Self-Preservation 6 In Detail

Fear in the Preservation Sphere

The E6s Fear combined with the anxiety for survival of the SP instincts leads the SP6 to be anxious of everyone, and believe that the best way to avoid said anxiety is through warmth. Because they see others as a threat to their survival, they will try to befriend others and align themselves with them to ensure others won't lash out against them. Fear here takes place as a constant submission in order to gain protection. They also have difficulty in looking at things as black and white, as they can see multiple shades of gray in between everything.

Ichazo called SP6 "Affection", resulting in a character that is afraid of everyone, believing that affection is the only assurance^[1], so this excessive need for affectionate treatment leads to the repression of aggression.^[2] Naranjo would say that fear in the conservation sphere is a insecurity and unprotection, this character wants the warm benevolence of the other to feel that he will not be threatened by loneliness or the inclemency of life and the world, he believes he must be "good", suppressing and inhibiting his aggression and impulses.^[2]

The following Trait Structure are a summarized description of the original descriptions taken from the Enneagram 6 book/Cobardes, desafiantes y fanáticos: Las formas del Miedo. The Book was written by devoted followers and students of Claudio Naranjo but published under his name and supervised by him.

Trait Structure^[3]

Guilt

The identification with the aggressor and introjection of an internal persecutor, to defend themselves from external threats, entail the development of a superego that constantly feeds the feeling of guilt. This self blame is a way of controlling the world: “If it is my fault, I can do something about it.” Then, they look for punishment, as masterfully portrayed in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, all with the hope of placating this uncontrollable self-persecution.

Unconscious behaviors sometimes lead them to “turning themselves in” to get the punishment through which they, uselessly, hope they will be forgiven and “rescued.” This neurotic mechanism leads them to search for the love of one of their parents (usually the father) through the admission of fault and inadequacy, with the goal of forgiveness. Therefore, the conservation E6 sees attaining love and appreciation through their own merits and personal value as impossible.

Persecution

Seeing themselves as constantly at fault, they also feel persecuted: they project their internal persecution externally. It is a form of paranoid thinking which incurs the following: other people are always ready to catch your faults, attack you, and criticize you, and if they do not, it is only because it is convenient for them to hide their intentions at the moment to ensure they punch down the line.

Given that they demand from themselves more and more, they can’t handle that it is other people that are accusing them and they continuously oscillate between victim and accuser.

Accusation

The conservation E6 has the competitive desire to take the place of the authority which tends to cause controversy. They always believe they know how things should be done while submitting to their superiors at the same time. At the same time, they love and hate the authority that they mystify.

It is hard for them to take on responsibility in negative situations (failures, conflicts, etc.) out of fear of being vulnerable and the other taking advantage of them. They accuse with the purpose of defending themselves and ensuring that others don’t accuse them.

Worry

They obsessively search to confirm what they are and what they do. The dominant fear is of failing and doing wrong; and it is so dominating that it blocks action or expression, and is as if they lacked an internal method to determine the validity of a personal choice. Prior to action, a long and troubling process leads them to ruminate with a rigidity that turns into pure inaction. The fear of judgment compromises doing, with inhibition leading them to known or comfortable goals.

In the work environment, they choose to do things they are sure of. They avoid changes in the workplace for fear of not being able to deal with them, of lacking the ability or knowledge; they do not propose things but rather hope that others do for them.

They do not like to improvise, they prefer to prepare before new situations, out of fear of ridicule. The moment of confrontation with the other is very stressful. The feeling is always that they are not ready enough. They need continual confirmation, by the people they trust in, that they are doing the right thing. When this confirmation does not come to them, they mentally review, typical of an insecure person, what they have said or done.

Indecision and Doubt

Their thoughts are centered on subjective content, to defend themselves from what they do not perceive clearly. But, they do not recognize having departed from absolutely subjective premises. Their primary goal is to demonstrate (especially to themselves) that their idea is valid. A “cogito, ergo cogito” complicates things to such a point that their thought eventually remains in the hands of doubt.

Doubt is connected with self-invalidation and ambivalence. They constantly devalue themselves but at the same time have a great self-concept. They feel persecuted (in extreme cases can lead to a paranoid schizophrenia). They even doubt what they doubt. They are suspicious of others and suffer from chronic uncertainty about which action to take.

They love and hate the paternal figure that represents authority. They desire to please and attack. They go through phases of contact and withdrawal: the desire for a relationship and for fusion is as strong as the fear that they will completely become vulnerable. They have not built the ability to establish clear boundaries, and they move with extreme ambivalence between their desire to satisfy their own needs and fear of losing the relationship with the other.

Due to this fear, while the E9 has given up on maintaining the difference between the self and the other therefore solving the conflict, the E6 invaded by the threat constituted by the other, withdraws to protect the self, inhibiting any kind of decision and, therefore, any action, whether it be at an interpersonal level with an external other, or at an intrapsychic level with a self understood as the essential set of emotions and needs of the other.

Passivity

The issue of control is basic in childhood and adolescence both among their school peers and their loved ones. The message received is: “The world is dangerous; you are weak and influenceable and, therefore, we are the ones who will guide you because we know what is adequate for you.”

Introversion

Between the psychological types described by Jung, the conservation E6 corresponds to the reflective introvert. The introvert, locked in themselves, stays clear of too much contact with external reality. This introvert is characterized by the primacy of thought: the ideas that they have of other people affect their relationships, without them realizing the distance that they are introducing into them. They have a negative relationship with the other, which comes from the indifference to rejection. Thought tends to disarm the adversary. The other is always a little neglected or surrounded by measures of caution they defend themselves from external demands with.

The conservation E6 fears that emotional manifestations of the other will overcome them. They prefer reading to overt social contact, are introspective, schedule their activities, and control their impulses and feelings.

Lack of trust

The first psychosocial structure that the child learns, according to Erickson, is trust. With milk, the child incorporates their mother and nutrition. The derived wellness makes the surrounding objective world acceptable: this is the base upon which we base our mental world.

“I am what I get,” the kid could claim, in the sense that they trust themselves and others by the quantity and quality of the security of what they’ve received. The conservation E6 has been unable to incorporate the feeling of wellness connected to the relationship with a nutrition-bringing mother, and as a consequence, they have not been able to build this trust on security. This lack has made them insecure and fearful.

Ambivalence

The conservation E6 was an over-protected child who did not feel accepted in their own true needs, which came with a recognition of their own less positive qualities.

If the child does not get help in their efforts of individuation to be who they are, or is pushed toward a definition of themselves that satisfies the representation of their parent over their true nature, there are two possibilities: submitting or rebelling. Or the two reactions together, which is what usually happens.

At first, the child rebels, but over time, they end up accommodating themselves to the demands and needs of their parents to avoid rejection and the withdrawal of affection, to not fall flat with disapproval, and in practice, loneliness.

In their ambivalence, the conservation E6 cannot live serenely with adaptation nor rebelliousness: both polarities are unsatisfactory for them and they live in an irreconcilable dilemma between freedom and obligation.

Self-denial

When they have to choose between what they are, between their project, put out ahead by their own efforts, and others’ projects, which is presented with guarantees of maximum support, the conservation E6 accepts the easiest solution: other’s proposals.

They give up a super important need in this way: realizing their own efforts. At the root of this, they feel a very strong hostility that, unable to manifest it, comes back against themselves in the form of blame. To be accepted, they activate adequate behaviors, like obedience, goodness, and solidarity. These are hard to attain if they are countered with other needs, like a natural selfishness or the need to be oneself, even with that aspect’s own accompanying miseries.

They “eliminate” unacceptable impulses that, in spite of everything, they struggle to carry out. The fear that they can overcome this self-censoring is what we call “anxiety.” In other words, the E6 puts their mind to a self-idealization whose dominant traits are perfection, and feelings of omnipotence and omniscience. In this manner, they make the illusion that they’ve outgrown self-hatred and conquered others’ approval. That they have overcome the base conflict between their need for self-realization and others’ needs.

Submissiveness

In Karen Horney’s description of neuroses, we can see this E6 in the conciliatory personality, whose style of conflict resolution is resignation, particularly in tending to renouncing with submission. The neurotic “resignation” restricted the field of action connected with their own desires.

They can renounce all ambition for success, in that it implies effort and, additionally, the danger of being imprisoned by others’ expectations and responsibilities. They prefer to cultivate intense imaginative activity and fear their elevated ideal of themselves, while they delay the necessary action to make things reality. They tend to be convinced of chasing what they want, which they don’t really know much about. They lose the orientation of action because they do not have contact with desire, nor with its implied emotional aspects. This leads the conservation E6 to a detachment leading them to occasional inertia in the plane of action.

The submissive resignation causes extreme neurotic worry about conflict and punishment. The mechanism of projection is evident through the way they invest others into co-action and hostility instead of recognizing their difficulty to be “free” and themselves.

The conservation E6 is one type who can fall victim to inertia, paralyzed in all aspects of their life. To drain the anxiety at the root, they feed a spooky omnipotent world that does not reveal an authentic position of independence. And with submission they do not take action but rather maintain an ultimate defense stemming from their internal world.

Selfishness and Stinginess

The conservation E6 houses the “crazy” idea that material and emotional resources are scarce and that they can always lack basic things, with a threat toward their own survival. From this erroneous perception, they derive their worried, and “selfish,” attitude with only some material things and emotional relationships.

This selfishness is manifested in an attitude of always putting themselves before others, out of a reaction of fear that they will never be up to the challenge faced. In general, this fear is not conscious, and when it is, they become very ashamed of it and see it as something that should not happen.

Cloudiness

The way of thinking in conservation E6 is always oriented to the past or the future. It is essential to the need for security to predict anything that could happen and to be in a situation to face difficulties, and directly proportional to the distrust in their capacity to do so.

Thinking about the past, in itself, is essential to the maintenance of control over possible errors committed through the feeling of guilt, with the goal of corrective action and finding safety. The feeling of guilt is, additionally, a defense mechanism against pain, from which they cannot be abandoned.

Feeling comes after thought, which conditions it. As Hegel claims: “If emotions are not coherent with thought, that is bad for emotions.” They control, above all, the emotions that could cause conflicts with people significant to them. It is hard that they allow themselves a moment to not think about anything, unless they get validation that it is ok. When this happens, this “not thinking or doing” is very pleasant for them.

Their thoughts are seemingly logical, but only on a superficial level; in their deepest core, they are undefined and cloudy. This allows them to not define themselves to other people, a strategy which maintains their absence of deep commitment, and avoids confrontation and conflict. In reality, emotions controlled like this come back strongly and dysfunctionally when thought no longer allows a solution to problems.

Inhibition

The conservation E6 is very inhibited, in both instinctual impulses and aggression. Their hesitant character is a vacillation between their impulses and an equally intense fearful inhibition that stemmed from a fear of the father or, more widely, authority figures, and has led to a strong superego.

They tend to have the personality, which can last a lifetime, of a “good kid”: someone who ensures they live according to ethics and others expectations, with an ingratiating attitude, often smiling.

Insecurity

Very different from the schizoid E5, who is a true loner, this character’s timid nature is more like a type of stepping aside out of fear of annoying someone or out of insecurity, but truly yearns for closeness, and satisfies their need for emotional support with a few close relationships.

Inefficiency

It is always a laborious process for the conservation E6 to make a decision, or even move: due to their fear of change, it is easier for them to lengthen a situation than to keep moving forward and confront a new challenge. This deliberate slowness, together with the tendency to create a fog to obscure the clarity of things, make them less agile. Like the “fool” in fairy tales who, for fear of making their own decisions, is often manipulated.

Fantasy

This type is much more of a dreamer than a doer, substituting reality with fantasy. A certain inefficiency is the other side of their inclination toward their internal life and noble ideals.

The inhibition of emotional expression makes them a hypersensitive and fantasizing character, blocking them from action and instinctual spontaneity.

For a strategy oriented toward controlling commitment, dreaming of fusion with another is more functional than a tangible relationship, which would bring confrontation.

Without a right

The conservation E6 has always felt like a stowaway: someone who got on board without a ticket: in their family, in love, at work. They are the disinherited heir, the wife abandoned at the altar, the laid off worker. It is as if the shadow of these possibilities never abandoned them, ever present.

Suspicious

The conservation E6 is always alert, looking for signs and indicators of hidden meanings (opposite of the E3 who wants to have everything under control). They reflect too much!

They also like instructions. As dutiful distrusters, they resolve conflicts trusting in logic. While the E7 uses intellect as a strategy, the E6 shows a fanatic loyalty to reason. To feel confident, they adopt the strategy of searching for problems: they must have them in order to solve them.

Claudio Naranjo's Self-Preservation 6 Description^[4]

E6 Conservation (Self-Preservation) – Warmth

The E6 conservation is the opposite of the E6 social. This one is warm and ambiguous, insipid, sappy. It does not come to him to say that this or that is white or black. It takes a lot of courage to say something is black or white. For him it is better to say: “oh, there are several types of shades of gray in between. And I don't really know what kind of gray we're talking about, because life is very complex.” And so he can go on endlessly, always beating around the bush.

We have a person here who needs a lot of protection. He is afraid of not being protected, a fear that manifests as insecurity. And his characteristic passion is the need to have something similar to friendship: a little warmth. What characterizes the E6 conservation among the three types of the six, is precisely this search for heat. They are teddy bears. They want to feel the embrace of a family, to be in a warm place, in a familiar environment where there are no enemies.

In social contact there is a kind of alliance formation of “I am not going to hurt you and you are not going to hurt me”, “I am your friend, be my friend”. Freud said that such alliances were the essence of friendship, but of course they are only the essence of a neurotic friendship: coming together in the presence of a common enemy, huddled together in the face of danger. The “I support you and you support me” phenomenon is humanly general, but the conservation six does this constantly, in its yearning for a small, warm world.

Sandra Maitri's Self-Preservation 6 Description^[5]

6+Self-Preservation – Warmth

Warmth describes the style of Self-preservation Sixes. They are warm, friendly, and affable, making themselves likable to others as a way of ensuring their survival. The term Ichazo used for this subtype is affection, indicating that this is what they see as key to preserving themselves. Perceiving others as a threat to their survival, Self-preservation Sixes use their geniality to befriend and align themselves with others to offset the possibility of others turning against them. The passion of fear manifests here in this apprehensiveness around their selfprotection.

Beatrice Chestnut's Self-Preservation 6 Description

Self-Preservation 6 Subtype description (2021)^[6]

This subtype is warm and friendly. They disguise their fear by being soft and kind, and not aggressive. They feel fear as separation anxiety and try to attract strong protectors and allies to feel more protected. They are actively fearful and often “phobic,” running away from danger (flight, not fight). They experience the most doubt and uncertainty, and trust others more than themselves. They are the most fearful of being angry, and they hesitate the most and ask the most questions. But they don’t answer any.

If this is your subtype, your way of coping with fear makes you dependent on others for protection. You keep people from attacking you by appearing nice, warm, and friendly. To feel safe, you may want to run away from situations that make you fearful. You may fear others’ aggression and not feel comfortable expressing yours. You can get lost in doubt and uncertainty. While you want to feel certain, you doubt everything (even your doubt), which makes making decisions and taking action difficult. You will tend to have a hard time owning your power and authority

Self-Preservation 6 Subtype summary (2021)^[10]

Self-Preservation Sixes express the passion of fear through a need for protection, for friendship, and for banding together with others. In seeking protective alliances, SP Sixes endeavor to be warm, friendly, and trustworthy, which is why they bear the name “Warmth.” This most “phobic” of the Sixes has difficulty expressing anger, feels uncertain, and engages in a lot of self-doubt. For SP Sixes, fear manifests as insecurity, and they focus on relationships as a way of feeling safer in the world.

Self-Preservation 6 Subtype description (2021)^[10]

The Self-Preservation Six: “Warmth

In the Self-Preservation Six personality, fear manifests as insecurity. Self-Preservation Sixes have a fear related to survival—a fear of not being protected that fuels a driving need for protection through friendship and other kinds of alliances with others. This is the most phobic of the three Six subtypes; this is the Six subtype who feels fear the most.

Perceiving the world as dangerous, Self-Preservation Sixes seek friendly connections and alliances, and to do this they endeavor to be friendly, trustworthy, and supportive—as good allies are supposed to be. As Naranjo clarifies, “not trusting themselves enough, they feel alone and incapable without outside support.” Self-Preservation Sixes want to feel the embrace of the family, to be in a warm, protected place where there are no enemies. They search for an “idealized other” for protection, and they can have issues that look like separation anxiety. Like a child who needs to hold on to the mother, these Sixes don’t feel confident in defending their own self-interests and survival.

These Sixes seek to escape anxiety by seeking the security of protection; therefore, they become dependent on others. They have a passion for compensating for the fear of separation, which manifests as a warm and friendly temperament. Their driving need is therefore for something like (neurotic) friendship or warmth, which makes this subtype the warmest of the Sixes. They tend to be in a good mood and have a generally pleasant disposition. They look for a bond of intimacy and trust in their relationships, and they fear disappointing others, especially those who are closest to them. Being warm is their way of getting people to be friendly so they won’t be attacked.

Self-Preservation Sixes fear anger, aggression, provocation, and confrontation. Being afraid of other people’s aggression means they can’t let their own aggression out. As Naranjo explains in describing this Six, making people like you means being good, and being good means not being angry. Naranjo asserts that “the taboo on aggression that results from the needs of dependency weakens this Six in the face of others’ aggression and contributes to their insecurity and their need for external support.”

There is a lot of hesitation, indecision, and uncertainty in the Self-Preservation Six personality. These Sixes ask many questions, but they don’t answer any. They doubt themselves, and they doubt their doubt. Feeling uncertain, and unable to find a satisfying sense of certainty, Self-Preservation Sixes have a difficult time making decisions. They see the world in terms of ambiguity—as “gray” rather than “black and white.” People with this subtype can’t dispel their sense of doubt and uncertainty. Because of their fundamental sense of insecurity and their habit of questioning and doubting, they never feel ready or able. They also feel a lot of blame and guilt, even assuming or feeling the blame of others.

There are two realities for Self-Preservation Sixes: an external reality of warmth, tenderness, serenity, and peacefulness, and an inner reality of fear, guilt, anguish, and torment. Their head and heart are separated—they feel heart-centered on the outside, but are head-centered internally.

As the most phobic of the three Sixes, the avoidant Self-Preservation subtype equates love with protection, and in looking for love they search for a source of security to compensate for an inner sense of insecurity. This Six wants to find a strong person to lean on, and they may be excessively friendly and giving as a way of preventing an attack from outside. In order to feel the strength they are lacking, the Self-Preservation Six attracts the affections or protection of somebody strong—the more forceful presence of another helps them to feel safer.

Self-Preservation Sixes can thus look like Type Twos in that they are warm and friendly and put a lot of energy and attention into the development of relationships with others. Like Type Twos, these Sixes tend to lead with affection and accommodate others as a way of forging connections—but unlike Twos, their deepest motivation is to create safety, not to gain approval in support of pride.

Linda, a Self-Preservation Six, speaks:

I live in a small community governed by a homeowners' association. Initially, I was comforted that we could come together as a group to create guidelines and rules that I assumed would make for less conflict between neighbors and more security. I made it a point to meet and establish a comfortable relationship with each of them. I volunteered to be on the board, and even offered to lend my professional expertise to work with the entire group on our community values and vision.

Over time, though, I saw that compliance to the governing principles was lax and enforcement was selective or nonexistent. Four years ago a situation arose in which my rights were being violated by a neighbor, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, the board sided with the neighbor. In one fatal stroke my carefully natured allies became dangerous enemies, rendering me defenseless because of my fear of invoking further attack should I try to defend myself or my interests.

My shock and anger at their betrayal quickly devolved into a sense of guilt, shame, and anxiety so profound that I could no longer attend homeowner meetings, speak with my neighbors, or even walk around the block because of my fear of being "attacked." I became obsessed with phantom conversations in my mind, composing just the right speech that would win them back or what I would say or do to these people for revenge, if only I had the courage to do so. On the outside, I try to act friendly, but on the inside I feel fearful and contemptuous. This dissonance is exhausting. All I want to do now is sell the house and escape from this place and these people.

Specific Work For The Self-Preservation Six on the Path from Vice to Virtue^[10]

Self-Preservation Sixes can travel the path from fear to courage by saying things directly instead of being vague; making decisions instead of staying lost in question; and having the fortitude to fulfill their own needs rather than always looking to others for support and protection. If you are a Self-Preservation Six, you can work toward embodying courage by giving voice to your aggression in conscious, constructive ways. Take the risk to learn that you can draw on your own aggression and confidence more actively in support of yourself. Challenge yourself to break out of the compulsion to always need to be good and docile, and practice allowing yourself to be angry. Have the courage to say more clearly what your really think, especially when your fear others might disapprove. State your opinions and preferences, not from a place of reactivity under duress, but from a calm place of confidence that's more connected to your power and strength. Risk being "bad," getting mad, and expressing more of who you are without apology or doubt. Have the courage to own your power and authority in the world without needing to project it onto others. Rather than expecting support from others, own your many positive qualities such that you can be more confident in yourself. Work to have a more conscious sense of your strength and strength of purpose, knowing you have the courage to support yourself in the world in whatever ways your might need to.

Haiki Self-Preservation 6 Description^[7]

Self-Preservation Six: Warmth

Self-Preservation Sixes are the softest Six subtype. In contrast to the Social Six, they do not need as many rules to follow and they can relax a bit more. They are not as strict with the idea of good and bad and they can comfortably navigate the scale of grays that separate white from black. Sometimes, they can be like teddy bears and can be quite emotional.

They are very reliable people who are often nice to be around. This being said, they lack a bit of impulse in life to be able to demonstrate the potential that they have. Because of this, they lack a kind of direction and this leads them to go around in circles more than they need to.

They have a tendency to look for protection in others, and authority is very important to them. Because of this, they tend to find it, and if they trust it, they feel like they can relax under its umbrella. Therefore, in contrast to a Sexual Six, it is harder for them to openly distrust and call out people above them and even those at their level. With all of these qualities, they are the kings and queens of alliances. From these bonds, they feel that the other respects them and they will not be attacked by people in their close environment. This making of alliances could seem unproblematic; however, the problem is the excess of alliances, and more than anything, the reason why they look for them: under the surface, they do not trust the other.

With all of this being said, this Six pays a lot of attention to their bonds and they seek to be able to reference the people who can protect them at the right moment. Due to their tactic of self-castration, they can look like Nines in their meekness. They sometimes remain a little infantilized, and due to this, too attached to control. 

Carmen Durán and Antonio Catalán's Self-Preservation 6 Description^[8]

SP6: Warmth -> Harmony

In this subtype, their fear of the world makes them believethat affection is the only way of security. They need “Harmony” in their environment to get out of the sensation of danger. Warmth is the guarantee for this “Harmony.” Conflict reignites the fear of abandonment; the cultivation of a warm environment guarantees the permanence of bonds. The search for affection becomes a passion, generating an attitude of exaggerated dependency on an adult. They present an intolerance of fear, an angst that makes them be excessively compliant with the expectations of others, in an attempt to avoid conflicts. Hiding behind the other is, sometimes, a way of not making themselves responsible for their decisions. This compliance creates an unconscious rebelliousness, and the intolerance of conflict produces, paradoxically, aggressive responses, out of fear, when “Harmony” is broken.

La Mirada Libre's Self-Preservation 6 Description^[9]

E6 Conservation: Warmth

Anyone who has had some type of contact with the animal world will know that when a weaker animal wants to stop an attack, it emits a sign of surrender. In the case of dogs and other similar animals, it lies down on the ground upside down, hides its tail between its hind legs, covering its sexual organs with it and exposing its neck. With this action, he is indicating that he is harmless, putting himself at the total service of the other that he perceives to be stronger than him so that they do not harm him.

This is the preferred strategy of the warm 6, giving warmth to the other so that he perceives that he is harmless and totally loyal with the implicit pact that the other protects him and obtains warmth. Beneath the facade (the good boy/girl facade) hides anger, mistrust, his true personality and everything else... Many times he blames himself to neutralize his persecutor.

In this way, it generates large relationships of dependency under the pact “you protect me and I subordinate myself to you and by the way, I inflate your ego of being the best/the strongest.” Due to his need for protection, he often ends up in relationships with strong or explosive people who, due to their behavior, will keep him on permanent alert, which feeds back his neurotic thinking that "the world is a dangerous place and I need to protect myself."

And they need to protect themselves from physical needs, especially from the cold (if you know someone who is always complaining about being cold when everyone is fine, this is surely a SP6), protection (sun cream, gloves, insecticides... no lack of anything in the bag); as well as emotional needs (responsibilities, commitments, loneliness, abandonment, aggressiveness, etc...).

This dependence on the protection of others generates a great fear of abandonment being, of the three 6 subtypes, the one that develops the least self-autonomy and effective independence. What happens is that you always run into mistrust and the protector is never completely reassuring; control is never enough for the warm 6. Likewise, dependency is frustrating for him because on the one hand he needs it and on the other he would like to get rid of it (dependency can be a likely reason for conflict).

In his childhood, he lacked a mother to help him trust his natural impulses and his ability to satisfy his basic needs, totally delegating his need for support to her.

Sometimes you can see it in his frightened face, but normally he doesn't show it, adopting a soft, affable and relaxed expression, very different from what he feels inside. He is afraid of letting out his repressed rage (when he releases it, he becomes very rigid), which also makes it very difficult for him to make decisions because it would endanger his most coveted treasure: safety. The mind becomes confused and fear paralyzes the SP6 when the SP6 is met with its rage due to the rage threatening the SP6’s security.

The dominant passion of conservation, warmth, 6, is understood as a longing for a safe, warm and calm situation, in the sense of emotional welcome, serenity and peace.

It is the clearly phobic subtype, its movement is "towards the other" and it is the emotional one out of the three 6 subtypes.

Self Preservation 6 According to Don Riso and Russ Hudson ^[11]

THE SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT IN THE SIX

Responsibility. In the average range, Self-Preservation Sixes attempt to allay their survival anxieties by working hard to build up security through mutual responsibility. They offer service and commitment with the expectation that it will be reciprocated by others. Although they seek secure partnerships, Self-Preservation Sixes tend to make friends slowly: they observe others over time to see if they are trust worthy and truly "on their side." They are more domestic than the other variants and are frequently concerned with maintaining the stability of their home life. They often take care of the security needs of the household: bills, taxes, insurance, and the like.

Self-Preservation Sixes do not easily disguise their anxiety and neediness. In fact, they may use it to gain allies and supporters—vulnerability can elicit help from others. They tend to fret about small things, which can lead to catastrophic thinking and worst-case scenarios. ("The rent is five days late? We're going to be evicted for sure!") Self-Preservation Sixes are usually frugal, and worry a great deal about financial matters. Conflicts with others over resources are common.

In the unhealthy range, Self-Preservation Sixes are extremely clingy, dependent, and panicky. They stay in punishing situations—bad marriages or overly stressful jobs—because they are terrified of being without support. They may grasp at relationships with such forceful anxiety that they end up alienating the very people they want to bond with. Paranoia may also drive them to become more aggressive: they exaggerate dangers and strike out at "enemies" to ensure that no one will be able to threaten them. Ironically, this often ends up destroying their own security systems.

References

[1] "The Arica Training according to John C Lilly and Joseph E Tart"

[2] Naranjo, C. (2017). "Ensayos sobre psicología de los eneatipos"

[3] Naranjo, C. (2017). "Cobardes, desafiantes y fanáticos: Las formas del Miedo" (Translation by enneasixtruths)

[4] Naranjo, C. (2012). "27 personajes en busca del ser"

[5] Maitri, S. (2001). "The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram"

[6] Chestnut, B. (2021). "The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up"

[7] The Haiki Enneagram Website (Link To Subtype Translations)

[8] Durán, C. and Catalán, A. (2009). "Los engaños del carácter y sus antídotos"

[9] Psychology of Ennea-types Volumes by Claudio Naranjo Interpreted by La Mirada Libre

[10] Chestnut, B. (2021). "The Complete Enneagram"

[11]Don Riso and Russ Hudson (1999),The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types