Type Three, the Achiever or Performer, stands at the centre of the heart triad and is the type the system regards as most out of contact with the shame that triad carries, since its strategy is to convert feeling into performance. Its basic desire is to feel valuable and worthwhile, its basic fear is of being worthless apart from its achievements. Its passion is deceit, which the system means primarily as self-deception, the identification of the self with the image it presents, and its virtue is truthfulness or authenticity. Its wings are Two and Four. Under stress it is placed at Nine, collapsing into disengagement when the performance fails; in growth it moves to Six, becoming loyal and cooperative rather than competitive.
In the Hornevian groups, Riso and Hudson's second classification drawn from Karen Horney's three neurotic trends, Three falls among the assertive types that move against others, alongside Seven and Eight, since the drive to perform and to win recognition is read as a form of active self-assertion rather than compliance or withdrawal. As with every triad of three adjacent points, the heart triad above and this Hornevian grouping both apply, since the two classifications measure different things and were never meant to align.