurotic. What I shall describe here is
a cross section of those for whom it has become the major solution.”
She begins her description by telling us that “the direct expression of the neurotic having
removed himself from the inner battlefield is his being an outlooker at himself and his life …
Since detachment is a ubiquitous and prominent attitude of his, he is also an outlooker upon
others. He lives as if he were sitting in the orchestra and observing a drama acted on the stage,
and a drama which is most of the time not too exciting at that. Though he is not necessarily a
good observer, he may be most astute. Even in the very first consultation he may, with the help
of some pertinent questions, develop a picture of himself replete with a wealth of candid
observation. But he usually adds that all this knowledge has not changed anything. Of course it
has not—for none of his findings has been an experience for him. Being an outlooker at
himself means just that: not actively participating in living and unconsciously refusing to do so.
In analysis he tries to maintain the same attitude. He may be immensely interested, yet
that interest may stay for quite a while at the level of a fascinating entertainment—and
nothing changes.” Horney’s next observation is that “intimately connected with
nonparticipation, is the absence of any serious striving for achievement and the aversion of
e ort … he may compose beautiful music, paint pictures, write books—in his imagination.
This is an alternative means of doing away with both aspiration and e ort. He may actually
have good and original ideas on some subject, but the writing of a paper would require
initiative and the arduous work of thinking the ideas through and organizing them. So the
paper remains unwritten. He may have a vague desire to write a novel or a play, but wait for
the inspiration to come. Then the plot would be clear and everything would flow from his
pen. Also he is most ingenious at finding reasons for not doing things. How much good would
be a book that had to be seated out in hard labor! And are not too many books written
anyhow? Would not the concentration on one pursuit curtail other interests and thus narrow
his horizon? Does not going into politics, or into any competitive field, spoil the character?”
“This aversion to e ort may extend to all activities. It then brings about a complete inertia to
which we shall return later. He may procrastinate over doing such simple things as writing a
letter, reading a book, shopping. Or he may do them against inner resistance, slowly, listlessly,
ineffectively. The mere prospect of unavoidable larger activities, such as moving or handling
accumulated tasks in his job, may make him tired before he begins”…..”In analysis it appears
that his goals are limited and again negative.
“Analysis, he feels, should rid him of disturbing symptoms, such as awkwardness with
strangers, fear of blushing or fainting in the street. Or perhaps analysis should remove one or
another aspect of his inertia, such as his difficulty in reading. He may also have a broader
vision of a goal which, in characteristically vague terms, he may call ‘serenity.’ This, however,
means for him simply the absence of all troubles, irritations and upsets. And naturally
whatever he hopes for should come easily, without pain or strain. The analyst should do the
work. After all, is he not the expert? Analysis should be like going to a dentist who pulls out
the tooth, or to a doctor who gives an injection: he is willing to wait patiently for the analyst
to present the clue that will solve everything. It would be better though if the patient didn’t
have to talk so much. The analyst should have some sort of X ray which would reveal the
patient’s thoughts.” And she continues: “A step deeper and we come to the very essence of
resignation: the restriction of wishes.” Though we may also speak of resignation in the
cyclothymicennea-type IX—where we find extraverted resignation, resignation in relationship
manifesting as abnegation—in the schizoid personality we find a resignation without
participation, a resignation that goes as far as giving up contact.
Says Horney: “He is particularly anxious not to get attached to anything to the extent of
really needing it. Nothing should be so important for him that he could not do without it. It is
all right to like a woman, a place in the country, or certain drinks, but one should not become
dependent upon them. As soon as he becomes aware that a place, a person or a group of
people means so much to him that its loss would be painful he tends to retract his feelings. No
other person should ever have the feeling of being necessary to him or take the relationship
for granted. If he suspects the existence of either attitude he tends to withdraw.”
The most extreme expression of the pathology may be recognized in the catatonic
syndrome in schizophrenia, for even though the latter constitutes an extreme complication of
the schizoid way of being in the world, precisely because of this it allows us to see a caricature
of some of its traits: unrelatedness, laconism, a seeming flight from the world in which
personal world is relinquished, and a passivity in which the individual seems to surrender his
life and body to others, and the characteristic symptom of exibilitas cerea in which the person
adopts whatever position others manipulate the body into—a caricature of automatic
obedience.
Next in the gradient from psychosis to mental health is Kernberg’s “Narcissistic Personality
Organization,” in which the negative self-image coexists not only with an idealized self-image,
but with an orientation to seek recognition through intellectual or creative excellence.
Better known today than Horney’s description of the “solution of detachment” are
Fairbairn’s observations and reflections on schizoid character—all of them pertinent to our
ennea-type V. In addition to being best known among those who have contemplated the
schizoid syndrome, Fairbairn is known for his claim to the e ect that the schizoid phenomenon
is the root of all psychopathology. This statement reflects, I think, his understanding of the
existential issue of what I am calling “Being Scarcity”—or to use his vocabulary, “ego
weakness” as the root of all psychopathology, and I think that it would have been more exact to
leave it as that, for the schizoid personality is only the one in which this pervasive issue of the
human condition makes itself most apparent. Just as the resigned ennea-type IX is blind to its
blindness, ennea-type V is, in regard to the perception of ontic deficiency, what might be called
a hypersensitive: structurally an introvert and usually an intuitive, he is most attuned to his
internal experiences, and his avarice is interdependent with a sense of impoverishment at the
spiritual level as well as at the psychological and the material.
One of Fairbairn’s findings in his psychoanalysis of schizoid personalities was that beyond
the analysis of superego pathology, schizoid patients were in need of understanding that, their
process of detachment (in transference and in life) constitutes a defense “against a dreaded
activation of a basic relationship in the transference characterized by a libidinal investment of
the analyst experienced as a preoedipal, particularly oral, mother.”10 I have taken the
statement above from Otto Kernberg’s summary, as also the following: “This libidinal
investment seemed a major threat to these patients, a threat derived from the fear that their
love of the object would be devastatingly destructive to the object.” Yet the schizoid’s fear is
not only the fear of destroying the object, it is also one of losing oneself through an excessive
love thirst, being engulfed through the intensity of dependency needs—as R.D. Laing has
pointed out in The Divided Self .
All in all, Fairbairn’s contention of the sense of negative expectation concerning mother
love has contributed a cornerstone to our understanding of this personality, to which he
contributed various other observations, such as noting “the chronic subjective experience of
artificiality and of emotional detachment of schizoid personalities …. these patients’ attitude of
omnipotence, objective isolation and detachment, and marked preoccupation with inner
reality.”11
Let me end by remarking that without mentioning the word avarice, Fairbairn’s
understanding of the schizoid clearly involves the recognition that it involves an unwillingness
of the person to invest herself in relationships and an avoidance of giving.
In DSM III we find our type in the “schizoid personality disorder.”
I quote the correspondent description:
A. Emotional coldness and aloofness, and absence of warm, tender feelings for others.
B. Indifference to praise or criticism and to the feelings of others.
C. Close friendships with no more than one or two persons, including family members.
D. No eccentricities of speech, behavior, or thought characteristic of Schizo-typal Personality
Disorder.
E. Not due to a psychotic disorder such as Schizophrenia or Paranoid Disorder.
F. If under 18, does not meet the criteria for Schizoid Disorder of Childhood or
Adolescence.
There is a personality type in DSM III that is defined on the basis of a single trait, and
which, because of this, may be a diagnosis ascribed to more than one of the characters in this
book: the passive-aggressive personality. It’s resistance to external demands is most typical of
ennea-type V, yet is also a trait that may be found in ennea-types IV, VI, and IX. Theodore
Millon, who was on the committee that originated DSM III, has proposed both a change in
name of passive-aggressive, and a description of the syndrome that takes into account other
characteristics, such as “frequently irritable and erratically moody, a tendency to report being
easily frustrated and angry, discontented self-image … disgruntled and disillusioned with life;
interpersonal ambivalence,” as evidence in a struggle between being independently acquiescent
and assertively independent; and the use of unpredictable and sulking behaviors to provoke
discomfort in others.
On the whole, I get the impression passive-aggressive is one more complication of ennea-
type V, and find corroboration for this impression in the resemblance that Millon 12 points out
between this passive-aggressive personality and compulsive personality, beyond their obvious
contrast (a similarity within contrasts that I have already commented upon), “both share an
intense and deeply rooted ambivalence about themselves and others. Compulsives deal with
this ambivalence by vigorously suppressing the conflicts it engenders, and they appear as a
consequence, to be well controlled and single-minded in purpose; their behavior is
perfectionistic, scrupulous, orderly, and quite predictable. In contrast, the passive-aggressive,
referred to in Millon’s theory as the ‘active-ambivalent,’ fails either to submerge or to otherwise
resolve these very same conflicts; as a consequence, the ambivalence of the passive-aggressives
intrudes constantly into their everyday life, resulting in indecisiveness, uctuating attitudes,
oppositional behaviors and emotions, and a general erraticism and unpredictability. They
cannot decide whether to adhere to the desires of others as a means of gaining comfort and
security or to turn to themselves for these gains, whether to be obediently dependent on others
or defiantly resistant and independent of them, whether to take the initiative in mastering their
world or to sit idly by, passively awaiting the leadership of others.”
Unlike the case of most of our character types I find that the shadow of ennea-type V
appears in more than one of Jung’s descriptions of introverted types.13 Speaking of the
introverted thinking type, for instance, which as we shall see corresponds mostly to our ennea-
type VI,14 it is possible to find some schizoid characteristics, such as “his amazing
unpracticalness and horror of publicity” or the observation that “he lets himself be brutalized
and exploited in the most ignominious way if only he can be left in peace to pursue his
ideas.” Also it is most typical of ennea-type V that “he is a poor teacher, because all the time
he is teaching, his thought is occupied with the material itself and not with its presentation.”
Also in the description of the introverted feeling type, which will be quoted in reference to our
ennea-type IX, traces of ennea-type V overlap, such as “expressions of feeling therefore remain
niggardly, and the other person has a permanent sense of being undervalued …”
In spite of these traces of ennea-type V character in the above-mentioned psychological
types of Jung, it is definitely in the introverted sensation type that we find the best match for
our character. We read, for instance, that:
“He may be conspicuous for his calmness and passivity, or for his rational self-control.
This peculiarity, which often leads a superficial judgment astray, is really due to his
unrelatedness to objects.”
Or:
“Such a type can easily make one question: why one should exist at all, or why objects in
general should have any justification for their existence since everything essential still goes on
happening without them.”
Scanning the descriptions given by Keirsey and Bates 15 of the sixteen pro les obtained
through a test derived from the Myers-Briggs, I find ennea-type V psychology reflected in that
of the “INTP”—i.e., the introvert who has a predominance of intuition over sensation, thinking
over feeling, and perception over judgment. I quote some of their statements:
“The world exists primarily to be understood. Reality is trivial, a mere arena for proving
ideas… .
“The INTP’s should not… . be asked to work out the implementation or application of
their models to the real world. The INTP is the architect of a system and leaves it to others to
be the builder and the applicator …
“They are not good at clinical tasks and are impatient with routine details. They prefer to
work quietly, without interruption, and often alone.
“They are not likely to welcome constant social activity or disorganization in the home …
INTP’s are, however, willing, complaint and easy to live with, although somewhat forgetful of
appointments, anniversaries, and the rituals of daily living - unless reminded. They may have
difficulties expressing their emotions verbally, and the mate of an INTP may believe that
he/she is somewhat taken for granted …”
In the homeopathic tradition the characteristics of ennea-type V may be found in people
with personalities associated with Sepia, which is the remedy claimed to benefit them. 16 The
homeopathic is made from the fresh ink of the cuttlefish—a creature who lives alone rather
than in a group, lives in the crevices of rocks, and ejects ink for camouflage when seeking
escape or stalking its prey. Sepia is associated with women, either withdrawn, dissatisfied, or
contented in a career. One instance is that of women worn out with the cares of home and
children, and not seeming to have the energy for it. Coulter remarks:
“All manifestations of love—marital, parental, filial, and even close friendship—are a drain
on her reserves of energy and an obstacle to her need for a certain amount of privacy and
independence.” She quotes Kent as remarking of them “love does not go forth into affection.”
And comments “love is not absent, but the manifestation of love is benumbed and cannot be
expressed.” She further quotes Hering as finding Sepia people “averse to company” and
elaborates: “she does not want to go out, largely because of the physical e ort which sociability
demands.” The dominant feeling is one of indifference—the wish of wanting to “crawl into her
lair and be left alone, not touched, approached or bothered.” Thus there is not only an
emotional unresponsiveness but a seeking to escape from close emotional ties and obligations.
The wish to emancipate herself from the “burden of love” may be expressed in personality or
a profession.
Coulter observes that the type can be “spirited, creative and attractive, but even when
socially outgoing she may still lack warm sympathy” … “she may appear deficient in feminine
receptivity and the finer shades of emotional responsiveness.” Sepia feels too stressful an
impingement of life on its independent and private meanings, shown characteristically in a
straightforward negativity “whether due to an inability to conceal her nature, a need to feel
rejected, excessive candor, or simply a complete lack of interest in producing a good
impression.”
Also evocative of ennea-type V is the personality picture associated in homeopathic
medicine with Silica. I quote from Coulter: 17
“ T h e inflexibility of flint is manifested on the mental plane in Silica’s ‘obstinacy’
(Boenninghausen) … He is not aggressive or argumentative, will smile, remain pleasant, and
appear mild enough—but still proceeds as he deems best… .”
She describes a child who dislikes boarding school but will only use “passive persuasion”
methods with his parents. She also describes the picture of a young adolescent girl or young
woman, to whom it is impossible to give advice or even give a present. “… This is not from an
overall negativeness but from rigidity of views. The girl (or boy) can be just as rigid and
selective in her judgment of people and thus has particular difficulty finding friends, and later,
an acceptable partner in life. Persons who remain single, not from aversion to the marital state
but from being too exacting—no one is ever quite suitable—will often exhibit Silica
characteristics.”
Coulter compares a Silica individual with the “stalk of wheat,” which is delicate and
yielding and yet provided with a still outer covering. In personality this relative firmness
corresponds to an intellectual stability and a power of concentration, while the individual lacks
vitality and “he may expend so much energy coping with his physical environment that little is
left over for enjoyable living.”
Also fitting the picture of ennea-type V is the observation of forgetfulness and abstraction
if n Silica personalities, their faint-heartedness, lack of courage, and the refusal to shoulder
responsibility. Coulter quotes Whitmont’s likening of the Silica individual to “a timid delicate
white mouse which still fiercely maintains the integrity of its own small territory.”
3. Trait Structure
Retentiveness
As usual, it is possible to find in this character a cluster of descriptors corresponding to
the dominant passion. In it, along with avarice, belong such characteristics as lack of generosity
in matters of money, energy and time, and also meanness—with its implication of an
insensitivity to the needs of others. Among the characteristics of retentiveness it is important to
take note of a holding on to the ongoing content of the mind, as if wanting to elaborate or
extract the last drop of significance—a characteristic that results in a typical jerkiness of mental
function, a subtle form of rigidity that militates against the individual’s openness to
environmental stimulation and to what is emerging, the transition of the present mental state
to the next. This is the characteristic which von Gebsattel has pointed out in “ananchastics” as a
“getting stuck.”18
We may say that the implicit interpersonal strategy of holding on implies a preference for
self-sufficiency in regard to resources instead of approaching others. This, in turn, involves a
pessimistic outlook in regard to the prospect of either receiving care and protection or having
the power to demand or take what is needed.
Not Giving
Also the avoidance of commitment can be considered as an expression of not giving since
it amounts to an avoidance of giving in the future. In this avoidance of commitment, however,
there is also another aspect: the need of type V individuals to be completely free, unbound,
unobstructed, in possession of the fullness of themselves—a trait representing a composite of
avarice and an over-sensitivity to engulfment (to be discussed later). It may be pointed out that
hoarding implies not just avarice, but a projection of avarice into the future—a protection
against being left without. Here, again, the trait represents a derivation not only from avarice,
but also from the intense need of autonomy of the character (see below).
Pathological Detachment
Given the reciprocity of giving and taking in human relationships, a compulsion to not
give (surely the echo of perceiving in early life that it goes against survival to give more than is
received) can hardly be sustained except at the expense of relationship itself—as if the
individual considered: “If the only way to hold on to the little I have is to distance myself from
others and their needs or wants, that is what I will do.”
An aspect of pathological detachment is the characteristic aloofness of ennea-type V;
another, the quality of being a “loner,” i.e., one accustomed to being solitary and who, out of
resignation in regard to relating, does not feel particularly lonely. Seclusiveness is, of course,
part of the broader trait of detachment, since it requires emotional detachment and repression
of the need to relate, to be in isolation. The difficulty that type V individuals have in making
friends may be considered also here, for an important aspect of this difficulty is the lack of
motivation to relate.
Though it is easy to see how detachment can arise as a complication of retentiveness, the
giving up of relationship is interdependent with the inhibition of needs—for it could hardly
be compatible to give up relationships and to be needy, and thus giving up relationship already
implies a relinquishment or minimization of needs. While resignation in regard to one’s own
needs is practically a corollary of detachment, the inhibition of the expression of anger in this
character involves not only resignation in regard to love needs, but also the fear that is present
in the schizoid personality in virtue of its position next to the left corner of the enneagram.
Fear of engulfment
The fear and avoidance of being “swallowed up by others” might be a corollary of the
avoidance of relationships, yet not only this, for it is also the expression of a half-conscious
perception of one’s own suppressed need to relate, and (as Fairbairn has emphasized) a fear
of potential dependency. The great sensitivity to interference and interruption of ennea-type V
individuals is not only the expression of a detached attitude, but also a function of the
person’s proneness to interrupt herself in the face of external demands and perceived needs of
others. In other words, a great sensitivity to interference goes hand-in hand with an over-
docility, in virtue of which the individual interferes all too easily with her own spontaneity,
with her preferences, and with acting in a way coherent with her needs in the presence of
others. Also, in light of this over-docility (understandable as a by-product of a strong repressed
love need) we can understand the particular emphasis in aloneness in ennea-type V. To the
extent that the relationship entails alienation from one’s own preferences and authentic
expression there arises an implicit stress and the need to recover from it: a need to find oneself
again in aloneness.
Autonomy
The great need for autonomy is an understandable corollary of giving up relationships.
Together with developing the “distance machinery” (to use H.S. Sullivan’s expression), the
individual needs to be able to do without external supplies. One who cannot get to others to
satisfy his desires needs to build up his resources, stocking them up, so to speak, inside his
ivory tower. Closely related to autonomy and yet a trait on its own is the idealization of
autonomy which reinforces the repression of desires and underlies a life philosophy much like
that which Hesse puts in Siddhartha’s mouth: “I can think, I can wait, I can fast.”19
Feelinglessness
Though I have already alluded to a repression of needs, and mentioned the suppression of
anger of ennea-type V, it seems desirable to group these descriptors along with others in a
more generalized trait of feelinglessness. It has to do with the loss of awareness of feelings and
even an interference with the generation of feeling, which results from the avoidance of
expression and action. This characteristic makes some individuals indifferent, cold, empathic,
and apathetic. Also anhedonia might be placed here, though the greater or lesser incapacity to
enjoy pleasure is a more complex phenomenon: while ennea-type I is aversive to pleasure,
ennea-type V simply appears as having a diminished capacity to experience it. In this is
implicit, however, the fact that pleasure does not rank high in the scale of values of this
character for it is postponed to more “urgent” drives, such as the drive to keep a safe distance
from others and the drive for autonomy.
Postponement of Action
We may say that to act is to invest oneself, to put one’s energies into use, which goes
against the grain of retentive orientation of type V. Yet, more generally, action can not be
considered as separate from interaction, so when the drive to relate is low the drive to do is
concomitantly lessened. On the other hand, action requires an enthusiasm for something, a
presence of feelings—which is not the case in the apathetic individual. To do is also something
like showing one’s self to the world, for one’s actions manifest one’s intentions. One who
wants to keep his intentions hidden (as the avaricious typically does) will also inhibit his
activity on these grounds and develop, instead of a spontaneous movement and initiative, an
excessive restraint. The characteristic trait of procrastination may be regarded as a hybrid
between negativism and the avoidance of action.
Cognitive Orientation
Ennea-type V is not only introversive (as is implied in moving away from relationships)
but also typically intellectual (as introverts generally tend to be). Through a predominantly
cognitive orientation the individual may seek substitute satisfaction—as in the replacement of
living through reading. Yet the symbolic replacement of life is not the only form of expression
of intense thinking activity: another aspect is the preparation for life—a preparation that is
intense to the extent that the individual never feels ready enough. In the elaboration of
perceptions as preparation for (inhibited) action, the activity of abstraction is particularly
striking, type V individuals lean towards the activity of classification and organization, and not
only display a strong attraction towards the process of ordering experience, but tend to dwell
in abstractions while at the same time avoiding concreteness. This avoidance of concreteness, in
turn, is linked to the type’s hiddenness: only the results of one’s perceptions are offered to the
world, not its raw material.
Related to abstraction and the organization of experience is an interest in science and a
curiosity in regard to knowledge. Also the inhibition of feelings and of action, along with the
emphasis of cognition gives rise to the characteristic of being a mere witness of life, a non-
attached yet keen observer of it, who in this very keenness seems to be seeking to replace life
through its understanding.
Sense of emptiness
Naturally, the suppression of feelings and the avoidance of life (in the interest of avoiding
feelings) constitutes the avoidance of action along with an objective impoverishment of
experience. We may understand the sense of sterility, depletion, and meaninglessness that are
typical of type V as the result of an objective impoverishment in the life of relatedness, feeling,
and doing. The prevalence of such a sense of inner vacuum in modern times (when other
symptomatic neuroses have been relatively eclipsed by the “existential ones”) reflects the
proportion of ennea-type V individuals in the consulting rooms of psychotherapists today. One
psychodynamic consequence of this existential pain of feeling faintly existing is the attempt to
compensate for the impoverishment of feeling and active life through the intellectual life (for
which the individual is usually well endowed constitutionally) and through being a curious
and/or critical “outsider.” Another more fundamental consequence, however, is the fact of
“ontic insufficiency” in stimulating the dominant passion itself—as is the case in each one of
the character structures.
Guilt
Ennea-type V (along with type IV, at the bottom of the enneagram) is characterized by
guilt proneness—even though in type IV, it is more intensely felt—”buffered” by a generalized
distancing from feelings.
Guilt manifests in a vague sense of inferiority, however, in a vulnerability to intimidation,
in a sense of awkwardness and self-consciousness, and, most typically, in the very characteristic
hiddenness of the person. Though guilt can be understood in light of the strong superego of
type V, I believe that it is also a consequence of the early implicit decision of the person to
withdraw love (as a response to the lovelessness of the outer world). The cold detachment of
type V may thus be regarded as an equivalent to the anger of the vindictive type VIII, who sets
out to go it alone and fights for his needs in a hostile world. His moving away from people is
an equivalent to moving against, as if, in the impossibility to express anger, he annihilated the
other in his inner world. In embracing an attitude of loveless disregard, he thus feels a guilt
that is not only comparable to that of the tough-minded bully, but more “visible” since in the
bully it is defensively denied, while here it manifests as a pervasive and Kafkaesque guilt
proneness.
High Super-ego
The trait of high super-ego may be regarded as interdependent with guilt: the superego’s
demanding results in guilt and is a compensatory response to it (not unlike the reaction
formation involved in the high super-ego of ennea-type I). Like the type I individual, type V
feels driven, and demands much out of himself as well as of others. It may be said that ennea-
type I is more externally perfectionistic, ennea-type V internally so. Also, the former holds on
to a relative identification with his super-ego, while the latter identifies with his inner
“underdog.”
Negativism
A source trait related to the perception of the needs of others as binding, and also a form
of rebellion against one’s own (superegoic) demands, is that which involves, beyond an
avoidance of interference or influence, a wish to subvert the perceived demands of others and
of oneself. Here we can see again a factor underlying the characteristic postponement of action,
for sometimes this involves a wish not to do that which is perceived as a should, a wish not to
“give” something requested or expected, even when the source of the request is internal rather
than societal. A manifestation of such negativism is that anything that the individual chooses to
do on the basis of true desire is likely to become, once an explicit project, a “should” that
evokes a loss of motivation through internal rebellion.
Hypersensitivity
Though we have surveyed the insensitive aspect of type V, we also need to include its
characteristic hypersensitivity, manifest in traits ranging from a low tolerance of pain to fear of
rejection.
It is my impression that this trait is more basic (in the sense of being psychodynamically
fundamental) than that of feelinglessness and that, as Kretschmer 20 has proposed, emotional
dullness sets in precisely as a defense against the hypersensitive characteristic. The
hypersensitive characteristic of ennea-type V involves a sense of weakness, a vulnerability and
also a sensitivity in dealing with the world of objects and even persons. To the extent that the
individual is not autistically disconnected from the perception of others, he is gentle, soft and
harmless. Even in his dealing with the inanimate environment this is true: he does not want to
disturb the way things are; he would like, so to speak, to walk without harming the grass on
which he treads. Though this hypersensitive characteristic may be ascribed, together with the
cognitive orientation and introversive moving away from people, to the cerebrotonic
background of the type, we can also understand it as partly derived from the experience of
half-conscious psychological pain: the pain of guilt, the pain of unacknowledged loneliness, the
pain of emptiness. It seems to me that an individual who feels full and substantial can stand
more pain than one who feels empty.
Lack of pleasure and of the feeling of insignificance, thus, would seem to influence the
limit of pain that can be accepted, and hypersensitivity itself, no doubt, stands as a factor
behind the individual’s decision to avoid the pain of frustrating relationships through the
choice of isolation and autonomy.
4. Defense Mechanisms
Though it is possible to speak of reaction formation in connection with the super-egoic
aspect of type V (i.e., the good boyish or good girlish, not greedy and not angry characteristics)
it is not reaction formation that predominates in type V character—but isolation.
Of course, what is meant by isolation in this technical sense of the word is not the
behavioral isolation of a schizoid in the social world—and yet there seem to be some relation
between interpersonal isolation and the defense mechanism called isolation in Psychoanalysis,
i.e., between the interruption of the relationship with others and an interruption of the
relationship with oneself or with the representation of others in one’s inner world.
Anna Freud describes isolation as a condition in which the instinctive drives are separated
from their context, while at the same time persist in awareness. Matte-Blanco,21 speaking of
painful traumatic experiences, says that it can be observed in cases when the intellectual
content of what has occurred is isolated from the intense emotion that was experienced,
“which is coolly recollected by the patient as if it referred to something that happened to
somebody else, and does not matter to him”. In these cases, he adds, “it is not only the
emotional content that is isolated, but the connection bearing within the intellectual content
itself, which results in the loss of the true and deep meaning of the traumatic experience and
of the instinctive impulses that have been at play in relation to it. The result of this is, then,
the same as in repression through amnesia.”
The concept of isolation has been applied to the process of separating an experience from
the contextual horizon of experience through the interpolation of a mental vacuum
immediately after. The symptom of blocking in schizophrenia may be said to correspond to an
extreme form of self-interruption through a sort of stopping of mental activity. This process
was called by Freud motor isolation and interpreted as a derivative of normal concentration
(in which also the irruption of thoughts or mental states is prevented). Matte-Blanco comments
further: “In the normal process of directing the stream of thoughts the ego may be said to
engage much isolation work.”
The mechanism of ego splitting is closely related to that of isolation and just as
prominent in type V. While splitting in the psyche is a general characteristic in neurosis (and is
implicit in the separation of super-ego, ego and id), ego-splitting proper—in which
contradictory thoughts, roles, or attitudes coexist in the conscious psyche without awareness of
contradiction—is more prominent in type V than in any other, and explains not only the
simultaneity of grandiosity and inferiority but also the simultaneity of positive and negative
perceptions of others. We may say that isolation is a core of type V character in that the
characteristic detachment not only from people but more generally from the world (including
one’s own body) depends on the inactivation of feelings and also corresponds to an
avoidance of the situation in which feelings normally arise: an interruption of the life process
in the service of feeling-avoidance.
The incongruence of aloofness with the ordinary human need for contact is maintained
through a dulling of the emotional life; at other times in the more hypersensitive variety of
individual, it exists side by side with intense feelings, which appear in greater association with
the aesthetic and the abstract than with the interpersonal world. Also the avoidance of action in
type V may be seen in light of an avoidance of feeling and of the isolation mechanism, and
would deserve the name of motoric isolation better than the interruption of thoughts and the
disturbance of gestalt perception through mental blocking.
Where there is remoteness not only from others but also from the world, action is
unnecessary, and conversely, the avoidance of action supports the avoidance of relationship.
As in other characters here too we may ask ourselves whether the mechanism of isolation
has arisen in connection with a particularly avoided realm of experience, so that its typical
operation matches a typical repressed content. The answer seems to be given by the enneagram
structure itself, for once more we may understand that the attitude of type V is most opposite
to that of type VIII, and it would seem that its over-control, diminished vitality, and disposition
not to invest itself in any particular course of action or relationship entails a corresponding
taboo on intensity and fear of potential destructiveness. Type V is the very negation of lusty
superabundance, and thus we are invited to think about the mechanism of splitting as arisen
from an individual’s way of protecting himself against a primitive and impulsive response to
the environment. His skill in separating himself conceptually and analytically considering the
aspects of a situation allows him to see such situations as something unrelated to personal
needs—and thus leads to the restriction of personal needs that goes hand-in-hand with avarice
in self-spending.
5. Etiological and Further Psychodynamic Remarks 22
As a group ennea-type V individuals constitute the most ectomorphic in the enneagram,
and it is reasonable to think that a cerebrotonic disposition has contributed to the “choice” of a
moving away as a solution to the problems of life. Occasionally the individual has memories
of fear related to a sense of physical fragility.
What is most striking in regard to the form of love deprivation in the story of ennea-type
V is early onset, so that the child never had an occasion to establish a deep bond with its
mother. Unlike ennea-type IV whose emotional reaction is that of mourning a loss, ennea-type
V feels an emptiness and does not know what he is missing. The syndrome of hospitalism
described by Spitz—in which children provided with nourishment but not with maternal care
may languish to the point of death—seems emblematic of what happens more subtly in the
aloof adult who suffers from apathy and a depression without sadness.
The situation of mother deprivation (literal or psychological) may be complicated by a
lack of alternative relationships when the child is the only one in the family and the father is
either distant or the mother jealously interferes with the child’s relationship to him.
Unrelatedness to others in such instances stems from the lack of a deep relationship experience
at home.
Another element often encountered in the childhood of ennea-type V is that of a
“devouring,” invasive, or excessively manipulative mother.23 Before such a mother the child
protects his inner life by withdrawing and learns to be secretive.
These and other experiences contribute in the story of the ennea-type V individual to a
sense that it is better to go it alone in life, that people are not loving or that it is “bad
business” to relate to others for what love they offer is manipulative and entails the
expectation of receiving too much in exchange. Thus life is organized around not needing
others and saving one’s resources.
As is well known in connection with schizophrenia research, schizoid persons often have a
schizoid parent. I know somebody in whom both parents were schizoid: “They formed a
couple that was like a capsule, a world apart.” She says, “I lacked nothing but I never knew
what was happening at home. When I was little my mother jokingly answered when I called
her, after not responding for a while: ‘I?, I am not your mother!’ “
No less common, however, is the antecedent of a type VI parent. A young man with an
ennea-type VI father and an ennea-type IV mother reports: “I felt a little caged in, the best was
outside, my greatest interest has been to run away, to be far from my parents. I had a di cult
time with my parents because they constrained me too much, and my solution was to escape
inwardly. Even when I was able to move away outwardly I continued to do so.
“If I had learned to disappear or not be there or the idea of abandonment, I sometimes
wonder if it started when the doctor abandoned me when I was to be born. The nurses said, he
just left for lunch and they tied my mother’s legs together. Another abandonment, maybe I
learned from was, as a baby in the crib, my parents left the phone o the hook and they
worked in a restaurant and they said, ‘We listened sometimes to see if you were crying or not
and then we’d come’.”
As in the case of ennea-type VIII, ennea-type V seems to have given up in the search for
love. To the extent that his dependency needs are only under control, however, he longs for a
love that is expressed through the willingness to leave him alone, without demands, deception,
or manipulation. The vehemence of the ideal militates—as in other instances—against its
earthly realization.
6. Existential Psychodynamics
While it makes much sense to view the schizoid disposition as a withdrawal in the face of
assumed lovelessness, and it is useful to take into account the fact that the sense of lovelessness
continues to exist not only as a “phantom pain” but also as a result of the fact that his basic
distrust leads him to invalidate the positive feelings of others towards him as manipulative—I
think that a whole new therapeutic vista opens up when we take into account the
repercussions of an emptiness which the individual inadvertently creates precisely through the
attempt to fill it up. Thus we may say that it is not just mother love that the adult type V is
needing right now, but true aliveness, the sense of existing, a plenitude that he sabotages
moment after moment through the compulsive avoidance of life and relationship.
Thus it is not in receiving love that lies his greatest hope (particularly since he cannot
trust other people’s feelings) but in his own ability to love and relate.
Just as inwardness is animated by a thirst for enrichment and ends up in impoverishment,
so also a misplaced search for being perpetuates ontic obscuration. The self-absorbed schizoid
would remove himself away from the interfering world; yet in the act of thus removing
himself, he also removes himself from himself.
An implicit assumption in ennea-type V is that being is to be found only beyond the
realm of becoming: away from the body, away from the feelings, away from thinking itself.
(And so it is—yet with a “but”; for it can only be perceived by one who is not avoiding the
body, the feelings, and the mind).
While it is easy to understand grasping as a complication of ontic thirst, it may be well to
dwell on how grasping is also—together with avoidance—at its source. The process is
conveyed by the story of Midas, who in his wish for riches, wished that whatever he touched
turned into gold. The unanticipated tragic consequences of his wish—the turning into gold of
his daughter—symbolizes, better than conceptual thinking alone can convey, the process by
which reaching for the most valuable can entail a dehumanization—and reaching for the
extraordinary, an impoverishment in the capacity to value the ordinary.
1 p. 595, The Canterbury Tales, modern English version by J.U. Nicholson (New York: Garden City Books, 1934).
2 See von Gebsattel’s analysis below.
3 As I have pointed out in the discussion of ennea-type I, I think that what they have in common have caused them to be
confused at times—notably in the observations of Freud, Abraham and Reich on anal and compulsive characters. While
the ennea-type I individual is frugal, a consciously generous intent makes it quite di erent in regard to economic
avoidance of e ort and the loss of freedom or autonomy involved in work commitment.
4op. cit.
5 Kretschmer, E, Korpebau und Charakter (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1925).
6 Sheldon, William, op. cit.
7 Von Gebsattel, V.E., “The World of the Compulsive” in Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology,
behavior from ennea-type V, where the main motive in stinginess is the fear of remaining without resources and the
edited by Rollo May (New York: Basic Books, 1959).
8 Von Gebsattel, V.E., op. cit.
9 Horney, Karen, Neurosis and Human Growth (New York; W.W. Norton & Co., 1990).
10 Fairbairn, W.R.D., quoted in Otto Kernberg, An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality, (New York: Basic Books,
1952).
11 Fairbairn, W.R.D., Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism (New York: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1985).
12 op.cit.
13 Jung, C. G., op. cit.
14A correspondence con rmed by the illustrative reference to Kant and Nietzsche.
15 op cit.
16 Quoted by permission of the author, Catherine R. Coulter, all excerpts on Sepia are from pp. 125-139, Portraits of
Homoeopathic Medicines, Vol. 1 (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1986).
17 Reprinted with permission, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 67-106.
18 Op.Cit.
19 Hesse, Herman, Siddhartha (New York; New Directions, 1951).
20 Kretchmer, Ernst, Physique and Character: An Investigation of the Nature of Constitution and the Theory of
Temperament (New York: Cooper Square, 1936).
21 Matte-Blanco, Ignacio, Psicologia Dinamica (Santiago: Estudios de Ed. de le Universidad de Chile, 1955).
22 In Siever’s and Kendlers chapter on dealing with the schizoid personality in Cooper et al.’s Psychiatry the authors
say: “Genetic studies suggest that genetic isolation in childhood and adulthood may be observed in the life of
schizophrenics, although results are not uniform in this regard.” He quotes the study claiming that there is “a
constitutionally determined antagonia and a lack of pleasure derived from interpersonal relationship.” Also they quote
overwhelmed by others.”
evidence of there being “inadequate or unreliable mothering, leading to a sense of isolation and a feeling of being
23 What used to be called a schizophrenogenic mother.
