✓ Fixation: Perfectionism
✓ Basic Traits: domineering, aristocratic, imposing, critical, hypocritical, disciplined, anhedonic, canonical.
✓ Triads: gut, compliant, competency, frustration
“Anger is an existential position of anger and belligerence against the imperfections of the world, or rather, of humans. "Everything could and should be better," the angry man believes, “if everyone behaved with correctness, discipline and ethical principles." But unfortunately, humanity tends to laxity, corruption and deceit. Consequently, those who have chosen the "right path" are justifiably upset and resentful.” – Ira
[Where’s the Justice – Death Note…]
✎ Ah, the 1 cores. In my personal opinion, E1 is not a difficult type to understand, governed by its desires to enforce unbendable standards on the outside world, regardless of the public opinion. But, unfortunately, every enneatype somehow gets misconstrued in one way or another, type 1 being no exception. To begin, let us start with a general portrait of the E1 as per usual.
“Enneatype 1 is the paradigm of the Puritan character, one that denies its natural tendencies and is dedicated to persecuting those who allow and cultivate them. To end this portrait with humor, it is worth a joke of puritans whose only possible approach to addiction (and the "pleasure" of it) is persecution. Two scandalized ladies call the police to report some young people who are warming up under their window. The police remove these young people from the place and conclude the matter, until the ladies call again, insisting on denouncing the dishonest public behavior of the group of young people.” – Ira
✎ The enneagram 1 is defined and confined by its constant disillusionment with the world. Other people and the systems they create are always, in some way, not up to their standards which automatically, as if on instinct, produces Anger. What must be understood is that this anger rarely takes an aggressive and volatile form, as would the common perception of the vice suggest. This is due to the E1’s impulse to suppress its undesirable emotions and desires that would be considered by the 1 core improper, immoral, or unacceptable in one way or another. Instead, it often takes the form of resentment and frustration, passive agressiveness, coldness, or some other restrained manner of expression.
✎ This is called Reaction Formation.
“This is an irritated viscerality, like anger and frustration, which has as its neurotic motivation to quiet any anxiety or anguish through an impulsive act that aims to eliminate or solve the problem without giving space either to emotional awareness or by cognitive elaboration. The person who takes on this character feels that the pain and emotions that accompany it cannot be contained; he lives the emotional world as something chaotic, and the instinctive world as dangerous; Therefore, at bottom, such worlds can only be extirpated, annulled, and even depreciated.” – Ira
✎ Type 1s desire control. The 1 core fears losing control of its impulses and behavior, breaking its elevated modus operandi and allowing itself to go to debauchery. In the same way, 1 cores desire to control their environment, projecting this strict superego onto other people who really didn’t ask.
✎ E1s repress and subjugate the gluttonous (E7) parts of themselves, incorrect desires subsconsciously turn into that which is correct and good. For example, a boss, secretly attracted to his subordinate, decides to take extra time to educate her on the right way to work in the office.
✎ Such is the true nature of all 1 cores, just like all the types of the enneagram. Coping.
✎ To continue, we must all remember that the E1 is a highly rigid and authoritarian type, and is a gut type, disconnected from its emotional world. This is the very reason why E1 has so many compulsions within it to control and subjugate, it is a type that leads with its gut and rarely questions its decisions.
“Anger, on the other hand, is a raging and out-of-control impetus that this personality feels in the face of the existential emptiness caused by the loss of the original condition of fullness.” – 27 Personalities in Search of Being
“What excites the E1 is the solution; In this sense, it can be understood to what extent Anger is not an emotional aspect, but a fiery energy that always carries it forward, skipping contact with the feeling linked to the context and the respective mental elaboration.” – 27 Personalities in Search of Being
✎ The natural disposition towards intellectuality of this type does not negate this foundatonal quality of 1 cores, but rather, it is the consequence of it. In a way, the E1 is by itself a countertype of the Gut triad, which pushes these impulses to the subconscious and represses them, compensating for it with the mind.
“It is a normative and neurotically ethical character, with the specificity of dictating personal norms that it considers absolute codes. This allows him to transform the desire into a behavioral rule, so that he is exempt from feeling imperfect due to having had impulses or emotions (which he considers defects).” – 27 Personalities in Search of Being
✎ Yes, the 1 core undoubtedly tends to apply the same standards to his own self (albeit, with variable hypocrisy), as such impulse is innate from the body, but it is still a largely “my way or the highway” type that will sooner dismiss you as an idiot than take your criticisms into account. The need for authority is extremely common for this type. Even the SP1 (as we shall see later).
✎ So, to summarise, the passion of the E1 is Anger, but such impulsive and domineering Anger often goes unnoticed and not truly felt in the majority of 1 cores, which may feel it as a general frustration, preoccupation with everything being “just right”, concern, superiority, and etc. E1s are gut types like any other, but their impulses are controlled every second of every hour without even realising it, due to their own abhorrence of it.
✎ This starts far back in childhood.
“The dynamics described are due to the child's decision-making process, which interrupts his impulses to repress needs and feelings that he considers not to be well regarded by his parents or other parental figures. As a consequence, the child hides certain parts of himself for fear of not being accepted and learns to behave in an "appropriate" way.” – Ira
✎ How does each instinctual subtype, then, influence this highly contradictory Gut type?
SELF-PRESERVATION ONE — WORRY
“A conservation E1 is usually unaware of how he suppresses his anger, or how he directs his anger primarily toward himself. He usually appears covert, expressing himself in ways such as impatience, pressure, irritation, demand, dissatisfaction, judgment, intolerance, frustration, resentment, etc. He is a highly self-critical character, very himself, becoming ruthless in his self-judgment. Their attitude is not the result of hypocrisy or pretense but suffers from an inability to register and accept their emotionality.” – Ira
✎ The SP1 is, largely, the most self-aware 1 core that represses its desires the most, seeking a holy ideal, perfection— first in himself, and only then in other people. They are the least hypocritical E1 subtype and subconsciously believe themselves to be impure and corrupt, something that they work hard to fix, instead of lamenting it. These are the most perfectionistic and obsessive of the enneagram.
“More than an acceptance of reality, there is a manipulation of it. More than enjoyment and pleasure, it is oriented towards duty and work. He does not predominantly seek to change external reality, but longs to find moral perfection within himself. The latter hides the need to build and maintain a good self-image in front of others, in order to avoid the imperfection or evil that they unconsciously believe they harbor within themselves.” – Ira
✎ At the same time, the Worry of the SP1 is often directed towards its own beloved, fretting over their wellbeing and safety as a show of care. They are the warmest 1 core, most caring and outwardly affectionate. This, however, often has more selfish motivations, veering eerily close to the SP2.
“From the point of view of conservation, they place a high value on safety, protection and care, which, in their view, are a proof of love for those to whom they offer it, even if such care is often accompanied by a "fine print" designed to validate their holiness, their role as a benefactor, thus creating dependencies, debts, chains of favors, etc. They tend to be people who use their energy to take care of the necessities of life: home, work, food, health, safety…” – Ira
✎ This makes sense, as types 1 and 2 are right next to eachother on the enneagram, sharing the need to see themselves as this angelic figure.
“The E1 of conservation contains the expression of anger mainly for two reasons: expressing it would damage his image as an upright and controlled person, conflicting with his perfectionism, and it would create problems with other people, which would threaten his safety.” – Ira
SOCIAL ONE — SUPERIORITY/INADAPTABILITY
“Or what Wilhelm Reich called the "aristocratic character", the one who has the neurotic need to feel right, to always be right, which implies that this type of person implicitly considers that it is others who have to adapt to them. In this sense, the Social El is not a perfectionist, like the Conservation E1, dedicated to identifying errors; on the contrary, the social feels perfect, so it can even afford to make huge mistakes. Of course: he does not consider them as such but takes them as permissions that he himself grants using his own criteria, which he believes to be the most reasonable.” – Ira
✎ SO1s have a passion for dominating others through correctness and moralism, naturally, due to frustration, but placated and turned into coldness and isolating behaviors, this subtype “is afraid of being unpleasant if he clearly says no”. This personality is shaped by feelings of not belonging and ostracization due to its difficulties with expressing warmth, but either way the collective often does not match its values and proves to be uncomfortable and stifling.
✎ In turn, the Social 1 compares itself to others, how they do not match the values ingrained into him— to sustain his ego, that which gives them the right to demand and perfect, along with a sense of security and their own personal state of belonging. The childhood feelings of inadequacy and not having the right to ask (for care or attention), later in life turn into relentless pursuit of perfectionism, to calm their insecurities.
"On the one hand I adapt and obey, and on the other I oppose and never carry the postures that my surroundings suggest". Thus, inadaptability translates into not feeling comfortable or favorable to the environment and, consequently, not fully accepting the imposed norms and schemes. It would be like saying that while an idea, a thought, is formed, exceptions to such an idea immediately arise. Unlike the character E3, who seeks security in more stable structures, the Social El feels safer when the word, the dogma, can be refuted.” – Ira
SEXUAL ONE — VEHEMENCE/ZEAL
✎ This is the countertype of E1. The one that represses Anger the least. Why would they? Their Anger is justified.
✎ And SX1 is unique in this among the 1s, since, even SO1s feel the need to assert their superiority through argumentation and reasoning to kill the snowflakes with facts and logic. But SX1s? SX1s just do. There is nothing that needs to be explained. There is a fire inside of them that compels them to act without hesitation.
“Here, the emotional aspect of anger is left aside, since contact with the feeling is avoided in order to move on to direct action. In the case of the sexual subtype, all these tendencies are exacerbated, because there is even more heat, more fire: it proves to be the most ardent of the El subtypes.” – Ira
“That physical and irrational drive that puts this character in front of an existential void in the face of the loss of the "earthly paradise", which has the consequence that he considers that he has the mission of repairing this "mistake", that loss, and that he is led to thoughtless action, disconnected from emotion and reason.” – Ira
✎ This subtype’s perfectionistic Zeal is rarely targeted at their own selves, being the most self-assured and hypocritical. Due to the influence of the sexual instinct, SX1s often turn their attention to their loved ones, wishing to “fix” them in accordance with their expectations.
