Social 6 In Detail

Fear in the Social Sphere

The adaptation instinct when coming into contact with the fearful passion of the 6 produces a character whose fear transforms into the need to obey laws for acceptance. They attempt to resolve their social insecurity and avoid their fear by adapting to a belief, a group, a leader or a personal moral code, these are the laws they choose to obey. These people, then, become highly dutiful, loyal and devoted. These 6s also have a focus on productivity, efficiency and precision. While the SP6 is never sure, the SO6 can end up being too sure, if there is a clear procedure and guideline to follow, it can calm them down. They are also very afraid of bending what they believe in, they aren't flexible with their beliefs. However, they don't blindly follow ideologies, they first doubt it until they are sure in it. On the other side of the spectrum, it is not uncommon for a SO6 to put trust in a system, only to be disappointed by it and end up developing their own set of rules to follow which they feel is truly just.

Ichazo titled SO6 "Duty", because these people often obey the laws of the group for acceptance^[1], they also have an excessive intellectual control of behaviour that accompanies the repression of their desires.^[2] Naranjo described this subtype as a fanatic who is too afraid of his ambiguity and hesitation, resulting in a prosthesis that protects him from fear, developing somewhat of a "robotic" brain that allows him to know what to do and what to avoid.^[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]

Fear is chronic in the social E6. Fear of what? Fear of life, rejection, anger, conflict, shame, humiliation, to manifest, to be. The "mundification," the encounter with the environment, is a movement plagued by inhibitory episodes. The environment becomes annihilating, alienating.

Alienation

The “fearful” personality of social anchoring howls: “I get out of myself, my desires and needs, to capture your expectations,” “I focus on what you want from me,” and “I become what you expect from me.”

In short, “I am you, I am what you have to be. I become alien to myself and find you adapting, normalizing me and adjusting to what the world expects of me.” One participant shared these introjected messages: “Never be like your father.” “It was one of the phrases that my mother repeated to me during my childhood. I gave up the father to earn her gaze and her approval.” Very normative and demanding, her love was conditional: “If you behave badly I won't love you,” “be obedient to your mother.” The list of introjects pointing in the same direction would be endless. “I remember as a constant the environment of judicious tension and little acceptance of my mother towards my father. In this text I lost myself, I was devoured. Today is the day I remember my father as a character that is not entirely real, a fictional character, like in a story.”

Personal power is relegated to adherence to the norm and submission to authority. The annihilation of the vital permission to decide from one's own sovereignty culminates in the fear of freedom. He renounces the instinctive in the face of lofty ideals, in an “exit from himself” to become a “foreigner” of himself.

The everyday

Let us point out at the outset a contradictory global tone where either an obsessive rigidity appears, or an alternation of order and relatively precise management with the chaotic.

Anxiety and doubtful rumination. The turbulent anxiety, restlessness, alertness is omnipresent in everyday life. Do not trust the course of events: some catastrophic event will happen. Chronic doubt is added to this paranoid ideation, since the decision does not spring from self-listening, from the connection with the intimate space, but from the anxious question of what is the correct option.

There is a lack of permission to explore, to make mistakes (natural learning process: trial and error). Inhibition due to fear of not complying with what is expected generates chronic rumination.

Chronophobia

Time is experienced as a persecutory presence. The “materiality,” the daily issues, are experienced with little lightness. The practical aspects, the economics, the food, come into friction with lofty ideals, and entail an internal experience of time covered in anguish. To arrive, not to arrive, how to arrive... Time management is conflictive, lacking in fluency. The clocks become heartbeats of demand.

Retentivity

Expenditure is often conflictive, with guilt and a propensity for austerity, sobriety, and moderation, from messages in education and vital attitudes captured in the family atmosphere. Retentivity is a security handle.

This position is reinforced by the focus on the imperishable. We observe an enormous difference between the habits associated with the worldly and with the elevated; between the fleeting, secondary and superfluous, and the ideal. Many of the allowed expenses are guaranteed to be “excellent” or durable: books, studies, travel, music, art, family needs, obligations, and work.

In one of the meetings, a mother commented that she did not allow her son to go on the graduation trip. He was the only one in her class who stayed home, despite being one of the best academically. “It seemed to me a superfluous expense for his thirteen years. And he had not yet done any special merit, beyond his obligation.”

Metaphysical attitude and Taboo of egoism

A “metaphysical” varnish, together with the propensity for sobriety, gradually forges a chronic attitude of austerity that results in daily renunciations.

In many cases a blockage of permission appears: the absence of the right to “give oneself” or, at least, clear difficulties, in a clear collision between “ascetic ideals” and aspects considered superficial, banal.

The image, food (sometimes verging on carelessness, if it is not for the people close to them) and other daily material aspects are placed on a relegated, devalued, or ignored rung.

Norm and Mimicry

A certain adaptability and mimicry in daily habits to related groups or in intimate bonds makes their customs more flexible, beyond maintaining the tone of characteristic austerity and sobriety.

A colleague admits: “I'm never in the habit of having a beer, olives, or wine for pleasure when I get home from work. It seems frivolous to me. I just feel like I don't need it. However, when I am in a bar with a group of friends or colleagues, from time to time I make the effort and go ahead and invite them. Not as a reason to celebrate something, but under the fear of rejection, of not being accepted or loved. Or to adapt to the customs of that group.”

This metaphysics in customs, this “asceticism” that greatly idealizes certain values, dissociating them from the mundane, ends up excluding or minimizing the enjoyment of everyday life. Thus, there is a “freezing” of one's own needs, because they are considered capricious or frivolous, and due to the absence of law, which penalizes banal expenses. The result is automation, a cold austerity, and a rigid and forced sobriety.

There are family messages of renunciation and systemic aspects in which the death of loved ones and dark unconscious links imply dead experiences.

There is also a curious difference between the attitude of sober and self-sacrificing, and generous behaviors that lead to resignations (especially in intimate relationships).

There is an imbalance between the “heroic” overexertion, the energy expenditure, and the gratifications received and accepted, digested. Underlies an affective desert, an emotional distance, and a chronic value dissatisfaction.

The castled Sisyphus, in the titanic wear of him, strives endlessly for ideals of family protection and for Dulcineas. A post-paternal or maternal unfolding varnishes some inhibited love and dedication from the heart.

Rigidity

In the field of power, a series of chronic attitudes can be seen, both with regard to external and internal aspects. In an internal world with oversized evaluative and normative aspects, the posture is one of vital rigidity, with a lack of spontaneity and natural expressiveness, as well as rigor and commitment to measure.

Uniformity and Uniforms

There is in the social E6 a secret fascination with the supreme, total force. Totems of united voices, uniformed and uniform steps, a unified ideal. Uniformity of criteria. Without fissures, without lacerating doubts. Certainty with the value of faith.

Omnipotence and Impotence

The distressing insecurity of this character and its connection with the radical fragility of one's position in the universe generate sudden movements from powerlessness to omnipotence. The shift of power towards strong leaders, lofty ideals, totems, and concepts is generating a co-participation covered in the search for omnipotence and rebellion against vulnerability.

“It is important for me to have a leader to follow and also that I like power, being close to people who have power, now I am close to two people I admire, Dr. Claudio Naranjo and Dr. Fernando Flores. One is in Being and the other in Doing, both seem brilliant to me, they are geniuses and I enjoy being close to them. I realize that I have a facility for approaching people who have power. There I do not doubt, I am not afraid; on the contrary: it gives me security to believe that I have those pillars.”

The social E6, due to its hypersensitivity to possible rejections, comes into conflict when expressing itself freely. He is afraid of attracting attention in a way that could be embarrassing, reprehensible, or conflictive for the group or the leaders (bosses, teachers...).

The episodes of invasions where individuality was castrated are repeated in the stories, in the family group, the church, the school, and in social situations where freedom of expression was abusively compressed.

A high moral load and demand transfers personal energy and power to adaptation to the environment. The affective and relational deficiencies have been compensated with adaptive postures. The social E6 exercises control as a vigilant attitude: It sets in motion its radar, its “lookout,” hunting and capturing whatever rules of operation are in force.

The high presence of “oughtisms,” of internalized demands, the attitude of adherence to external regulations, implies submission towards that “other” (authority, group, or totemic ideal) that displaces the gravitational center of the person, who suffers a mismatch, a misalignment.

One of the participants in the meeting comments: “At the time when I worked in a major consulting multinational, my fall into a pit of personal crisis, rather than professional, was recurrent. The strict rules of behavior and image, me clad in impeccable suits, obedience to the directives of superiors and the panic of making mistakes in decision making made me repeatedly ask myself: “Who am I? What do I do here?” I had no answer. I felt totally annihilated as a human being. Then came the professional crisis; no matter how interesting the projects were, I was not a person.”

The displacement of one's own strength towards people or groups magnetized by certainty, protection, inclusion, and belonging, calms the underlying anguish. We can thus observe behaviors of absolute fidelity to the company, the team, the tribe, the leader, the boss. From this position emerges the obsessive, exhaustive compliance, the demand, and the inhibition of critical attitudes. The suppression of rebellion also appears, in the form of self-invalidation, hostility directed against oneself, etc.

The omnipresence of guilt and The annihilating guilt

Guilt occupies an essential place in the daily life of this character. It is a primal, mythical, religious fault. In many of the shared cases, the ecclesiastical factor has played a major role. The severe gaze of the god of men. Annihilating gaze, omniscient and almighty, that executes eternal sentences.

Raskolnikov syndrome

Guilt has three times: a preliminary (ruminating over possibilities in the loop of indecision), the leap into the abyss of action, and a corollary where expiation joins rumination.

What we could call the “Raskólnikov syndrome” (the protagonist of Crime and Punishment) takes place, with his fearful search for punishment for “crimes” committed or imagined, which is a source of profound suffering.

In a vertical energetic displacement, this mental character, which massively rationalizes conflicts, raises the energy to a world of abstractions.

Accusation

Indictment for the elections, for what could have been improved, achieved. Accusation for what was not. Through innumerable projections and identification with the aggressor, or unfiltered assumption of external judgments, he lives besieged by persecuting eyes. The shrinkage is chronic.

Guilt addiction

A fundamental question is the management of the suffering of guilt. Guilt sensed, felt, and thought. From pre-occupation to post-occupation.

Time endlessly rotates in circles. Anguish and regret prior to any decision. The pressure, the weight of getting it right, of doing the right thing. Anguish and regret at the moment of decision.

Paralysis, compulsive acting, forced action. The jailer of conscience appears: subsequent rumination sprouts. The terrible weight of responsibility invites, on numerous occasions, early punishment.

The social E6 not only pays a price for the loss of the right to be, to express one's own strength, but the fulfillment of the desire, if it occurs, entails a degree of suffering.

Guilt and Over-conscience

The inner conscience is not built as a silent witness but is a jailer. It ceased to be consciousness to become “over-consciousness.” The guilt is installed not only because it does not avoid undue impulses, but because it does not hit the right thing, which is absolutely due.

Oversized awareness entails an excess of responsibility, or rather, an excess of “ability” to respond to external expectations, whether explicit or implicit, visible, or imagined.

The fear to freedom

The fear of the exercise of freedom, the assumption of one's own criteria, the legitimate use of healthy aggression, and expressive self-assertion carries regret. With the norm not only internalized but embedded, any spontaneous act of dissent becomes a terrible transgression.

The eye of God and the eyes of the human gods rest on the weight of history and mythical time (the fall from paradise due to original disobedience), to which is added the autobiographical, emotional time of the individual, full of slogans, and coercive scenes.

Feared and avoided, freedom constitutes one of the main taboos. Since disobedience implies a probable exclusion, it is invested with a radical anguish.

In most cases, a continuum of concealment is observed, a “curtain,” of neutrality in the face of the threat of freedom, with all its possibilities. In this existential invisibility, conformism is systematic. It is safer to camouflage yourself in the group, in abstraction, in the dogma of faith, in the leaders.

Primal insecurity and uncertainty. This character doubts himself and others. He suffers from the Cartesian syndrome of the evil genius, “paranoid” creation of a mind powerfully questioning both its perceptions and reality itself.

Then, either he plunges into the very void of questioning, persistent doubt, and lack of trust and faith, or he eagerly launches into “shortcuts” (in the form of overvalued and secretly judged ideals, dogmas, and leadership) of some prefixed rails.

Sexuality and The uninhabited body

His is an uninhabited, alienated, disidentified body, where an energetic displacement generates devitalization, rigidity, physical, and psychic tension.

This alienation implies a distance from corporeal reality, a focus on the mental and a disconnection from sensations, with the consequent unconsciousness of bodily experiences.

Thus, the body is experienced as something dissociated: an energetic entity that emits signals that are more or less pleasant, that suffers symptoms, that is sometimes heavy and generally strange, expressing a torrent of incomprehensible, and even threatening information.

Rejected sensation

Different people report messages and maternal attitudes of deep rejection of sexuality. Explicit comments, faces of disgust, or more subtle attitudes, where the mere fact of having been conceived was already associated with a dark, sinful trance. At the origin, the shadows.

“I experienced a rebirth: at my birth I felt in my body my mother's rejection for not having been born a boy. It seems to me that this distanced me from her as a child, and I only came to understand it a year ago.”

This is how the enervated, contractured bodies appear, displaying robotic movements, controlled by a stroke of control by an ideal, rationalized self.

These stressed bodies, uninhabited by desire, walk on rails embedded in the codes of duty. Before the obligation that the devotion.

These de-eroticized bodies walk devitalized or are nailed to rigid stakes so as not to escape the control of impulses and bodily sensations. They roam the space with “neutral” faces, like constrained automatons.

They avoid the energetic charge, the vital excitement (placing mufflers or mental distractors) and wander aimlessly, having lost the compass of their desire. Adapted to the environment, subjected to the ideal of austerity, they disperse in circuits of hyperactivity. Thus, an existence marked by the deactivation of enjoyment is being drawn.

From the background emerge the mythical primordial punishments, as well as a childhood maturation full of “scythes”: cleavers of pleasure: from play to the enjoyment of sucking, crawling, pissing, shitting... exploring.

Civilizing laws are imposed on the legitimate assumption of pleasure, with praise for suffering, the compulsion to sacrifice, the ideal of work and a life developed with the sweat of the brow.

Propensity to ideals and Psychic refuges

The idealistic orientation of this character gives his reality a quasi-religious theoretical quality. Deficit mothering, together with an effectively absent father (due to excessive normativity or due to emotional and physical absence), as well as the omnipresence of ideals and expectations charged with mandate, weave an absence of self, an internal emptiness that is connected with a primordial, radical insecurity. The mental refuge becomes a safe hiding place, a handle against that depth of helplessness.

“My father sexually abused me, my mother did not defend me. I didn't tell mom about dad because she was afraid of him and because he threatened to hurt her if I talked. It was many years of this, also my dad went on trips a lot, a lot of absence, and when he was there, there was a lot of aggressiveness, hitting, scolding, and my mom did nothing. It's like having mom absent or perceiving her as weak, and this further distanced me from her. Being the judge that I am, I wanted to behave, as if that would take away my dad's impulses. On the other hand, I greatly admired him for his intelligence. There was a lot of confusion in my affections, especially in my adolescence.”

The “disenchanted forest.” The maternal affective rootlessness and paternal absence are filled with ideals and the values of the sense of duty, obedience to the rules of the social game, and compliance with the norm.

By being deprived of the delight and pleasant management of the basic issues of daily life, it loses its energetic and affective link with the vital flow. This loss of magnetism, this “exit” from the river of life, of materiality, of the vital body, devitalizes him and positions him in existential austerity, tinged with a lacking void, made of desert sand, resigned, resignation assumed.

This position implies emotional distance, disaffection, and derotation. A deficit of affective and pleasurable attachment that causes routinization. In short, these quixotic walkers, obsessed with windmills, do not dialogue with the Sanchos, they cannot even see them (or learn from them). A dissociation is configured without any bridge that gives access, from the shore of ideals, to the basic delights of everyday life.

Colonized childhood

In autobiographies, the maturing journey is full of blows to creativity. The abuses of power, where the adult is appropriating the children's space, gradually impose correction, over-adaptation, domestication. They are “killing” individuation and difference.

Schools full of guilt messages and dictatorial behaviors are sealing the thirst for exploration and natural expression.

The distortion of consciousness

Consciousness, a beautiful beacon of lucidity, discovery, and illumination, stops exercising its loving contemplative observation to become a severe court that exerts a suffocating pressure of selection and filter. It becomes contaminated by the cascades of negative messages, which become introjects, and it becomes an agent of self-persecution.

Choices are not rooted in personal power, in the genuine force of need and desire. First there is a castration, a withering of the possibilities that life offers, because the options are reduced: you have to choose what is appropriate, what is due.

The inner struggle looms. The taboo of selfishness, with its undercurrent of self-loathing, inevitably leads to pain and loneliness. The “loss of the soul,” and the associated emptiness, lead to a desperate embrace of reason, duty, the God who is in Heaven, who offers a refuge in the desert of ideas.

The foundations of self-confidence are weakening, destroying the very essence of the supreme will, which resides in faith (in one's own perception, one's own criteria, intuition). In short, self-invalidation and inner enmity generate huge cracks in the bridges that connect you to life.

Claudio Naranjo's Social 6 Description^[4]

E6 Social – Duty

This is what I call a “Prussian character.” The social E6 is cold, very formal. Kant, for example, was a great philosopher. He was a Prussian, and the Prussians had that form of character which has a great love of precision and an intolerance of ambiguity. This is precisely the complete opposite of the Conservation Six, which is warm and too permissive of ambiguity.

Among the Nazis there were many social sixes. His behavior is very visible: “this is the line, the party line, the line that defines who are the good guys and who are the bad guys... and what we need to do and we do it very efficiently.” In efficiency, the social E6 is similar to an E3.

Ichazo used the word duty, it is more than just being concerned with duty, for the six socials are primarily concerned with the reference point. They have the mind of a legislator, clear categories. His intellectual orientation is to know very well where the north is, where the south is, and the west, and the east, and...

And if they ever wanted to become human, they would first need to go crazy and forget all the landmarks. They need to forget duty — no duty at all — and connect with instinct and intuition, with life.

Sandra Maitri's Social 6 Description^[5]

6+Social – Duty

To a Social Six, fulfilling what she sees as her social role dutifully is the only way to be. She attempts to resolve her social insecurity by giving authority to a belief, a group, or a leader whom she considers more powerful, and becoming faithful, deferential, accommodating, malleable, and obedient to it or him. She is loyal, devoted, even fawning and obsequious in the carrying out of her mission on behalf of the authority, whatever she considers that to be. Her passion of fear appears here as being afraid of crossing her authority figure and being afraid of breaking social norms and obligations.

Beatrice Chestnut's Social 6 Description

Social 6 Subtype description (2021)^[6]

This subtype copes with fear by finding a good authority. They think the way to be safe is to follow the rules of their chosen authority, whether a person, a system, or an ideology. They tend to be dutiful, legalistic, intellectual, responsible, and efficient, and they rely on following guidelines or reference points to feel secure. For them, uncertainty and ambiguity equal anxiety. They display a mixture of “phobic” (fearful) and “counterphobic” (confronting fear with strength) behaviors. They see the world in terms of black and white, rather than gray.

If this is your subtype, you tend to take on a large amount of responsibility. You tend to feel duty-bound to take care of others and the collective. Loyalty to causes and authority figures may come from an egoic need to feel safe. You can become too much of a “true believer”—too devoted to authorities or ideologies. You must learn to trust your own authority, not just look outside yourself for guidelines about what to do to feel a sense of security. By focusing on systems, ideals, and rules, you may neglect your need to connect more deeply with your emotions or instincts. Go more with your heart or your gut, and not just your head.

Social 6 Subtype summary (2021)^[10]

Social Sixes express fear through a need to deal with anxiety by relying on abstract reason or ideologies as a frame of reference. Obeying authority through knowing what the rules are helps them to feel safe in the world. Unlike the SP Six, this Six has more certainty and can be “too sure” of things as a way of dealing with the anxiety of uncertainty. Social Sixes focus on precision and efficiency. They adhere to whatever the guidelines are as form of having a protective authority.

Social 6 Subtype description (2021)^[10]

The Social Six: “Duty”

Lacking either trust in themselves (like the Sexual Six) or other people (like the SelfPreservation Six), Social Sixes deal with the passion of fear and its related anxiety by relying on abstract reason or a specific ideology as an impersonal frame of reference. They find safety by relying on authorities, or on the “authority” of reason, rules, and rational thinking.

The name given to this type by Ichazo is “Duty,” which doesn’t mean they “do their duty” (though they often do) as much as it means that they focus on “what their duty is.” In coping with anxiety, the Social Six consults the guidelines associated with whatever authority they adhere to. They focus on knowing what the benchmark is and on obeying the rules of the game. They feel a need to know all the points of reference—what the party line is, who the good guys are, and who the bad guys are.

Consciously or unconsciously, Social Sixes fear the disapproval of authorities and believe the way to be safe is to do the right thing as determined by an authority. And knowing what the right thing is means having clear rules that tell you how you should think and act. This orientation has the effect of developing the philosophical mind, because when you don’t know how you should live—when you don’t trust your intuition or your human sense of life to guide you—you have to become very intellectual. But this sense of duty also becomes a way to structure your life: someone gives you the rules, and you follow them.

Archetypally, the guidelines of whatever system a Social Six follows become a kind of replacement authority for the first authority—the parent, usually the father. While they may have rebelled against or been disappointed by their actual father, they look for a good authority in life as a way of finding security. Total submission and obedience to authority (and the rules associated with authority) helps them feel safe in the world. Naranjo points out, however, that choosing the wrong authority can be a problem for Social Sixes: “Instead of believing in the person who is right, they tend to believe in people who speak as if they were right, and who have the special gift of making themselves believed.”

The Social Six typically represents a mixture of phobic and counterphobic expressions. This Six is a cooler character than the Self-Preservation Six. They find safety in being precise about how one should conduct oneself. They have a lot of anticipatory anxiety— they believe that everything will go wrong. So they rely on precision in following the rules as a way of coping with their anxiety. They feel most secure when they have clear minds and when things are in clear categories. Social Sixes are good Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, dedicated to adhering to the group code and to a competent way of doing things based on that code.

The Social Six is a stronger character than the Self-Preservation Six, and this greater strength has to do with having more certainty than uncertainty. The Self-Preservation Six is an insecure person—they hesitate because they are not sure. The Social Six is someone who, in defense against the insecurity associated with not being sure, becomes too sure. They can—in the extreme—become “true believers” or fanatics. In the counterphobic Sexual Six, fear is turned into its opposite when the person adopts a stance of strength, but in the Social Six, “it is not fear that is turned into an opposite, but doubting.”

The Social Six can also be very idealistic, structuring life through an adherence to high ideals. This is a character who holds tight to ideologies and a particular view of things as a way of feeling safe.

In contrast to the Self-Preservation Six, who gets stuck in ambivalence and can’t make decisions, Social Sixes have an intolerance of ambiguity. They fear ambivalence and have little tolerance of uncertainty, because to them, uncertainty equals anxiety. As a result, they have a love of precision and see things more in terms of black and white than gray.

The Social Six is also a bit of a legalistic character; they have the mind of a lawgiver, and they like clear categories. Culturally, the Germans provide a good example of this archetype in that they like precision, order, and efficiency. Social Sixes have a strong sense of duty, they idealize authority, and they display a generalized dutifulness—an obedience to law, a devotion to fulfilling responsibilities as defined by external authority, a tendency to follow rules and to value documents and institutions, and a kind of rigidity and organization.

Social Sixes both fear making a mistake and long for certainties: a person with this subtype “wants to be talked to in a certain manner so that he or she may feel that the speaker knows, the speaker is right.” They have a highly intellectual orientation, and their patterns of thinking can take the form of diagrams and flowcharts.

These Sixes are not very spontaneous; they live a more scripted life. As a result of being so much in their heads, they don’t have very much contact with their instincts or their intuition. They tend to be shy and have little ability to socialize or to be moved or touched by something or someone. They may feel uncomfortable with experiences related to unrestricted animal instincts or sexuality.

Social Sixes can tend to be controlling, impatient, judgmental, and self-critical. They demand a lot of themselves, and may insist on everything being done according to their codes and viewpoints. Others may perceive Social Sixes as cold or cool, as they can be very formal in the things they do.

Individuals with this subtype can have many characteristics in common with Type Ones, especially Self-Preservation Ones. Like Ones, they follow rules and tend to be controlled, critical, hardworking, punctual, precise, and responsible. However, while Ones are guided in a confident way by a sense of their own internal standards, Sixes’ fear of making a mistake has more to do with getting in trouble with an external authority.

The love of precision and the efficiency of this Social Six subtype can also make them resemble Type Threes; however, the main motivation of this Six is to avoid anxiety by finding a sense of authority in reference points, not to accomplish goals and look good through efficiency.

A.H., a Social Six, speaks:

Some of my happiest moments as an adult have come after aligning myself with a system for how to live. When I was thirty, I discovered the work of Ken Wilber and found myself ease into a sense of clarity and peace because everything finally made sense. All my confusion about how different things related to each other suddenly dissolved. Here was a system I could trust. The same thing happened a few years ago, when I was shocked to find that my body fat percentage was nearly 25 percent. I immediately researched how to improve this. Once I found a system of eating and exercising that seemed trustworthy, I latched on to it. In both cases, it wasn't just that I had rules to follow; it was that the rules actually brought me in touch with a sense of purpose and comfort.

Now, the other side of the story is that I have an internal set of rules about how to stay physically safe, and I get upset when other people don't follow them. I can't tell you how many times I've said to my wife, "Watch his head!" while she carried my infant son through a doorway. In such situations, my body's threat response goes into high gear. Not only do I perceive danger-I can see that someone isn't following the rules on how to avoid it. That's when the cool guy can get mean and even cold.

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

Social Sixes can travel the path from fear to courage by forgetting about what their duty is or isn't and connecting in a more purposeful way with their own instincts, their own intuition, and with life in general. If you are a Social Six, recognize that living from the intellect only gets you so far; your head is not necessarily the right organ to tell you how to live fully. Allow yourself to get a little crazy and forget all the rules and reference points. You can grow toward courage more if you can learn to let go of your system of thinking, your ideas about what your duty is, and your clear categories, and develop the ability to become your own authority. Explore the ways in which you may be making an ideology-or even "rationality" itself-and impersonal authority that you rely on as a source of support or a parental surrogate, and take the risk of owning your own power instead. Realize and become more aware of how you may be compensating for a father figure who let you down, so you don't need to draw so heavily on whatever your are using as a guiding authority in your life. Don't be guided so much by your intellectual maps; act more from instinct. Have the courage to pursue pleasure rather than duty, knowing that connecting to your own power and satisfaction on all levels is the royal road to manifesting your higher capacities.

Haiki Social 6 Description^[7]

Social Six: Duty

The Social Six or the Duty Six is the perfect soldier. They are very disciplined and obedient. They need clarity and therefore hate ambiguity. If they know for sure where North is and what the steps are to follow, they will be calm. They have a strong sense of morals and will do what they feel like they have to do when it has to be done. It is very important for them to know for sure what is good and what is bad. If they do not know it themselves, they need someone to confirm it for them.

In this they are both similar and different from Ones. Ones also feel like they have to do the right thing, but they do not search for an external source of confirmation; they already know what the correct thing to do is. Both Social Sixes and Ones are very precise people. Additionally, we can also note the Social Six’s tendency to value efficiency, making them look a bit like Threes. Additionally, the One and Social Six share the tendency to repress their instincts. They act like their inner “animal” is locked below seven keys. Because of this, they run the risk of forgetting their more instinctive side which can harm them in the long run. All human beings have concrete needs, some of which are extremely mundane, but denying them does not help anyone. While on the outside, these types seem similar, the Social Six never stops being a good soldier while the One has a type of internal autonomy that makes them obey their own criteria.

Social Sixes are good at following and complying with the norms and they want everyone else to comply too. If others do not, they will be critical of them. And if those who do not comply are punished, great. If they are asked to lead and command and in an unhealthy manifestation of the type, they can be somewhat tyrannical. They may defend the ideology of the group to death. They can be cold and calculating. They cut off their more instinctive aspects due to the fear that they’ll enter a relationship that will create a bond requiring their soft and tender side to be shown. With their control and eagerness to ensure things do not get out of hand, they accumulate a lot of tension. They can very loosely connect with their anger, but as they are very correct people, they swallow it down and cover it up.

Carmen Durán and Antonio Catalán's Social 6 Description^[8]

SO6: Duty -> Order

In this subtype, often called Duty, we believe it is more like a distorted sense of responsibility than a duty. The search is for “Order,” an order that gives them a certain security, a regular way of doing things, an attempt to organize the world that is related to the anxiety that their internal chaos generates. The external disorder also turns out to be unsettling and anxiety-generating, so they try to placate it through finding some sort of tranquilizing order. “Order” takes fear and turns it into something rigid and tough. Naranjo has called this subtype “Prussian.” The passionate sense of responsibility relates to the fear of doing things wrong, with fear of their harsh inner critic and punishment of external authority. The rigid sense of duty sometimes leads to rebellious and Order-breaking behaviors.

La Mirada Libre's Social 6 Description^[9]

E6 Social: Duty

The social 6 to me is a mixture of phobia and counterphobia. It is very similar to enneatype 1, except the social 6 is not moved by self-perfection but rather by scrupulously complying with the rules (a highly internalized sense of duty).

This subtype finds security in the group by developing an ideal of himself that grasps and obeys the prevailing norms and codes. Unfortunately, it usually leads to fanaticism. (Otto Adolf Eichmann, coordinator of the deportation to the Nazi death camps, was a social 6.)

He needs approval and seeks power to feel valued and recognized, but this contradicts his tendency to obey and submit. His adherence to the rules and the group, and his fear of authority  generates a tension that ranges from rigidity to chronic anxiety.

The social 6 is cold and very formal, loves precision and does not tolerate ambiguity. His neurotic passion, duty, is more of a constant preoccupation with a certain area of his life. He has the mind of a legislator with clear categories.

Social 6s are serious and responsible people with a mask of affability, obsessed with complying with what is expected of them and with the norm. Idealistic, they have a great need for a leader to follow; some describe that doing what their leader commands makes them feel certain they are doing what God wants of them. It grants power to the other, also giving them large doses of narcissism along the way.

This is the only way to understand why in their legal defense, many Nazi leaders tried to exculpate themselves, firmly believing in it and simply indicating that they were following orders. Under all of this hides his desire to calm down, to free himself from the monster of uncertainty and doubt, as well as guilt.

A book that I recommend to everyone, but especially to the 6 socialites, is “The Fear of Freedom” by Erich Fromm.

The social 6 has feelings of self-rejection, self-persecution, and a hatred towards oneself for inadequacy, and it is this anger that the idealized self feels towards the self for not being “as it should.” So he asks the other to tell him what he has to do, and by relying on the authority he tries to escape the consequences of his actions.

They usually have a calm appearance that hides a very strong internal fear. It is the mental subtype of the 6 and its movement is to "walk away.”

Don Riso and Russ Hudson Social 6 Description^[11]

THE SOCIAL INSTINCT IN THE SIX

Generating Support. In the average range, Social Sixes handle anxiety by looking to friends and allies for reassurance and support. They project friendliness and attempt to create bonds with others, disarming them with warmth and humor. They often make fun of themselves while offering support and affection to others, and they can sometimes be mistaken for Twos. Social Sixes are the most concerned about fitting in. ("There's safety in numbers.") They are fairly idealistic, enjoying the feeling of being part of something larger than themselves—a cause or corporation or movement or group—and are willing to make major sacrifices for the security of that affiliation.

Social Sixes can also sometimes resemble Ones in their adherence to protocols and procedures. They look for reassurance through commitments, obligations, and contracts—insurance that their hard work will not be taken advantage of. When they are more insecure, Social Sixes look for places of safety where like-minded individuals help each other out (twelve-step groups).

Although able to make major efforts for others or for their group, Social Sixes can often have difficulty working for their own success or development. Anxiety can lead them to look for consensus before they act or make decisions; anxiety also leads them to reference the potential responses of others in their imagination. Their own indecisiveness bothers them, however, and leads to ambivalence about depending on allies or authorities. They fear losing the support of the group or authority but chafe at the bit. If frustrated, they can develop passive-aggressive issues with authorities and friends. Under stress, they easily feel pressured, overworked, and underappreciated. At such times, they can be negative and pessimistic.

In the unhealthy range, Social Sixes may become attracted to fanatical beliefs, causes, and groups. They may develop an "us against the world" mentality, feeling besieged by a hostile environment (somewhat like an unhealthy Eight). They can be unquestioning of their beliefs (even if others find their beliefs to be questionable) and slavish to a particular authority while being extremely paranoid about authorities not in alignment with their own belief systems.

References

[1] Lilly J. C. & Hart J. E. (1975), The Arica Training

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

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

[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