[en] From solutions of the Bethe--Faddeev equations we extract effective particle potentials by fitting the factorized ansatz 2U/sub rho/S₂ to the nonfactorizable three-body amplitude Vchi₃. It turns out that earlier estimates of a spatially constant potential of about -8 MeV per particle were justified. The smallness of this effective particle potential as compared to the hole potential of -40 MeV indicates the excellent convergence of Brueckner theory for finite nuclei, if the proper generalizations and self-consistency prescriptions of the exp(S) method are taken into account