According to Ichazo, experiences in early childhood lead to the development of certain false Egos to which people become attached and which they identify as their true selves. For the gut types E8, E9, and E1, the focus is on anger and the struggle of obedience versus defiance. In RH’s theory of the types’ parental orientation (based on the correlation of types with Frued’s theory of libido fixations, but redefined), E8 is oriented toward the nurturing figure (representative of matriarchal qualities of warmth, caring, nurturance, approval, gentleness, and sensitivity; usually mother but not always), E1 is oriented toward the protective figure (representative of patriarchal qualities of authority, structure, discipline, guiding the child in the ways of the world; usually the father but now always), and E9 toward both. Below you can find a summary of the childhoods of the gut types and their causes, with quotes on the childhood wounds from Naranjo, Jaxon-Bear, Maitri, Palmer, Chestnut, and Riso-Hudson following each (in the summaries, their points are also given weight respective to that order).

Enneagram Eight

The wounding message E8s learned during childhood can be summarized as “It’s not okay to be vulnerable or weak,” and “You can’t trust others because that only brings betrayal.” This message is picked up in an early unsafe environment—be it emotionally and/or physically—where they had to mature too soon to survive. A perceived betrayal is central to this type’s focus. The E8 was denied being a child, and the usually violent (but not always) environment taught them to believe that they must be aggressive and decisive individuals who are ready to jump into battle at any moment, who are always on the lookout for a challenge, and who can handle absolutely anything without flinching. All because otherwise, they could not survive. Because they learned to believe no one would be there to help when they needed it and all people would do is betray them. This led to the E8’s insensitive and cynical nature, and a desire to be completely autonomous. They believed they were wronged, and this injustice caused them to seek Vengeance, what Ichazo called the ego-fixation of E8. The root of this fixation is the type’s structure; unlike E1 who holds and hones the anger within which turns to Resentment, in E8 anger is projected and released outward into Vengeance, with someone having to bear the blame and quickly pay. Essentially, the E8 begins to do this to escape their own vulnerability.

When looking at the beginning of the E8 childhood, a prominent pattern is that of assertive and adventurous children—children that are too much and want too much. The E8 child’s excessive desires in turn resulted in being punished frequently by adults who could not handle them. As they wondered what they’d done wrong and in order to defend their vulnerable psyche and the innocent child they were from being pained by these frequent and unjust punishments, they subconsciously decided to bury the child within (laying the roots for losing touch with that inner being) and take on a “to hell with them” mindset and an attitude of steely indifference. This also made them recognize the environment of home as uncaring and stifling of their life (or even saw a lack of a place to call home, frequent in E8 children raised in poverty), and they began to see it as a place to escape. And as they felt controlled and inconsistently punished for being bad without basis while escaping punishment for their actual mistakes, laws became arbitrary in their eyes and their own desires became the thing to live by.

Desires and the question of “What do I want and how do I get it?” became the main focus of the E8, and this child grew to see giving in to the rules of society as being robbed of desires and freedom to pursue them and the better place they seek—this antisocial tendency of E8 is also why Naranjo identified SO8 as the countertype. The question of tendencies versus rules is itself illustrating the dichotomies of this personality; these opposite poles can be seen in how following conventions without conviction lacks the life E8 is so full of, and the person can be carried by the wind of society, but on the other hand, a tyranny of nonconformity can destroy society, or be in itself an imposition of power while seeking to not have society impose its power and conventions on the person. An E8 balanced between these dichotomies understands that awareness of the conventions and knowing how to navigate them can leave room and freedom to get their desires.

The seeking of desires also ties together with the E8’s passion of Lust, a vice rooted in the core loss E8s begin to feel in childhood. In not being allowed to be a vulnerable innocent child with desires and dreams and being loved for it, Maitri explains that the E8 loses touch with their “being” and begins to feel void. This is also evident in the holy idea Ichazo assigned to this type which the E8 had become estranged from. Named Holy Truth, this holy idea indicates that the truth of reality is multidimensional and consists of opposite dualities, with spiritual and physical sides existing inseparably—the “being” next to reality. In feeling void of “being” then, the E8 child gets the unconscious need to somehow fill it. As the “realm of matter” is all that the E8 can now see existing, a lust for the tangible and filling oneself with life becomes the child’s subconscious solution to filling the void. This lust gives the E8 their notable quality of doing everything in excess—people are measured in extremes, life is lived to the extremes; there is no moderation.

Although, Maitri adds that, though rare, E8s with a spiritual bent exist who do not feel as separated from “being” (possibly because of a slight difference in upbringing, perhaps more safe or more focused on connecting with “being”) but still approach life with the same rigid hard shell and duality. These E8s see themselves as containing the spiritual side and the world as being devoid of it in return, and so their lust for life can have a tendency to manifest as filling the void of life with “being.” Jaxon-Bear notes similar balanced E8s focused on bringing others into enlightenment, such as Gurdjieff, a spiritual teacher whose Fourth Way teachings were the first appearance of the Enneagram symbol and who was a teacher of Ichazo. Naranjo, however, only describes the materialistic version of the type who has lost contact with inner truth.

On the topic of parental orientation, in RH terms, E8s felt ambivalent and uncertain toward the feminine nurturing figure in their homes (often the mother, but not always) and were neither necessarily connected to them nor completely separate. In a way, they felt dissatisfied by the warmth and care provided by the figure (as Maitri notes, mother withheld her love and protection and the E8 was left defenseless against the dominating and commonly violent father) but did not discard the figure fully, especially as how the figure themself was a victim of the same unsafe environment. Because of this uncertain disposition, and the way the pain threatened the figure, the E8 child learned that they can find their place in the family by being the complementary role to the nurturing figure—a masculine role of unshakable strength. As multiple authors have noted, they had to be “the strong one” to possibly rescue the victimized figure and learn to fight where others couldn’t. A common adversary, then, is a tyrannical father which Naranjo notes is commonly an E6. Alternatively, the E8 might have identified with a brutal E8 in their life who they modelled after. In any case, they developed an ability to instantly identify weakness in anything, be it to exploit or defend, and made sure not to have any visible in themself, all to the point of burying their weakness (the inner child) so deep they forget it existed. The role and armor E8 puts on for life is a tough shell, and to them, losing it equals pain, rejection, or betrayal.

There is a special focus on this perceived betrayal in the E8’s mindest, and exacting revenge for it is central to this personality. Tracing back the truth of this wrong, it always leads to the betrayal of the E8’s vulnerable inner child by the uncaring parental figures and the aforementioned loss of “being” and contact with the inner truth. In a way, the E8 shuns and blames the culpable, innocent, and weak child inside for having allowed the unjust treatment to happen and not been stronger to withstand and shut it down early on. But as mentioned before, the type structure is one of outward projection—the lively vitality pours out, and blame is externalized. So to the E8, there must be someone whose fault it is and must instantly pay. In this way, the E8 is unconsciously trying to protect that impressionable child while hiding it behind walls of brick. Because feeling disappointed in the parental love that betrayed the E8, with trust and weakness used against them, they began to focus only on hardening themselves. They learned to fear being manipulated and hurt, and to associate it with gentleness or trust—all traits of the weak, precious child within. They gave up the search for love in their cynicism and replaced it with a search for respect, mainly in the form of submission from others. What E8s long to hear is the opposite of the unconscious lesson they learned—that they will not be betrayed and can trust others in moments of weakness, knowing it is safe to reveal the vulnerable child within, and have it be nurtured.

Claudio Naranjo on E8

From Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo:

It is possible to imagine that the influence of genetically determined somatotonic temperament on character formation is not simple but indirect, inasmuch as a noisy child or one who is excessively vehement in his desires can easily elicit rejection or punishment which, in turn, will stimulate both self-assertion and rebellion. The following vignette illustrates such indirect effect in regard to what appears to be an inborn adventurousness: “I remember as a four year old child running on the beach toward the infinite. They searched for me in a motor boat, and found me beyond the reach of vision. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I am looking at the stars.’ Then my father beat me up.”

It may be generally said that the ennea-type VIII individual has implicitly decided to seek outside the home a better life, and it is not uncommon to find that he has left home early. A lack of care or even an actual lack of home-like environment may be a factor (as in delinquent children in areas of great poverty), and also it is my impression that violence in the home is more frequent than in the life histories of other characters, and in such cases it is easy to understand the development of insensitivity, toughening up, and cynicism.

Yet in other instances the factors leading to disappointment in parental love are not so evident, notably when one among several children manifests these characteristics and others do not. We may think that in such instances a common experience of punishment has been experienced and interpreted differently so that one brother becomes submissive in the expectation of parental love and the other, more humiliated and angry, becomes adventurous in the search for a better environment. Occasionally a factor in the development of this character is identification with another family member, as in the quotation below where pain and the same-type modeling have coincided: “Since I was little I had felt invaded. It was like the invasion of barbarians. Violently assaulted and it was my grandmother who was the boss. My grandmother was distinctly an ‘VIII,’ and I was her right eye; I was the first and the inheritor of all her story.”

In other instances the stimulus for rebellion has been a tyrannical type VI father, which is an understandable background for one who is not only rebellious but who has learned to survive through intimidation.

Though it may be broadly said that ennea-type VIII, like type V, has pessimistically given up on the search for love to the point of cynically doubting good motives and tending to perceive expression of positive feelings as sentimentalism, we may also speak, as in other characters, of a substitution of an original love wish. Just as in type I, search for love becomes a search for respect, and it is in respect that the “proof of love” is felt to be. In ennea-type VIII the “proof of love” is implicitly felt to be in the willingness of the other to be possessed, dominated, used, and—in extreme cases—beaten up. Correspondingly, all these behaviors and attitudes become, in the course of time, love substitutes.

From 27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram by Claudio Naranjo:

The origin of this character structure is found in a childhood in which he has been denied being a child—he has not received suitable care, either in the concrete area or the affective and psychological. In extreme cases, we can find abuse and mistreatment that has humiliated and subjected him. This situation of oppression and prevarication leads him to cultivate within him an aspiration to respond to violence with the same vehemence and strength, while waiting for the day of final revenge. He is a child who must have grown up quickly, unable to surrender to weakness, tenderness, or fragility. Who has had to learn to fight and defend himself and others against injustice. The strongest experience is the attribution of being a bad boy. Sometimes, the sense of justice derives from a family background in which the paternal parental figure exercised violence, physical or psychological, or abused his power, while the mother—or sibling(s)—is perceived as a victim of this violence and as an object of rescue.

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E8

From From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation by Eli Jaxon-Bear:

In order to survive, Eights had to develop a hard shell. They had to grow up fast in order to take care of themselves. They were punished for things they didn’t do and they often got away with things they did do. This created a sense that laws are arbitrary. The Eight thinks, “I make my own rules, and I follow my own rules.”

While Nines as children were pushed into the background, Eights were often physically or emotionally tortured, or felt that they were. Most male Eights tell of physical punishment in childhood. Even those who were not spanked or whipped often describe some other kind of torture. This is not always true with female Eights, who do not necessarily identify childhood as a violent time. However, more than one female Eight has spoken of being violently attacked and sometimes sexually abused by a father or older brother, or sometimes having to defend the younger children against a drunken, raging father.

At an early age, the Eight became convinced that the world is a jungle, and in order to survive you have to “get them before they get you.” Eights feel that they were victims of injustice, so justice becomes a burning issue. They blame the world and are out to make it right.

Here, a female Eight talks about being falsely accused by her mother:

When I was little, my mother and I lived alone. We had a cat. My mother liked expensive perfume, and she had these perfumes on her dresser. Our cat must have got up there and spilled her perfume. I put everything back before my mother came home, but the place really stank from the spilled perfume.

As soon as she walked in the door, she started screaming at me about getting into her perfume. First of all, I couldn’t stand her perfume. And I didn’t do it, so I said, “I didn’t do it.”

“Well, who else did?” And she went on and on and on. I looked at her as she continued yelling at me and falsely accusing me.

I said, “Wait a minute.” And I walked over and I slammed every bottle into the wall. I broke all of them. And what didn’t break, I started smashing.

Next, I let her beat on me. I had a sense that if I ever hit her back, I would have killed her, because she was a very little person. So I thought, “Okay, I’m going to take the rap for this. But first I’m going to have the pleasure of doing it.”

Another account describes the moment of crystallization:

We moved from Brooklyn to Queens on my third birthday, so I can place the time of this event as just before our move.

Between our apartment house and the brownstones around the corner was a vacant lot. One day I came to the lot and found two friends from the apartment being beaten up by the kids in the brownstones. I vividly remember running over to one friend and shouting, “Don’t worry, Mark, I’ll help you!”

I grabbed the kid who was fighting with Mark and pushed him with both hands. He went flying backwards and hit his head on a rock. At that moment, time stood still. A silence hung in the air as everyone froze and looked at the fallen boy. Suddenly, the red blotch of blood started pouring onto the rock from the boy’s head, and he let out a scream. His scream shattered the moment, and in the next instant, everyone was chasing me. I jumped on the back of Mark’s tricycle and tried push-kicking my way home, but it wasn’t fast enough.

I burst into the lobby of our apartment and frantically rang for my mother to buzz the door and let me in. I was shaking in terror as the gang burst into the lobby right behind me. An older kid grabbed my head and, while shouting that I broke his cousin’s head, proceeded to try to break mine.

After what seemed like a lifetime, my mother appeared and let me in. From that moment on, I was considered a problem child. No one could control me because I knew that they wouldn’t be there when I really needed them.

Sandra Maitri on E8

From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri:

Holy Truth points directly to the existence of Being and its coemergence with all of reality. It is the perception of reality in all of its multidimensionality, from the physical world to the deepest spiritual dimension of the Absolute. Here we see that all of these dimensions are real—they are the truth about how things are—and we also see that they exist inseparably from each other. This perception is in stark contrast to that of the personality, in which we base our sense of reality on the assumption that the realm of matter is all that exists. Even if we entertain the notion that there might be deeper dimensions to reality, when push comes to shove, the physical is fundamental for most of humanity. Since each of our physical bodies is separate from all other objects, believing we are inherently discrete entities is implicit in the personality’s materialistic perspective.

[...] Holy Truth is the experiential understanding that the reality we are part of is an indivisible and multidimensional unity. The loss of this understanding gives birth to a sense of duality, that one thing can be ultimately separate from something else. This in turn gives rise to various dualistic notions: that we are made up of Spirit and matter which are fundamentally separate or of different natures; that the universe contains two opposite forces of good and evil; and that the manifest and the unmanifest are different things.

While this sense of duality is implicit in all of the personality types and is one of the cornerstones of egoic reality, it is predominant for an Ennea-type Eight and forms the underpinning of all of the psychological characteristics of this type. The fundamental duality that arises for an Eight in concert with his loss of contact with Being in early childhood is that of believing himself to be and feeling like someone who is separated or cut off from Being. In other words, the loss of contact with Being creates the sense that he is devoid of It and so to all intents and purposes, It does not exist for him. As we have seen, this cannot be the case since he is made of Being and inseparable from It, but upon this delusion rests the Eight personality’s orientation toward life.

While not the norm, some Eights with a spiritual bent don’t feel that they ever lost contact with Being, and to them it is others and the world that seems devoid of It. Nonetheless his personality crystallizes around this take on reality, and while contact with his depths may be maintained, he develops a personality with which he identifies and which forms a rigid shell armoring his soul to protect his inner depths. To the extent that an Eight has developed a viable personality structure, he has reified a sense of self and of other in which one side has Spirit or God and the other side is devoid of It.

Most Eights, however, feel that they have been more or less completely stripped of Being at a very young age. An Eight’s innermost feeling is that something terrible has happened, although on this preverbal and preconceptual level, he does not even have the concept of loss of contact with his depths. There is just the sense that something not right has occurred, that something bad has been done to him, and that his soul has been corrupted or tainted in some way. There is a vague sense of having lost his primordial and natural state, a dim sense that he has fallen from grace. What is most real, the deepest and paramount truth about himself, has been wiped out of his consciousness. His soul knows that a sense of unity with what is most precious about him has been lost, and his ego crystallizes around this sense.

Out of the eradication of his inner sense of oneness with Being which results in a sense of self and other—duality—arises the conviction that someone must be responsible for this terrible state of affairs. Blame is a word that figures largely in the psychology of an Eight—ascertaining who is at fault and avenging the wrong is a central preoccupation. This is why this type is called Ego-Revenge as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, and why Ichazo named the Eight fixation vengeance. Most deeply, although it takes a great deal of inner work to make this conscious, he holds himself as culpable. He believes that he should have been strong enough—yes, as an infant and very young child—to withstand the force of conditioning and not lose touch with Being. Or, if he does not experience having lost that contact, he believes he should have been able to make those in his early environment conscious of Being, both in themselves and within him. A tall order indeed for a baby, but one that sounds plausible and even reasonable to an Eight.

In either case, he believes he is a bad person for having let this happen. This sense of being an ultimately separate entity who is responsible for having lost contact with Being is probably the source of the Christian doctrine of original sin. Like Adam and Eve, he has been thrown out of the Garden of Eden because of his badness. He blames himself, but this is very difficult to tolerate, so in a decisive psychological move, he projects the blame outward: it is the fault of others. His parents and the rest of his early holding environment become responsible for this profound loss in his mind, and this wrong must be righted. He must be vindicated and restitution must be extracted. Blaming his early milieu and staying stuck in his anger about his childhood not only keeps him from hating himself but also protects the memory of that preciousness that he once experienced as himself. He protects the goodness of his True Nature in this way. This is his own personal jihad, and restores to him a sense of virtue.

While it may seem that he is being excessively hard on himself (if his self-blame is conscious) and unforgiving toward his early caretakers, this stance actually protects him from something that is to him far worse: experiencing his powerlessness. To do so would mean capitulation to him, a surrender to the forces of egoic reality, both within and without. Continuing to hold others accountable and trying to set things right keeps an inner fight going with reality, which keeps him from having to accept it, and for an Eight this was a necessary psychological survival strategy of early childhood. To have fully experienced his helplessness and defenselessness would have meant psychically giving up, and he indeed might not have survived if he had done so. This is especially true if he experienced severe trauma or abuse in his childhood. His inner powerlessness, helplessness, and vulnerability to the forces of conditioning are what he considers the core of his weakness, and this is his most avoided experience, as we see on the Enneagram of Avoidances where weakness appears at Point Eight.

As we have seen, he fundamentally holds himself responsible for his fall into egoic reality, and from one angle the rest of his life can be seen as an attempt to grapple with this basic sense of culpability and the resulting feeling of guilt. All of his self-chastisement and self-castigation—which far exceed any that he lays on others—has its roots in this way that his soul interprets his loss of contact with Being. For this reason, on the Enneagram of Antiself Actions, which describes each type’s relationship with his soul, the term at Point Eight is self-punishing.

If only he had been stronger and more powerful, he tells himself, this would not have happened. If he had been more forceful and assertive enough, he could have made mommy perceive his depths and he would have retained contact with Being. If only he had been stauncher, he could have resisted the force of egoic reality. If only he had been tougher, he could have stopped all the abuses, large and small, of which he was the recipient—and many Eights had childhoods in which they either were abused physically or sexually, or felt as though they were. His take on his childhood is that he was humiliated, exploited, and punished for reasons that had little to do with him or his behavior. Many Eights have the impression that mother withheld her love and did not protect him from his dominating and brutal father. A sense of profound injustice is left in his soul, and the world appears more or less malevolent to him.

What is wrong with him, in his mind, is his weakness and vulnerability, his openness and receptivity, since these qualities are responsible for his impressionable infant soul losing contact with his inner truth. Strength, then, looks to him like the quality he needs, and this leads him to develop a personality style that replicates it more than any other trait.

Helen Palmer on E8

From The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer:

Eights survived their childhood by taking a tough personal stand. Their world felt dominated by bigger, stronger people who wanted to control their lives. The child struggled against a sense of unfair odds and survived by any form of confrontation that would make enemies back down. Reports range from beaten children who fought back to inner city children who gained respect from peers for not crying, for not showing weakness, and for winning fights. Where there was no physical abuse in the family, Eights report that they were respected for being strong and rejected when they looked weak.

When I was young, fighting was a way of life. Tough school, tough neighborhood. You had to get on top and hold on tight. People listened if you yelled, and left you alone if you pushed them back. I had a reconstruction recently, when I went back for the holidays. Conversations had a tone of having to take sides. Politics, opinions, everything felt shaded with antagonism.

Every time I would try to move out of the way of a direct challenge, my mother would look repelled. She finally walked away from the conversation, saying that I was a wimp who had no opinions. I had to realize that she liked me as a fighter and dropped me when I started to look weak. As an adult, the feeling is, “don’t hit me,” when I try to put my guard down, or when I become open to another person, because I’ve been so humiliated for looking weak.

Eights commonly describe themselves as having tried to be good when they were young. They say that they initially wanted to please others, but that their innocence was taken advantage of, and that they were hurt when they showed their vulnerable side. They believe that they began to push back in self-defense and quickly found that it was more fun to break the rules than it was to try to keep them.

My parents are fundamentalist Baptists; and we were raised with the idea that anything done in the name of the children’s salvation was justified. My father was violent with us, and for about four years I got beaten with a strap every two or three weeks. One time when I was about fifteen, I knew I was big enough, and I got it away from him and told him next time it was going to be bare fists.

My mother’s concern about the state of my soul seemed somehow more insidious. I got saved at about eleven and for months took the vows at face value. It was impossible. One small sin and you went down in flames; it was either heaven or hell, with no salvation in between. The reality that my parents outlined for me just wasn’t acceptable. If this was life, then why not end it then and there? So I went against it and was always getting warnings like, “If you do that you’re over the line, there’s no redemption, no turning back.” So I’d always just do it and push the limit.

When I was in high school, I burglarized the church that we attended. My father was a deacon in this church, so we had to leave in shame. Before that I had been forced to go to church a lot—Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, prayer meetings—and it was just agony for me. Looking back, I think it woke them up to what was happening to me, but at the time I just thought that I needed the money.

Beatrice Chestnut on E8

From The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut:

Many Eights report having grown up in combative or conflict-heavy environments in which they had to grow up fast to survive. Most were unable to maintain a sense of childlike innocence because they were either deprived or not sufficiently protected as children—often in the face of some sort of violence or neglect. In many cases, the Eight was the youngest, smallest child in a big family. From the perspective of the Eight child, survival depended on denying the fact of being small. Taking on a persona that was bigger and more powerful helped them to deal with a world that did not provide needed love, care, or protection.

Type Eight individuals were thus typically forced to become forceful early on—to leave childhood behind prematurely and become tough in order to protect themselves and sometimes others. To get their needs met, many Eights had to take matters into their own hands and exert control over their environment at an early age. As Naranjo notes, “it is my impression that violence in the home [of an Eight] is more frequent than in the life histories of other characters, and in such cases it is easy to understand the development of insensitivity, toughening up, and cynicism.”

In circumstances like these, the Eight child develops a coping strategy based on being strong and taking control in whatever way it is possible to do so. The Eight coping strategy thus centers on the child’s need to defensively deny their vulnerability and develop a belief in their invulnerability. As adults, Eights attempt to compensate for their helplessness in the face of the perceived injustices of their childhood by taking justice into their own hands and expressing power in the name of justice.

The Eight personality’s approach leads to an ability to automatically become “big” when they are presented with challenges, according to the idea that “the best defense is a good offense.” This “bigness” leads to a personality style characterized by a large and impactful energetic presence (Eights often seem larger than they physically are), a big appetite for everything (food, drink, pleasure, sex), and excessive behavior (eating and drinking too much, staying out too late, working too hard).

Because Eights have an early need to feel powerful and so learn to deny their vulnerability, they often feel they can make their own rules and ignore limitations that others place on them. They tend to see reality in their own terms, unconsciously bending their perception of facts and confusing objective reality with their own personal sense of what’s true. This stance goes along with having a strong will and a tendency to view themselves as the most powerful person around—they make the automatic assumption that the way they see things is the only way things can be seen.

With a coping style that relies on getting big and powerful to come up against people or difficult conditions, Eights can sometimes be perceived by others as bossy or controlling, though they often just consider themselves direct and honest. Through the development of their specific survival strategy, Eights become skilled at getting what they need and want and also at fighting injustice and protecting those they feel need their support. They pursue their aims through force, intimidation, or aggression. More so than other personalities, Eights are willing to confront or fight with others if they need to.

Eights’ strategy of reducing awareness of their own vulnerability allows them to feel very powerful and even invincible. As “self-forgetting” types, they tend to minimize their own physical needs and natural human limitations. Doing so supports their stance of being able to take on a lot—to work very hard and bear the burden of many responsibilities—even when this is detrimental to their health and well-being.

As Naranjo points out, however, “the reverse side of the necessity for mastery is [the Eight’s] dread of anything connoting helplessness; this is the most poignant dread he has.” This personality draws on power and the will to dominate others as key components in their “offense as defense” approach to life. There is also, as psychologist Karen Horney suggests, an intense need for “vindictive triumph,” especially when they feel they’ve been wronged by someone. Ichazo called this personality “Ego-Venge” to reflect the feelings of vengefulness an Eight can feel as a result of the early need to be able to fight back. Naranjo cites a potent combination of “powerful impulses and insufficient checks” as the force behind the Eight’s need for vengeance—but certainly also a lack of contact with inner weakness (and perhaps the vague memory of it) also plays a role.

Amelia, a Type Eight, describes her childhood situation and the development of her coping strategy:

My parents were powerful and charismatic. My father (a Type Seven) considered all “societal rules” irrelevant. He did whatever he wanted and considered himself God. My mother (a Type Four) was drawn to high society living, yet very bitter about my father’s sometimes atrocious behaviour. This resulted in many years of very cruel verbal altercations between my parents at home, but never in public.

As they were always traveling, my older brother and I were frequently left with the nanny. My brother was considered the “heir” by my parents and our nanny worshiped him. Although she definitely took care of my very basic needs, I was considered “extra” work and was removed from the house so she could spend more time with my brother. For an example, as a baby, I was placed in a pram and pushed to the end of the garden and left for many hours—and often forgotten. When we were very young children, my brother became a bully and I became his punching bag. I used to do all his chores around the house rather than be painfully beaten, and I was called his “secret servant” by the adults. So from very early on, this situation in which my parents were either absent or constantly fighting and a brother who was favored and allowed to behave badly led me to believe that life was unfair and that I needed to be strong if I was going to survive. My vulnerability and innocence were not attended to or nurtured but on some level I must have understood this as when sent to boarding school at seven years old, I immediately started protecting and looking after those younger and more vulnerable than I.

Even now, as I remember this, I can feel it physically in my body: my jaw is clenching at the thought of the injustice of it and I am infused energetically with a kind of battle armour. It’s as if even now, in this moment, I am reacting to the unfairness. I can also observe how I am writing my story in such a direct way. There is little space—then or even now—for my heart to be open to innocence and vulnerability, as I still want to protect the truth of the sweet, tender, and very sensitive child that I was—and in some ways still am. However today, I have a deeper and more appreciative understanding of why that little girl inside of me chose what she considered necessary at that very young age—to be tough and strong!

Riso-Hudson on E8

From Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

As young children, Eights were ambivalent to the nurturing-figure, the person in their early development who mirrored them, cared for them, and provided affection and a sense of personal value. This is often the mother or a mother-substitute, but in some families, the father or an older sibling may serve as the nurturing-figure. Eights did not strongly bond with or identify with their nurturing-figure (like Threes), nor did they psychologically separate from them entirely either (like Sevens). As a result, Eights learned that they could maintain some kind of connection with the nurturing-figure and fit into the family system by functioning in a role that was complementary to the nurturing-figure. The nurturing-figure represented (and therefore “owned”) the qualities associated with motherhood: warmth, caring, nurturance, approval, gentleness, and sensitivity. Thus, the Eight identified with the complementary patriarchal role, and learned that the best way to get some sense of value, affection, and nurturance was to be “the strong one,” the little protector, the one that others turn to for strength and guidance, especially in a crisis. Eights then identified completely with this role, feeling that to give it up would be to lose their identity as well as any hope of ever being loved or cared for.

Like Twos and Fives, the other “ambivalent” types, Eights feel that their well-being and survival are dependent on fulfilling their role in life. Twos believe that they must always selflessly nurture and care for others; Fives believe that they have no role to play and must find one; and Eights believe that they must be the decisive, strong person who can handle the big problems and who is indifferent to hardship and suffering. As with all of the types, the healthy manifestations of these roles can lead to extremely important contributions to the people around them, or even in the world. However, as fear and insecurity grows, these roles become prisons which trap the types and prevent them from expressing the full range of their humanity.

As we have seen, Eights begin to repress their fear and vulnerability so that they will be strong enough to meet whatever challenges they must. In highly dysfunctional families or in otherwise dangerous childhood environments, those challenges may be considerable, and in Eights, the result is a tough, aggressive person with a limited capacity to get close to others or to acknowledge their hurt. It is as if Eights must construct a tough shell of aggressive ego defenses so no one will ever again be able to get at the soft, vulnerable person inside.

If Eights have suffered serious abuse in childhood, their faith in others and in the world becomes so damaged that they live in constant anticipation of rejection and betrayal. Unlike Sixes, who also have trust issues and who may develop an aggressive style of defense against the world, Eights do not believe they can rely on anyone or anything outside themselves. Within their family system, they experienced themselves as independent people striving to assert their own authority. Either there was no one else to turn to for reassurance or guidance, or they pitted themselves against whatever authority figures there were in their environment—parents, teachers, older kids, the police. Eights were unwilling to allow their destiny or decisions to be placed in anyone else’s hands. (“The buck stops here.”)

If there was some degree of warmth, nurturance, and mutual support in the Eight's early childhood environment, chances are good that as an adult, the Eight will take a strongly protective role, especially with the few people that they trust and are close to. If there is little support or nurturance available, Eights may grow up with an “every man for himself” attitude. They feel as though they have had to struggle and fight to survive on their own, and if others are going to make it, they had better be able to take care of themselves. Looking out for number one is a full time job, and caring too much about others becomes a survival risk.

We can see very clearly in this type how a child’s natural qualities—in this case, high energy, physical endurance, and willpower—combine with a family constellation to crystallize a particular pattern of behaviors and attitudes that determine a person’s identity.

[...] The Three-Eight-Seven group (the nurturing-figure-oriented types) are the personality types which defend themselves aggressively (Horney’s “moving against” types). From developmental psychology, we know that the early bonding and mirroring experiences between the mother and child result in the development of the self-image, thus these are [Frued’s] ego-oriented types. They are then motivated to assert their egos into the environment and to find direct ways of gratifying their ego needs. [...] Eights want to be in control of their environment, so they obtain the means they need to be in control of their world.

From The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

Most Eights have told us that they felt that they had to become “adults” at an early age, perhaps to help bring in money to raise the other children in the family because of an absent father or some other calamity. They may have had to deal with a dangerous environment (such as drug dealers, or street gangs, or some kind of war zone), or with an erratic or violent adult in their home. Other Eights grow up in fairly normal families but may have felt the need to protect their feelings for other reasons. In short, Eights tend to grow up quickly, and survival issues are foremost to them, as if they were asking, “How can I—and the few people I care about—survive in a cruel, uncaring world?”

Roseann is an Eight who recalls the enormous pressure created by her childhood situation.

Being tough with my tough father set up a relationship with my mother as I got older. She would often ask me to go to my father with a request regarding a family outing, a movie—stuff like that. “You ask him,” she’d say. “If I suggest it, he’ll say no.” On the one hand, this made me feel proud that she thought I was strong and tough enough to deal with him. But on the other hand, I resented it because even though my father and I seemed to be respectful of each other’s temper, I was always afraid of him. I was just a little girl, after all. I just knew that I couldn’t show it or ever admit it.

Young Eights soon get the idea that it is not safe to be gentle or giving. These attitudes feel “soft” and “weak” and in their minds only invite rejection, betrayal, and pain. They feel that it is best not to let down their guard, so if there is going to be any nurturing or warmth in their lives, someone else will have to provide it.

Eights often report that as children, they struggled with powerful feelings of having been rejected or betrayed. They were typically assertive and adventuresome and got into “situations” that led to being punished frequently. Rather than detach or withdraw from their punishers, young Eights defended themselves against the feeling of rejection with the attitude, “To hell with them. Who needs them? No one tells me what to do!” Of course, like anyone else, Eights want to be loved, but the more they felt rejected and treated like misfits, the more they hardened their hearts.

Arlene is a member of a religious order, and has been a constant source of strength and support for those in her community. She recalls an unhappy early event that brought out her Eight defense.

When I was two and a half years old, my younger sister was born. My mother was in bed nursing her, and I kept crawling into bed to be with my mother. She told me several times to stay with my aunt who would put me on her lap. My mother was concerned that I would hurt the baby. But I was persistent and kept crawling off my aunt’s lap and getting back into the bed with my mother. My mother finally just pushed me off the bed, and when that happened, I think my feelings said, “I’ll get even!” Later, when I was somewhat older, I determined that I would leave home for the convent after eighth grade, even though this deeply hurt my folks. But I didn’t consider my parents’ wishes and just did it anyway.

Young Eights may learn to play the role of the Scapegoat (the Black Sheep or Problem Child). In family systems theory, “scapegoats” typically make explicit the hidden problems in a family, through either word or deed. As adults, Eights become mavericks, rebelling against restraints and bucking the system wherever possible.

Sometimes the “decision” to steel themselves came when the child felt betrayed by a parent or another significant adult. The child may have been abandoned by the parents in a boarding school, or left with relatives, or had their savings or some other valuables taken from them unfairly. They may also have been the victims of physical or sexual abuse. But because of the gross imbalance of power between young Eights and those who treated them unfairly, they could do little or nothing about it except to make the decision never to allow this to happen to them again.

Kit is an accomplished entrepreneur in the fashion industry. Here she recounts a momentous decision she made as a young girl.

The sudden death of my black nanny when I was seven was an important turning point for me. She was secretly supportive of me and would comfort me in different ways when I was punished by my parents. But when she died unexpectedly, I felt truly alone. I was furious at my parents for not allowing me to attend her funeral, angry at my brothers for their apparent indifference, and irate at my nanny for leaving me. Yet I never shed a tear. I decided that I was truly on my own, and that I didn’t need anyone.

Eights consider betrayal to be a pivotal point in their lives because it marked the death of their innocence and goodness. When their inner core was betrayed by someone important, Eights decided that they would never allow themselves to be vulnerable or innocent again. They would never allow themselves to drop their guard. For a time, Eights may secretly grieve their lost innocence, but eventually they accept this as the way they must be to meet life’s challenges. If they have come from backgrounds that were remorselessly threatening, Eights tend to become as remorseless to themselves as they are to others. Once the heart has been buried, even grief over lost innocence can be forgotten.

Enneagram Nine

For an E9, the wounding message of “It’s not ok to assert yourself or rock the boat” and “The needs and feelings of others matter more than yours” is learned in a childhood where the child was overlooked or neglected and felt unimportant or “lost.” Commonly, the parents were preoccupied and the child’s needs seemed a burden. They were ignored or attacked for having needs or expressing themself (especially anger) and so grew to struggle with knowing how to comfortably deal with it. As the type’s structure shows, the anger of the gut triad is then both internalized and externalized, with the E9 swinging in uncertainty, not knowing how to deal with it and denying reality on both fronts to have their numbing peace. All this led the ignored E9 to learn to keep a low profile and focus on the needs and experience of others; in other words, the E9’s over-adjustment and renouncing of self—crowded out of their own bodies and minds by others, in other words—and search to fill their own existential emptiness through others. They lose touch with their own desires and identity and try to deserve and earn the love they were denied through over-giving behavior. In return, they need little but affection.

In RH terms, E9s felt connected to both parents in childhood, meaning they identified with and incorporated into their own psyches the agendas and issues of both their nurturing figure and protective figure, which is essential to the early loss of self E9s are noted for and the tendency to be stuck between opposing parties, which the E9 parental figures can often be. Generally, all authors note that a background of extreme brutality or miserable home life is common for E9s where there was nothing they could do to change it. Due to this environment, they learned to “tune out” the problems or separation from others and try to numb themselves to the pain and conflict inside and out and, effectively, to their own self. Even in cases where there is no extreme brutality, the general theme of feeling in a precarious and suffocating position remains, where the E9 saw there was no way out, no way to not lose everything, other than to yield and pretend that it was all fine.

This, however, does not mean that E9s necessarily accept things as they are, though they are usually accepting and realistic people. The E9 focus is in reality one of numbing out and subconsciously ignoring what they don’t wish to see, and this is both directed inward and outward. As the type in the middle of the gut triad, the anger and vitality became projected in both directions. Jaxon-Bear notes in E9s a tendency to swing between defiance and obedience, and adds that, because of not knowing what to do with their anger, E9s can grow to become accident-prone. RH describes a denying of both internal and external reality, with the person numbing themself to both in an attempt to contain the peace they want. Generally, where E1’s energy is contained and sharp and E8’s is loudly poured out, E9’s is uncertain and fluid.

Looking more into the childhood setting of the type, it’s noted that E9 children might have had too many expectations on them growing up, with demands piling up and the E9 having to consider everyone else’s needs and help them. Naranjo notes the prevalence of a demanding E1 or E4 parental figure, pressuring the child or another E9 parent about their laziness in contrast to their own intensity; the E1 wanted constant excellence and activity, and the E4, attention. It is also possible the child was stuck between opposing parties that they tried to stay connected to by refusing to take a side and mediating between them, such as an incompatible combination of E1 and E9 parents Naranjo claims is common. On top of this, when the E9 child voiced an opinion, they were not heard. When they had needs, they were condemned. They may have been a victim of hearing “calm down” or “stop complaining,” and it made them think their anger only made things worse, so they grew confused about where to direct it. They were rewarded only when they remained undemanding and in the background; if they just lived quietly minding their own and being satisfied, parents would note the good little child they were, but if they didn’t, there would be no love for them and their needs.

So they decided it would be best not to get involved and began to retreat inside themselves, dissociating or shutting down—potentially living in denial—and soothing their feelings with small comforts. You can imagine this as the child putting on headphones and playing with toys while the parents fight in another room. He imagines better times, tries to numb out his worries and fears, and distracts himself from his own feelings. Essentially, what E9s learn to do is to stop truly interacting or caring about anything as a way to protect themself and be left undisturbed. And this here is the reason why Naranjo identified the SO9 as the countertype of this enneatype—to be active and part of society, caring about humanity and its causes, is against the defensive prevention of truly moving out into the world and interacting or caring, which ties with the type’s passion and vice of Sloth.

To understand the internal focus and pain of E9, though, we need to look at the holy idea Ichazo attributed to the type: Holy Love. Maitri explains Holy Love as the perception that everything is inherently and equally lovely and delightful and pleasing simply because of their “being,” and that one doesn’t have to seek that satisfaction and enjoyment in especial moments or tangible experiences because, with that perception, one can have the internal bliss and joy in any circumstances. As with all holy ideas, the fixation of E9 comes from losing touch with Holy Love, and this is a result of growing to learn that their own needs and thoughts and generally presence are not really loved or appreciated equally to others—that they don’t matter. And so the E9 loses this “equally lovely” perception, and everything else about the personality sprouts from this loss. Because without this perception, one comes to see reality as restrictive and meaningless, with love and satisfaction limited to tangible experiences, and one loses the attunement to spirituality and motivation to pursue it. And so the more fixated the E9 is, the more they suffer because of their distance from their depths, seeing positive feelings fleetingly disappearing from one moment to the next. And the less fixated they are, the closer they are to finding the Idea of Holy Love, which is central to spirituality and the reason E9 is the crown of the Enneagram and the domain of spirituality, with polarities of the material versus the spiritual.

But ultimately, all unbalanced and wounded E9s maintain this unequal and skewed understanding of their own worth and loveliness of presence in contrast to others—others deserve and get love because of experiencing life’s benevolence, but the E9s themself don't. And so they are resigned to their unlovability, carrying the impression that they were not worth being noticed or attended to and so continue not to be and are not important to anyone. To compensate, they became compulsive givers to be able to connect and earn love they don’t see themselves deserving. And in their goal to connect, due to their loss of contact with and numbing to self as well as over-adjustment aimed to escape the pain of being separate, unloved, and abandoned, they also lost their boundaries with others—in a way, they began to live through the people they connected with, unconsciously only seeking to be acknowledged. And in this way the E9 grew to want to be at peace and connected to everyone, with no one upset with their needs or opinions, and will remain such while they are numb to their own self and shun it and their own uncomfortable feelings. What they long to hear is that their presence and needs matter, and they can be comfortable in asserting it without anyone discarding them.

Claudio Naranjo on E9

From Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo:

Though Millon has suggested that the dependency in subjects with dependent personality may derive from an excessive maternal care, this is definitely not what I have observed in ennea-type IX individuals, who typically come from a large family where parental attention was divided among many siblings or from very busy households in which hard work absorbed much of the mother’s energies. Such antecedents are congruent with the resignation of the so-called dependent personality and the great effort to deserve love implicit in their self-denying, over-giving behavior. Only after the course of psychotherapy does type IX understand the love starvation of his childhood and the degree to which he has “naively” protected his parents from deidealization, persevering in a childlike over-trusting naïveté.

While a constitutional viscerotonic endowment may support the contented disposition of ennea-type IX, it is often clear from childhood circumstances that there was not another way out for the child than yielding to circumstances. Sometimes it was not that mother’s warmth was lacking, but circumstances prevented her from being more available, and the child perceived that complaining or calling attention to oneself would be of no help. On other occasions the child feels in a precarious position in the family, and this gives a sense that by complaining one might lose what little one has. In the following extract from an autobiographic report we find two unusual yet paradigmatic events having contributed to the “solution” of over-adjustment: an exotic cultural pattern and extreme brutality.

“My early childhood was divided up. When I was six months I was given away to my great grandmother, that’s part of the early culture of the Zamoros. So I never knew my parents until I was nine years old when the war broke, and my Aunt thought that she should return me to my parents in case anything happened during the war. And already I was rejected and abandoned, and when I came back to my family, my brothers and sisters did not accept me, they thought I was an intruder to the family. So … my mother is quiet but domineering. My father is a drunkard and when he comes home, we know when he’s coming home because he will be singing from work. We know what we are supposed to do; that we should disappear, and I always get the blame ‘cause I am the oldest of thirteen children and anything that goes wrong in the family, I get the blame. I will get the spanking, and then my father will give me the belt, and I will give it to my brothers and sisters to let them know that I am the boss when my parents are not around, that they should listen to me. My mother is quiet but very domineering in her quietness. She controlled my father and, well, one thing about my father, we children never saw him raise his hand to my mother, but my mother would wait until he sobered up and then talk to him, and then he’d come home the next day the same thing—drunk from work. One thing I can say about my dad, that he never spent the money for his drink, he’d always bring the check home. He’s a good provider and his friend would give him the drink. He never raised his voice on my mom. And we’d never see them quarrel. During the Japanese time he worked very hard, and yet when we’d collect the food the Japanese came and took the food from us. And my mother would go and collect some more of the food, we all went and helped her pick potatoes and all kinds of things, and a few days later the Japanese would come. So we were deprived of food at that time. I was nine years old. And toward the end of the two years we were in the Japanese camp, the Japanese collected all the men, eighteen up, and took them, before the Americans came in, and my father was one of them, but he escaped and the rest of the men that were taken, they were killed on the way. And my mother hid me just before then because the Japanese were collecting them all up and put them in a cave and threw hand grenades in and killed them ‘cause they were afraid that there would be an uprising. And they were going to finish us all but the Americans came in.”

Though the events in this story are rare they are paradigmatic: it is clear that the girl in it had grounds to become resigned, i.e., she had to cope in situations where there was nothing she could do. When I said this to her after listening to her report, her immediate comment was: “That’s why I’m always saying ‘I’m OK’. I deceive people by laughing things off.”

An element that often appears in the stories of ennea-type IX is an expectation that they contribute to what work there is to do at home. A woman says, for example: “You always had to milk the cows, morning and night … another trait in both of my parents was the work before you play, you don’t show emotions, you suffer it out, you stick it out, you don’t complain by being sick.”

A common variety of that situation is becoming mother’s helper with younger siblings as in the following example: “I have a brother that’s two years older than I, and then it’s myself—and I was the baby for five years—and then my sister was born. And I don’t know how that came about, but it seemed like I fell into being responsible for my sister, as a five-year old already, and that just came to me a couple years ago when I experienced some resentment against her, and I was trying to figure out why, and then it came to me that I kind of lost my childhood at that point. I remember one incident when she must have been a toddler maybe three or four years old, and we were standing on a busy street. My mother was in the store shopping, and we were waiting for my dad, and I had her by the hand and I would have been maybe eight years old then and all of a sudden she saw my dad coming and she broke loose and ran into this busy street, and the thing that I remember—my dad saw her too and he just ran out and stopped the traffic, or else she would have been run over. And the first thing that I thought of was if she had been hurt it would have been my fault. Now, it’s a very strong impression. I don’t think my parents ever gave me that, I don’t remember that they did. But anyway … So then four years later another little girl came along, and by that time I was really ready to be the mother and I guess I took it on—both parents coming from large families where it was taken for granted that each child would take care of the younger ones. I think that we just fell into it. It wasn’t that I really had to, because Mom didn’t work outside of the home and she could have really handled it quite easily I think. But that’s where I think I got the idea of the self-forgetfulness and putting myself aside and not ever feeling free to have fun and do what I wanted to do, because there I was always looking after the kids, keeping an eye on them and making sure they were okay.”

Regarding the personality of parents, it is common to find types IX and I, particularly in combination. The former influence, of course, has acted as a model of self-giving, the second has brought in perfectionistic demands: “My mother was very puritanical and perfectionistic. Being good was the way of avoiding spanking.” “I always received the message that it was not allowed and that in addition, one had to be ready for a time when it would be even less allowed.”

Even though over-adjusting is very opposite to rebellion, it is interesting to observe that rebellion toward a parent may have constituted a motive in adopting this style, as for instance in the following report by a young man: “My mother (I) has always reproached my father (IX) before me, and I think that it has been a rebellion toward her that has made me what I am, because I always had to do what she wanted. It was also an expression of love toward him. He was not present a lot. He worked out of town and whenever he appeared there were problems according to my mother. But I, as a child, remembered beautiful things in connection to my father.”

It is easy to understand why sometimes a type IV mother appears often in type IX histories; as in the case of a perfectionistic parent, this has involved demands and the need to defer to somebody else’s need. In the following example this element appears along with another common feature in the childhood of ennea-type IX, that of seeking to be a pacifier between the parents: “I always remembered my mother disparaging my father saying that he was lazy, that he had to work, that she had managed things, etc. But I could not believe that my father was such a bad person, and I wanted to be like him—peaceful and leisurely. He has little but manages with little. I also need little, just affection. I became like a bridge between them. I tried to make it better between them as a mediator.”

While the search for love in other characters has visibly turned into the search for love substitute or into the search for something that was originally perceived as a means to attracting parental care, in the “slothful” it appears to have been a resignation in regard to love and attention. Yet this resignation is only maintained through a loss of inwardness, for compulsive generosity does entail an unconscious expectation of reciprocity. While the unconsciousness of the love wish makes it inappropriate to speak of seduction or baiting, the individual is most grateful when his or her giving is acknowledged, and we may say that her search for love mainly takes the form of this wish to be acknowledged in her givingness and her selfless generosity.

From 27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram by Claudio Naranjo:

The E9 is, in general, a person who from childhood was forced to put into practice a kind of numbing to avoid contact with his own wound that has not been considered or seen as such. It is about a child who has had to deeply renounce his nature and contact with himself, seeking to fill his existential emptiness through confluence with the other and putting himself at the service of the needs of others. His incessant doing hides a deep sense of not being appropriate or important to anyone. In reaction to the lack of care and recognition, E9 began identifying with the maternal care, with the aim of caring for the mother herself (already often of the whole family) and only then being able to take care of himself and have a place in the world. Faced with the pain of separation, E9 denies separation itself, since he has no conscience and, above all, does not differentiate the feeling of a self, of the consciousness, of a you. If there doesn’t exist a separation between you and me, there will not exist the possibility of being abandoned either.

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E9

From From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation by Eli Jaxon-Bear:

It is common for the Nine to describe a trauma in the birth canal. There is often a feeling of pressure and a desire to fight against it, as well as a feeling of being closed in. Experiencing pressure and feeling helpless to fight against it can cause Nines to become rigid and passive-aggressive. They may become immovable under pressure. There is a sense that it is futile to fight and resist. This leads to a deep sense of depression and despair.

This theme can repeat itself in infancy and childhood. One woman recounted that in her early childhood she was often given to fits of anger and crying. Each time she started one of these fits, her mother put her in the closet and locked the door. She said she would stay there until she cried herself to sleep. The message she got from this was never to express anger because anger led to isolation and darkness. The only escape was sleep.

Another adult Nine told me of his childhood in Germany. His home life was miserable and the only thing he looked forward to was Christmas. It was the best thing that happened all year long. One Christmas, his mother made identical wool suits for all five children. This Nine, who was five years old at the time, put on his suit and began to itch. The itching was driving him crazy and he wanted to take the suit off. His mother said, “You have to wear this suit to celebrate Christmas.” He felt the dilemma of wanting to comply, while at the same time being enraged by the compliance. He thought, “I have to either wear this suit and suffer in order to have Christmas, or not wear this suit and stay home in bed.” His mother tried wetting the suit to make it more comfortable, but it just made the itching worse. Now he had a wet, itchy suit. The man told me this story when he was in his forties, and he still carried that rage with him.

Another Nine told a story of an experience he had as a five-year-old. He was walking across a creek on a board when someone started throwing rocks at him from behind. He saw the rocks whizzing by, but he didn’t know who was throwing them. When he got to the other side, he picked up a rock, turned, and threw it. He didn’t hit the girl, who had been throwing the rocks, but he hit her little brother in the head and it started bleeding. Terrified that he might have killed the little boy, he rushed back across the creek and bandaged the child’s head with his shirt. Then he ran home to get more shirts for bandages, terrified that the boy might die, and that he might actually have killed someone with his anger. When he got home, he ran to his room, opened the drawer, and grabbed the shirts. His mother came in and said, “Where are you going? Unless you tell me where you’re going, you’re not leaving this room.” He was caught between the terror that he had killed someone and the fear of telling his mother. He chose not to tell her where he had been headed. Instead, he stayed in his room, raging and terrified. Compliance produced rage. From this experience, he decided to never get angry again, and to never express anger. Rather than get angry, he began to go unconscious.

As children, Nines were often in the background. They may have felt overshadowed by their siblings. The high drama was going on elsewhere in the family and the Nine was an observer. Often Nines describe acting as peacemaker in the family, or hiding in their room while Mom and Dad fought. Many Nines say that expressing anger was simply not permitted in their family.

Although they were not center stage, Nines still had to deal with issues of compliance and rage. As children they tended to live through their parents, and as parents they tend to live through their children. Often these parents take their children to Little League or ballet, wanting them to do what they never did. Because the Nine tends to lose boundaries, there is the sense that if their child does it, it is the same as if they did it.

Sandra Maitri on E9

From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri:

Holy Love is the perception that reality, when seen without the filter of ego, is inherently loving and lovely, delighting and delightful, pleasing and pleasurable, full of wonder and wonderful. Holy Love points to the fact that Being is both the source of love and love itself, and that all of existence is a manifestation and embodiment of that love. [...] It is not a separate something that is outside of ourselves. It is the nature of everything that exists, and we don’t see this to the extent that we experience life through the veil of our personality. [...] It does not imply that everything that happens is positive but rather that the fundamental nature of all of creation is beneficial and propitious. Hinduism refers to this characteristic of reality as ananda, or “blissfulness,” and it is the basis of the bhakti, or “devotional” spiritual paths, which invoke and cultivate this uplifting characteristic of Being.

[...] So the closer we are to our depths, the more in balance and in harmony we feel. This is because Being is, from the angle of Holy Love, fundamentally positive and affects us as such. This explains why being in touch with the truth of our experience and revealing ourselves as we are makes us feel good, even if what we are getting in touch with or expressing is something we don’t like seeing or disclosing about ourselves. We are moving deeper into ourselves, and so our souls are closer to and more infused with the goodness of True Nature. Being more deeply in touch with ourselves just feels better than not being in touch. Without this characteristic of Holy Love, we would not feel motivated to travel any spiritual path. Contact with Being affects us in an agreeable, beneficial, and constructive way, making the struggles and difficulties of becoming more conscious worth our time, energy, and devotion.

[...] When we lose contact with Holy Love, we lose contact with its boundlessness, and it seems to us that the goodness of reality can be in one place and not in another. [...] For example, it may seem that we only feel the goodness of life when someone loves us or gives us attention, or when we get a promotion or a raise. [...] So the positive becomes conditional and fleeting—it arises only in particular situations and it is here one minute and gone the next. Likewise, one person can appear lovable and another not.

This sense of the restrictiveness and the conditionality of the goodness of life makes possible the delusion of Ennea-type Nine, which is the loss of perception of being made of love and so inherently lovable. To a Nine, others appear lovable and seem to partake of the benevolence of life, while she does not. This is the fundamental perceptual distortion of Ennea-type Nine, upon which rest all the characteristics of this type. It is a distortion that might be difficult to see as such, since it is fundamental to all personality types. If we consider, however, that the very substance of our bodies and our consciousness is the expression and embodiment of Being, whose central characteristic is Its positivity, how can we be anything but innately lovable? How can our lovability be determined by how our bodies look, who loves us, or how much we have?

Along with the loss of contact with Essence, then, which as we have seen takes place in gradual stages over the first three to four years of life, Ennea-type Nines lose the perception of Holy Love. For a Nine, the process of losing contact with her essential nature results in the belief—the fixed cognitive perception or fixation—that who she is is not inherently lovable, valuable, significant, meaningful, or worthwhile. So the loss of contact with or turning away from Essence is also a disconnection from experiencing herself as precious and worthy of all the positive things that life has to offer. She experiences herself as outside of the goodness of life, not part of its fabric. This fundamental fixed belief is the underpinning of all the resulting mental constructs, emotional affects, and behavioral patterns of this type.

From the perspective of the forces in early life that shaped a Nine’s psyche, her psychodynamics, the lack of holding and mirroring of her True Nature in infancy is interpreted by her as meaning that who she is fundamentally is not worth being with and attending to. This deduction—albeit at its roots a nonconceptual one—arises because of our soul’s inherent knowledge of her inseparability from that core: If Being, which is who we fundamentally are, is not held and valued, we interpret this as indicating that we are not valuable, lovable, worth being with, and so on. Filtered through a Nine’s blindness to Holy Love, the perception—and thus experience—of her childhood is of not having received much unconditional love, care, or attention. Whether or not she was physically or emotionally neglected, the impression of not being personally attended to is strongly imprinted in every Nine’s soul, since what is most real was indeed not sufficiently paid attention to: her essential nature. Something almost completely universal—the lack of attunement to True Nature—is thus taken very personally by Nines. Although never actually put into words, they come to the conclusion that “Because my parents are not attuned to my depths, which is who I am, I must not be important and so it is clear that I am fundamentally insignificant.”

Nines in turn forsake their inner depths, turning their consciousness away from Being in imitation of their early caregivers. It is important to note that Being does not go away—it simply slips into the unconscious. Since Being is who and what we are, one cannot turn away from it without turning away from oneself, so Nines gradually start turning a deaf ear to themselves and expect that the world will also. Interestingly enough, the ear is the part of the body associated with this type, and so they not only characteristically fail to listen to themselves inwardly but often tune things out and miss what is being said.

Helen Palmer on E9

From The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer:

Nines felt overlooked as children and as a consequence formed the habit of discounting their own essential needs. They describe family situations that range from neglect to being overshadowed by siblings to being ignored or attacked when they stood up for their own ideas.

What is common to all of these childhood prototypes is the sense of not being listened to when an opinion was put forward and realizing that showing anger directly did not help their opinion to be heard.

I had very loving parents, but watched my older brother, who was the rebel in the family, not getting a lot of goodies because of his behavior. So it was clear to me that if I did it their way that I could get love by giving in to what they wanted. I recall one instance, when I was probably three or four years old, of being held so tightly by my mother that I was suffocating against her coat.

It felt like I could either struggle and be dropped or go limp in her arms. I essentially held my breath and gave in, and eventually became so attuned to taking on what my parents wanted that if I said No to them, I would feel their disappointment inside myself.

A Mediator’s desire to keep the peace is often the result of having been caught between opposing factions. Why take sides when you can see the value in everyone else’s opinion? Why add an opinion of your own when nobody will listen anyway?

It was damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I was the youngest of four boys, and if I did what my parents approved of, then my brothers would get on me, and if I went with the brothers, then I was looked down upon by my parents. The easiest way was to stay hidden, to not take either side, and to stand there and space out until everybody went away. I remember once being punished by having to sit in a chair facing the corner. I was still there a few hours later when my mom remembered me, and by that time I was so far inside myself that I could have sat there all day.

Nine children become resigned to the fact that they cannot change the family situation. They learn to space out, to buffer their feelings with small physical comforts, to hang out until someone else takes the initiative.

My father was energetic and clever and related best when he was being adored. Mom had a lot of problems of her own and very little energy for the kids. It felt like safety was in sliding between the cracks without a ripple or a bump, and keeping everybody comfortable so that I would be included. There was always the feeling of getting along with the others, not because I really wanted to, but because their views felt louder to me than my own.

Beatrice Chestnut on E9

From The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut:

Nines often report that they grew up in a family in which their opinions weren’t heard, in which others were more forceful in expressing their opinions, or where the best strategy to feeling calm and avoiding upset was to go along with what others wanted. Through this experience of being overlooked or overpowered, a Nine learns to specialize in being someone who is easygoing and accommodating of others, but who, when asked for an opinion, doesn’t know what he wants and finds it easier to let others decide.

Nines typically have an unmet need for a satisfying sense of union—a feeling of belonging or connectedness with others who would see and affirm the Nine’s individuality. When they were children, Nines may not have received the attention they needed, and their wishes and preferences typically weren’t listened to and acted upon. Sometimes the Nine was a middle child or one of many children, or he may have had a parent who was forceful in exerting control. Nines often decided as children to resign themselves to going along with what others want in order to maintain positive connections with others.

Whatever the individual case, Nines tend to give up on asserting their desires and adopt a coping strategy that involves forgetting themselves (and the pain of not getting what they want) and over-adjusting to others as a way of finding peace and avoiding conflict. Nines can’t tolerate conflict because it seems to them to lead to separation. Relationships are life-sustaining when we are young, and Nines play the role in the family of mediating between people to reduce tension and maintain the sense of connection that feels crucial to their survival.

The Nine coping strategy is thus an overadjustment to others—an unconscious accommodation of what other people want and a “forgetting” of what they want—and their attention goes to harmonizing with those around them rather than asserting themselves. This over-adjustment reflects their experience that any strong feeling or preference on their part may put them in conflict with others; at an unconscious level, their personality is set up to avoid adversarial interactions at all costs. For Nines, the cost of this tendency is their connection to their own inner experience.

Self-denying behaviors and over-adjustment are the Nine’s ways of creating the merged state they long for with others. They feel pain over being too much on their own too soon in their development; by staying connected to outside support, Nines find the comfort they seek.

Mark, a Self-Preservation Nine, describes his childhood situation and the development of his coping strategy:

He was the youngest of four children. His father was a large, angry, critical man with a deep voice and a perpetual scowl on his face, probably a Sexual One. His mother was a Type Nine who tried to maintain a sense of harmony in the family by taking on his father’s agenda and preventing his outbursts of anger. Mark learned early on that there were rules that had to be followed: his father’s rules. Self-determination and self-expression were allowed only within the limited constraints of what was acceptable to his father. To breach those boundaries meant being the object of his father’s criticism and anger. Mark’s siblings—one Type One and two Type Nines—also took on their father’s agenda, and were all too happy to correct their youngest brother’s behavior, grammar, opinions, and performance. His father’s anger disturbed him deeply, and he could sense that it also disturbed his mother. Mark learned early on that preventing his father from getting angry helped him maintain his connection to both parents. The easiest way to do that was to go along with whatever his father wanted.

Riso-Hudson on E9

From Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

Nines are connected with both parents, in the sense that they have powerfully identified with and incorporated into their psyches the agendas and issues of both their nurturing-figure and their protective-figure. Much of their mental and emotional energy must then be used to deal with keeping all of these identifications in some kind of inner harmony. Thus their inner world is largely a balancing act as they attempt to accommodate their identifications with their nurturing-figure, their identifications with their protective-figure, and hopefully a few of their own needs as well.

Healthy Nines are extraordinarily sensitive and open to their environment, and as children they absorbed a great deal from the people around them, primarily their parents. If they came from a peaceful, harmonious household, the messages and feelings they incorporated were relatively easy to manage, and Nines had sufficient attention available to deal effectively with their world. If their early childhood was torn by strife and dysfunction, holding all of the painful and conflicted feelings and messages inside them was almost intolerable, so average to unhealthy Nines learned to dissociate—to remove themselves from the immediacy of their feelings and thoughts so that the inner turmoil they absorbed did not overwhelm them. At the same time, they learned to tune out the conflicts and pain of the external environment, a strategy familiar to many children. This is like the young person who blocks out the sound of her parents fighting in another room by singing a song to herself or remembering happier times.

Connection with both parents gives at least healthy to average Nines a sense of support and identity because their identity is more or less “given.” However, in the process of psychological and spiritual development, Nines may come to see that the identity they have assumed is not who they really are (like Threes) and that they are often dependent on something outside themselves for support (like Sixes). Furthermore, if their psyches are accommodating the issues of both parents, what space is left for them? It is as if Nines have been crowded out of their own selves by the agendas first of their parents and later of other significant people in their lives.

Trying to find some independence and autonomy, claiming some part of their lives for themselves alone, becomes very important. What Nines choose to do as their own may seem trivial to others, but Nines will defend these activities fiercely. Once they understand the nature of their inner accommodations, Nines are able to let go of some of these habits or rituals because they feel safe to claim their own needs in more central areas of their lives.

Finally, we can see that this orientation compels Nines to maintain harmonious relationships with and between the people in their lives. As children who developed their sense of self by bonding and identifying with both parents, the prospect of discord or separation between the parents is terrifying. For young Nines it is the same as having discord and conflict within themselves. Discord or separation between the parents is deeply disturbing to the Nine’s inner stability. Basically, Nines feel whole and good as long as the people they have identified with are whole and good. When Nines are healthy, they use their many gifts to help maintain the wholeness and well-being of others. When they are less healthy, they imagine that others are well and whole, even if they are not. Once this occurs, Nines ironically have begun to lose the very people they want to stay connected with.

[...] Last, the Nine-Five-Four group (the types oriented to both figures) are the personality types which defend themselves by withdrawing (Homey's “moving away” types). They are the loners, intellectuals, and dreamers of society. Because their childhoods produced an orientation to both parents, they have problems interacting with others, since they tend to be overwhelmed by forces either inside or outside themselves. All three types tend to dissociate themselves from reality in different ways, constructing elaborate “inner realities” which they use as a defense against their actual environment. In Freudian terms, they have problems expressing and sustaining their own immediate id impulses, especially those involving self-assertion and aggression.

From The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

Many Nines report that they had a happy childhood, but this is not always the case. When their childhoods were more troubled, young Nines learned to cope by dissociating from the threatening and traumatic events around them and by adopting the role of Peacemaker or Mediator during family conflicts. They learned that the best way to keep harmony in the family was to “disappear” and not cause anyone any trouble. They learned that if they were undemanding and had few expectations—in short, if they were a low-maintenance child—they could effectively protect themselves while calming down Mommy and Daddy. (In a dysfunctional family system, the term that most applies here is Lost Child.) The feeling is, “If I show up and assert myself, I am going to create even more problems, so if I stay out of the way, the family will stay together.”

Georgia, a well-known therapist, has been doing Inner Work for many years.

My mother was alcoholic and had a volatile temper, so a lot of my energy as a child was directed to keeping out of the way and not rocking the boat. In this way I learned to stand on the sidelines of life and be accommodating to the needs of other people. I was afraid I wouldn’t be loved if I asserted myself. I chose to live my life in a more inward way, which was actually very rich to me, without confronting other people.

Nines grew up feeling that having needs, asserting themselves, getting angry, or creating difficulties for their parents was not allowed. As a result, Nine children never learned to assert themselves adequately or, by extension, to actualize themselves independently of their parents and significant others. Young Nines learned to stay in the background where things could not get to them. In adulthood, their psychic space is so crowded with the issues and agendas of the people whom they are trying to accommodate that they are often unable to hear the voice of their own needs or desires.

They also learned to repress anger and their own will so completely that they became unconscious of even having anger or a will of their own. They learned to adjust and go along with whatever life or others presented to them. Seldom did it occur to them to ask themselves what they wanted or thought or felt. As a result, it usually takes some digging for Nines to get in touch with what they want for themselves.

Red has spent years working on the issues of self-effacement and repressed anger.

I have a clear sense of being left alone because I was such a “good little boy.” My mother always tells people what an “angel” I was because I could be left alone for hours and would amuse myself. I think my mother is a Nine and I picked up a lot of her philosophy of life . . . When conflicts between her and my father would break out, she would use expressions such as “Don’t rock the boat” and “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Another favorite was “It takes two to tango,” which was her way of telling me that she could end an argument by refusing to argue.

In highly dysfunctional families, the young Nine may have been traumatized emotionally, physically, or sexually. Such Nines learn to protect themselves from intolerable feelings by dissociating or shutting down. From one point of view, it is a kind of blessing that they are not aware of their traumatic memories or of their rage, but on the other hand the result is a widespread deadening of their ability to allow reality to touch them with any depth or vividness. Such individuals may become lost in fantasies or focus exclusively on whatever is positive and peaceful in their environment—no matter how much of an illusion this may later turn out to be.

André is a successful real estate salesman in a major metropolitan area; much of his success comes from being natural and unassuming, common Nine traits, although these were learned at a high price.

My mother was very depressed for much of my childhood. I knew that the less trouble I was for her, the safer I’d be, so I just tried to blend in as much as possible. I would escape to my grandmother’s backyard, where I loved the tall trees and her collection of animals.

Enneagram One

The core wounding message of E1 is that “It’s not ok to make mistakes or be wrong or irresponsible.” The source of this message is a hypercritical environment where the E1 could not be a child and had to be the sensible voice of reason. Growing up, E1 children often felt heavily criticized, punished, or inadequate. “You must always strive to be better than you are,” is a common theme in such a childhood. General rules in these children’s environments were rigid and provided consistent punishment that taught these children they had to work hard and be in control to be rewarded and approved, though ultimately the theme is one of high demands with scant acknowledgment and reward, which created the E1’s endless desire to always strive to be better and beyond condemnation, as well as have more control. This control is also seen in the type’s structure—in E1, anger is internalized, resulting in a suppressing, storing, and honing of anger to keep their own energy and vitality controlled. This in turn created an underlying desire to let go, and in rage of having to be perfect, the E1’s internalized ideals strived to surpass the externally imposed ones to be higher and better and beyond judgment and evaluation by the people who were lacking themselves.

Looking at this childhood, RH claims that E1s felt estranged from the disciplining protective figure in their life (usually the father, but not always). Naturally, the child looks up to such a figure, but for an E1 child, the figure did not fill the role properly. Generally and as multiple authors have noted, this could mean that the parent the child thought should be protective was abusive and aggressively authoritative, or they were preoccupied, distant, unreasonable, strict, and overly demanding. Naranjo notes the prevalence of perfectionistic E1 or over-dutiful E6 fathers, commonly with by over-accommodating partners of the E9 or E6 types who contributed to the paternal figure prevailing in his attitude. This kept the E1 from forming the natural close bond with the protective figure and so the child remained disconnected from this person and discarded them, which in turn made the child resent being judged by them. Nevertheless, the child was under high pressure by the figure to perform well, and faced with extremely high standards that seemed impossible to live up to, they grew to see no peace.

The E1 had to become the parent to younger children or step in to solve the problems, especially if the environment seemed chaotic or the parents seemed incapable. In religious households, it’s common for the child to have felt that the God—or father—of their religion was a fearful being they had to work hard to “please.” The prevalent feeling is one of not being good enough or what was needed in the environment and having to justify their existence, which in turn made an anger brew inside them. This constant striving and resulting anger is especially understood when observing the holy idea Ichazo attributed to E1, the forgetting of which created the type’s fixation. Holy Perfection, as described by Maitri, is the perception that, discarding the egoic reality and self with its subjective measurements, all of existence is flawless and whole simply for existing. Growing up with the lesson that nothing they did was ever good enough and that they always had to improve things and themselves, the E1 lost touch with their own inner perfection and thus with the idea of Holy Perfection in general.

Consequently, they always felt they could not relax and had to try harder and harder, and this created in them a frustration and fury that, because of the type’s internalization focus, turned into a river of rage held tightly behind a controlled dam that directed the rage in sharp places they allowed it to go. This is why the passion or vice Ichazo assigned to E1 is anger; for this type, anger is held and honed and becomes a driving force, and turns into the ego-fixation of Resentment—this is unlike the E8, who releases anger as it comes, turning into the ego-fixation of Vengeance, and is instead driven by lust. As Jaxon-Bear puts it, E1 obeys laws (internal or external) and is focused on that control and is therefore angry, and E8 disobeys and is therefore afraid of betrayal and being attacked by and not protected against the enemies being made through it. So in short, it can be said that the E1 child’s rage is rooted in the denying of the self the way it simply is, because of lessons learned and the type’s inward focus, and the resulting focus on reforming that self and its reaction based on the internal ideals as it goes through the superego.

All of this—the disconnection from and discarding of the demanding protective figure, being lost in and angry at having to fill the responsible role—caused E1s to make themselves their own judges and critics; they became little attorneys for themselves to defend their choices, and enforcers making others play by their own rules. In other words, they were tired of being judged by people who themselves failed to meet the perfect ideals, so they developed their own rules and measured everything (themselves and others) against them critically. If they felt that they fell short of those ideals, it added to their relentless feeling of never being acceptable, and the E1 cannot tolerate those flaws in themselves or others because the ideal is to them the self and giving it up would be giving up their own self. But the self was also neglected, because their own desires and feelings (especially anger) were suppressed in favor of toeing the line, being responsible, and improving themselves and others. This is somewhat different in the SX1 who Naranjo calls the countertype—here, the E1’s suppression of desires and instincts battles the SX instinct wanting to pursue them, so while anger is still held on to, it is displayed more and the desires are incorporated into rules in an E8ish fashion. A similar difference can be seen when looking at the type’s polarities of sentimentality versus rigidity. E1 is the point where one is sensitive to the world because of excess pressure, and so the person can go either of two ways: they can attach to the pole of sentimentality and be responsive and emotional to sentiments and have internalized rules and ideals be a passionate cause outside of themself, or they can turn to rigidity and guard against the sensitivity by coldness, with their rules only serving themself.

Regardless of subtype or the dichotomies, though, most notable is the inward rebellion of E1s in response to both the external and internalized control. The aforementioned anger brewing inside can fester and become a desire to soil, let go, and rebel. But as mentioned before, this anger and desire has to pass through the inner critic the E1 measures everything by, and if it doesn’t match the ideal, it goes through the mechanism of reaction formation (transforming into what is approved by the critic) and instead of outright destruction, typically shows up in judgmental, critical behavior. In the E1 child, it may have appeared as them clenching their teeth while they washed the dishes, or rigidly memorizing the ten commandments as thoughts of hellfire and doom raced through their mind. To them, it was no longer about meeting the expectations of the protective figure who had in some way failed them and who they hadn’t gotten the love they sought as children from; it was about outdoing them and reforming them, replacing that need for love with need for respect. But still, the E1 harbors a need for tenderness, and longs to hear that they are right and good enough and accepted as they are, not inadequate as they feared or were taught.

Claudio Naranjo on E1

From Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo:

Freud, who was the first to observe the character disposition that we are here labeling as ennea-type I, was also the first to formulate a theory concerning its etiology: the toilet training theory, according to which an excessive concern with cleanliness and orderliness, as well as the retentiveness in individuals with an “anal personality” is explained as a result of premature or exaggerated demands of cleanliness at the toilet training period, and also understood in terms of the attempt to deny through over-compensation an angry desire to soil and let go of control. Later psychoanalytic observation also recognized that the “retentive” individual harbors an (“oral aggressive”) desire to soil and let go of control and defends against the forbidden wish with an over-compensatory, over-formal goody-goodyness.

Since Freud’s time this theory has been mostly revised by Erikson, who proposes that it is not only the issue of sphincter-control that we should see as being the focus of parental over-control and rebellion, but that of locomotion, mastered during the same stage. Underlying both, Erikson claims, is the issue of an autonomy that asserts or over-asserts itself. I think that we can even go further and say with Fromm that this, like every other personality orientation, is a way of coping with life in general; that has arisen in response to a broader situation than sphincter control—a generalized situation of excessive demands and frustration in regard to recognition. I quote from a group reporting on the origin of their shared character:

“Almost all of us agreed that we all took responsibility early. It wasn’t given to us, but we took it. From the age of three all the way up, you know people remembered early in childhood up to the age of nine and then of course continued it through our adolescent and adult life. Often it was around, being, taking care of the children, I mean being that person that saw that the kids got fed and clothed and sent where they were supposed to be sent. Kind of assuming almost in a sense the mother’s role a little bit and a lot of, and then wanting to be recognized almost all of us felt that no matter how hard we tried what we did and tried harder and harder to be good and to do those things because we wanted to get some kind of recognition or acknowledgment from our parents, and we never felt it.”

Even so, we may continue to speak of the toilet training situation as paradigmatic and symbolic of the personality disposition, for the perfectionist has not only developed under stringent demands of striving harder for some desired behavior and exerting utmost control over his own organism, but is one who inwardly rebels angrily in face of both external and internalized control, and who has learned to alienate from his awareness and inhibit the manifestations of this anger through the mechanism of reaction formation.

It is easy to trace back the motivation to strive hard in the perfectionist to an early experience of affective dissatisfaction so that seeking to be a better person represents a hope of gaining more approval or closeness from one of the parents. Later in life, however, such striving also takes on a competitive implication, as if saying to father or mother: “I will be better than you and rise beyond your capacity to evaluate me: I will show you!”: a vindictive turn in which there is not only in success a hope but also a claim and a vindictive denigration.

I find ennea-type I somewhat more frequent among women. And among them I find that the parent for whose love the little girl has striven and who has been perceived as cold is more often the father. Besides an atmosphere of love scarcity, however, there is also in perfectionistic striving an element of modeling, a taking on by the subject of the hard-working, perfectionistic personality of one or another parent. Frequently there is a perfectionistic father or mother in the family of the perfectionist, and when not, there is commonly an ennea-type VI father of an over-dutiful disposition (which has much in common with the demanding perfectionist).

The overall situation is one of excessive demands coupled with scant acknowledgment, so the child has felt the need to push on and on in an atmosphere of sustained frustration. It is my impression that an over-accommodating mother (ennea-types IX or VI) may contribute to the unmitigated power of an over-demanding and distant father. It would seem that in these cases an excessively symbiotic or an excessively timid mother betrays the child out of a comparatively greater need to accommodate her excessively demanding mate.

The individual's response to the situation thus far described involves not only an attitude of “See how good I am, will you now love me?”, but also one of claiming a recognition or affection through an appeal to moral justice, a protest: “See how good I am—you owe me respect and recognition.” Towards earning this recognition and respect that are felt to be missing (at first from parents, later in people in general) the child learns to become a little attorney for himself or herself, as well as a moralist who specializes in making others play by the rules. As an outcome of this process, the search for love that kindled perfectionistic development becomes the search for right and respectability—which characterizes this hard and distant personality style and interferes with the satisfaction of a still latent—though repressed—need for tenderness.

From 27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram by Claudio Naranjo:

The E1 generally did not have the experience of having been a guided and nurtured child but rather that of a child who was forced to behave judiciously, renouncing the instinctive emotionality and expressiveness—typical qualities of his being a child. In short, they burdened the child with expectations so high that they did not allow for the possibility of making mistakes. The child’s sensitivity to the suffering of the parents is quickly transformed into availability to solve the problem for them.

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E1

From From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation by Eli Jaxon-Bear:

As children, Ones often report being punished appropriately and consistently. They were punished for things they did that were bad and rewarded for things they did that were good. Ones believe that if you do the right thing, you are rewarded, and if you do a bad thing, you are punished.

The One’s anger is held in the body anally. When Ones were children, they lost the battle of potty training. Quite often the unconscious, unexpressed rage over potty training is at the core of this fixation’s issues of control. In working with Ones therapeutically, I have inevitably discovered that there is tension in the musculature around the anus. This is the place where tension first begins in the body. It can also manifest in tightness in the jaw, as with Clint Eastwood, and in tight musculature in general.

A male sexual One spoke about his childhood and the crystallization of the fixation:

When I was about three years old I was down by the pond outside of our house. I was fascinated with all the life there. I would sit and watch it for hours. One day I saw frogs making love. I became quite excited and ran in to tell my mother. My mother was playing cards with her girlfriends when I came in and said, “Mama, I just saw the two-backed frogs!” They all laughed at me. I became terribly ashamed and rushed into my room. I knew then that I would never put myself in a potentially humiliating circumstance again.

A female One reported:

When I was a little girl, just out of diapers, my older sisters were playing with me. We were playing on the bed and they put diapers on me. Then they took the diapers off and told me to pee. At that moment, my father burst into the room. I remember standing on the bed naked, crying, “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!”

She now has a position as a moral crusader.

Sandra Maitri on E1

From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri:

For an Ennea-type One, losing contact with his essential nature feels like losing touch with the inherent perfection of all that exists and with his own intrinsic perfection. To the young soul of a One, contact with Essence was experienced as the ultimate perfection, a sense of bliss, of heaven on earth, a condition where his soul was totally relaxed and fulfilled, in which nothing needed to be done and he could rest and settle into his depths. When direct contact with that profound sense of perfection is lost, the result is a deep sense of anguish that he is no longer abiding in that perfection and cannot get in touch with it. He loses the sense that he and reality are fundamentally just right, whole, and complete; and this absence is felt as a not-rightness—a wrongness. He comes to feel that he is imperfect, and it may seem to him as if the very substance of his soul had a fundamental flaw, a basic badness or wrongness about it. There arises a mental fixation or underlying and all-pervasive belief that he and the reality he perceives are essentially imperfect, not good enough. We find this fixation encapsulated by the word resentment. What is really amiss is that he has lost contact with his depths, but this loss appears as or is interpreted as being basically damaged goods. In other words, the inner felt experience that results from nonperception of Essence for a One feels like a wrongness. This becomes an inner conviction that he is tainted and bad, the sense that he has a fatal flaw and is not made of the right substance. This is the cognitive distortion underlying all of the other characteristics of this ennea-type, and it is what is termed his deficiency in rightness on the Enneagram of Avoidances—his painful core sense of deficiency, which feels too intolerable to experience fully.

This sense of basic imperfection may arise in concert with an early childhood in which the message was communicated directly or interpreted internally that he just wasn’t good enough or wasn’t the right thing. This may have resulted from his biological needs being subtly or overtly judged and rejected, leading to the sense that they were wrong, or from having an overcritical and emotionally withholding parent who imposed very high standards that seemed to the young One impossible to live up to. One or both parents may have had very One-ish tendencies such as strong moral judgmentalness and fundamental religious beliefs. Sometimes the whole early situation was a setup, in which he was looked to by the parents to fulfill unfillable needs, such as replacing a lost loved one, resulting in a profound sense of not being good enough or having what it takes for the task.

Regardless of the source, the One is left with the sense of not being what was needed or wanted in the environment and of being somehow wrong. In order to return to his prior state of bliss, it becomes critical for him to deduce, form, and create an idea of what perfection is. He tries to figure out what mom wants, what will restore the sense of harmony and once again allow his soul to relax and reconnect him with the lost perfection. So his instinctual drive to reestablish homeostasis is turned toward trying to be good, achieve perfection, and make mommy happy. Eventually his drive energy gets fully coopted into this striving for perfection, and in time this quest turns him against his own instinctual energy. Ultimately the perfection he seeks is his depths—the realm of Being—with which he has lost touch, and the memory of contact with this realm takes on the distorted outlines of ideals that the One uses as his subjective yardstick. Reality, inner and outer, is gauged against these pictures and beliefs of how things ought to be, and the relative distance to “perfect” is calculated. Inevitably reality always falls short of his standards, and he seems unable to perceive anything as perfect, particularly himself. This is the source of his intense self-criticism, in which he is constantly judging and rebuking himself for his imperfections.

This assessment of proximity to the ideal is definitely not neutral. A further step is then taken, which turns the Ennea-type One into a perfectionist: what is not perfect is deemed bad. To tolerate what he determines to be bad would mean tolerating his estrangement from Being, which in the depths of his soul is intolerable, and so what is bad becomes unacceptable. In this way, he creates distance and defends himself against the experience of loss of Being.

A One’s judgments about what is good and what is bad are relative, determined by his own orientation. So being sexually liberated might be seen by a feminist One as good, while to a born-again Christian, it would probably seem bad. Whether conservative or liberal, however, Ones tend toward orthodoxy in whatever views they hold. It is important to them to be politically correct—or in spiritual circles, spiritually so—and to hold tenaciously what they consider to be the right “line.”

With his determinations of good and bad in place, it becomes obvious then what needs to be done: he sets about trying to improve himself and others to make them good and therefore acceptable. This becomes an inner orientation and way of relating to life both inwardly and outwardly: trying to make things better. Driven by this deep feeling of wrongness, Ones are constantly striving to correct things, and are restless and anxious about the way things are, which to them is not as they should be. The quest for perfection, then, is his trap,

Helen Palmer on E1

From The Enneagram by Helen Palmer:

Ones commonly report that they were heavily criticized or punished when they were young and that they eventually became obsessed with trying to be good as a way of staying out of trouble. This seems to be a family situation that produces obedient children, but which forces the children to control their behavior by internalizing the parents’ critical voice. Many were expected to take on adult responsibility prematurely and often became like parents themselves in order to stabilize immature adults in the family.

My father wanted to be a writer, but had a family instead, and essentially hated his life. I felt that he took it out on us, because he hadn’t followed his own dream, and felt trapped by what he had settled for. Our mother was ill a great deal of the time, and I was expected to care for the younger children. It was an uptight household, with everyone walking on tiptoes so as not to irritate the parents, and always feeling like you had too much to do.

I remember one summer, I was assigned to wash walls for the whole house and found myself staring out the window at the kids playing, with the shredded living room drape in my hand. I had been so furious at having to take care of everybody that I had ripped a heavy drape off the hooks without ever realizing how much anger I was carrying inside.

The atmosphere was one of high expectation without rewards. Virtue was supposed to be its own reward, and so Perfectionists were scolded for wrongdoing, without being made special for the sacrifice of being good. Being a perfect person requires a great deal of self-deprivation and demands tight internal control. Eventually the pleasure of rewards can be submerged in favor of the pleasure of self-control. This highly successful but chronically anxious accountant describes the way in which he controls his own pleasure.

All through school I would get myself motivated to study by promising myself that if I worked faithfully for the week that I’d go shoot baskets on Saturday morning. So Saturday would come, and I would have finished everything, but instead of going to play, I’d think, Okay, I got the job done, and that was the purpose of promising myself, so instead I’ll trade off basketball for two chores that I’ve been avoiding. If I do the chores I get to go, otherwise I don’t. I made myself earn my fun and often wouldn’t give in to myself even if I’d earned it.

When Ones deprive themselves, a critical level of pressure develops that causes them to ventilate their resentment in such a way that their own anger still remains hidden from themselves. This architect describes the way in which he released his pent-up aggression.

I was a good boy at home and could find no real reason for my anger at my parents or at school. I had a retarded brother, who embarrassed me, but whom I tried to protect, and my mother was also thought to be fragile and did eventually have a breakdown. The truth was that I was big, healthy, and made to feel guilty about any fun that I allowed myself.

My anger came out in vandalism, but I never knew that I was angry. The feeling would just start to build in me that I wanted to wreck something, and I’d eventually start imagining myself smashing windows and would wind up going after some abandoned building late at night with a sledgehammer. It felt absolutely wonderful.

Beatrice Chestnut on E1

From The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut:

Type One personalities defend against criticism, real or threatened, and shame or punishment for being “wrong” or “bad.” Ones often report that they experienced pressure early in life to do something well or correct at a time when they were too young to take on the burden of this responsibility. The experience of criticism from parental figures or others creates an anxious sense in the young One that there is a “right way” to do things. Doing the “right” thing and striving for faultless performance inspires supportive feedback and positive feelings.

Some Ones experienced this early responsibility because they lacked structural support (or psychological “holding”) in their childhood environment. Chaos or uncertainty or anxiety in the family motivates the One child to take on the task of providing order and structure for himself and often others in the family. The coping strategy of adhering strongly to sound rules, routines, and standards of behavior provides the One with inner cohesion and security, as well as protection from criticism. If Ones can manage to put things in just the right order, they can actually relax somewhat and experience a sense of well-being.

On the other hand, criticism and anxiety coming from things not being in the right order quickly teaches the One child the dangers of following spontaneous impulses. The child learns that doing the “wrong” thing or not making a good enough effort is—and should be—something that invites negative feedback and painful feelings.

Naranjo explains that the Type One personality structure grows out of this early burden of responsibility coupled with little acknowledgment of the One child’s essential goodness. Natural frustration builds when a child has to exercise a high degree of self-control at too early an age. The One child denies this frustration through overcompensating in the other direction. She unconsciously turns away from the anger and frustration, displacing the energy of this emotion into efforts to be excessively good.

Ones also internalize a “parental” voice that functions thereafter as an internal critic or coach. This coping strategy of proactively criticizing oneself and trying to do things correctly prior to coming under parental scrutiny can avoid outside criticism and punishment. This guidance system keeps the One on track according to specific standards of ideal behavior in an ongoing way. But the internal critic that originally formed to protect the Type One becomes an ever-present voice or sense, detecting fault and imperfection in oneself and the outside world.

Derek, a Self-Preservation One, describes his childhood situation and the development of his coping strategy:

He was the oldest of three boys. His father was a military officer Type Eight who flew airplanes in Vietnam. His mother was a Type Nine “hippie.” His parents divorced when he was young and the three boys went to live with their Dad. As the oldest of the three boys, Derek was “second in command.” If something went wrong on his watch, there was hell to pay. At his mom’s house, life was unconventional, and Derek felt responsible for trying to create stability—and avoid embarrassment. Derek’s strong sense of responsibility at a very young age produced in him an anxiety and habitual attention focused on making sure things are “going right” and assessing how he and others are fulfilling their duties.

Riso-Hudson on E1

From Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

Ones develop as they do because as children they were disconnected from their protective-figure, that adult in their early childhood who was responsible for setting limits, giving guidelines, and disciplining the child when necessary. This is the person who occupies the traditional patriarchal role in the family. Often the protective-figure is the father, but not always. In many families, the mother is the protective-figure, while in other families, a grandparent or sibling may play this role in the child’s development. The disconnection from the protective-figure, and what that person symbolized, was of central importance to the development of the superego: these children felt that they could not rely on the structure and guidelines provided by their family of origin. They may have experienced the rules of the family as arbitrary and unfair, or too strict, or too unstable. Whatever the particulars, Ones were dissatisfied and frustrated with the structure and limits that they received from the protective-figure and so felt that they had to develop their own guidelines. Ones tried to transcend the rules of their family of origin by creating a code of ethics that is even more rigorous than what is expected of them. In this way, Ones came to believe that they can avoid condemnation by always attempting to be blameless.

This created in Ones a relentless superego mechanism whose constant message is “You are not acceptable as you are; you must be better, always better.” In more authoritarian or chaotic family systems, these superego messages could have become severe and inflexible. In such situations, their own wishes and feelings were rarely if ever countenanced; instead, these children felt that they always had to toe the line to avoid being criticized or condemned. As a result, their emotions and other impulses were repressed by forces symbolized by an internalized punishing father. (Freudians see toilet training as the arena in which the anal traits of the obsessive-compulsive type which correspond to the One were learned. While the Freudian anal traits of orderliness, parsimony, and obstinacy are seen in Ones, especially those with a Nine-wing, we do not have to restrict ourselves to toilet issues alone to understand the origins of this personality type.)

As children, Ones may have become disconnected from the protective-figure for any number of reasons. The protective-figure may have been absent from the family, or been abusive, or have treated the child unfairly. Or as a result of a stem moral and religious upbringing and the threat of eternal punishment, the child may have feared offending God the Father and being condemned. The child may have feared being sent to hell for being impulsive, pleasure seeking, or selfish, or for other actions which were, after all, merely the natural behavior of a child. In other cases, the One may have experienced a fairly peaceful and normal childhood, but still felt that there was something more to strive for—some higher ideal than was part of the values of the child’s family or peers. Often, Ones felt uncomfortable being children, or were not allowed to behave as children, and thus struggled to become little adults before their time. For one reason or another, Ones decided that they had to rely on themselves for guidance, structure, and discipline. They would have to parent themselves, and they would have to do a better job of it than their protective-figure.

It is also worth noting that they did not rebel against strictures on themselves; rather, they internalized control in their consciences by feeling guilty for their transgressions. Nevertheless, they felt angry that the burden of perfection was placed on them, and more angry still when they saw others who were not subject to the same control of their feelings and impulses. The freedom of others (to Ones, the license which others grant themselves) antagonizes them and makes them chafe under the weight of their own prohibitions.

[...] The Six-Two-One group (the protective-figure-oriented types) are the personality types which defend themselves by being compliant (Horney’s “moving toward” types). In general, these are the should-and-must personality types. While compliance dominates the overall picture, they are in fact a mixture of aggressive and compliant tendencies. Under pressure either from others or from anxiety, the should-and-must types tend to explode in destructive behavior. The influence of the protective-figure or patriarch and of internalized superego prohibitions symbolized by this person create the highly superego-driven types One, Two, and Six. All three types feel obligated to engage in certain behavior, often at the expense of other things they would like to do, and often take the role of authority figures themselves in different ways, since they have internalized many of the prevailing mores of society.

From The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

Ones tried hard to be good kids: they often report feeling that, as children, they needed to justify their existence. Simply being a child was somehow not acceptable, and many young Ones developed a sense of seriousness and adult responsibility at an early age. They understood that their parents expected a lot from them, and like Threes, they often played the role of the Family Hero. Young Ones generally take on such expectations with great earnestness.

Jeanne, a spiritual director for women religious in Quebec, still remembers the pressure she felt to uphold her family’s values.

When I had frequent and serious nosebleeds, Dad would tell me I mustn’t be praying enough. Knowing what was “enough” always eluded me, but I suspected that more had to be better . . . Dad expected me to pray and intercede for him and the whole family. Needless to say, I made time to be at daily Mass. I had a serious mission for which to intercede; the family’s well-being could be at stake.

For various reasons, Ones experience a sense of being “disconnected” from their protective-figure (who is usually, although not always, the biological father). Having another stable adult figure that the child can identify with and move toward gives the child the ability to separate from dependency on the mother and to increasingly sense his or her own individuality and autonomy. If, however, the protective-figure is not adequately fulfilling his role, young Ones sense a fundamental disconnection. They realize that their real or symbolic father does not adequately fit their temperament and needs. This does not necessarily mean that the protective-figure is bad or abusive, but that, for whatever reason, a certain effortless bonding simply does not take place.

The result is a feeling of frustration for the child and the sense that he must “father” himself. In some cases, young Ones respond to chaotic conditions around them by becoming hyper responsible, the “voice of reason” in their families. In this way they are able to establish some sense of autonomy and boundaries—the key issues of their type.

Justine is a business consultant who was forced by her painful childhood to develop a vigilant and strict set of ego defenses.

Since there was a lot of conflict in the family I grew up in, I felt I had to stop it or fix it in some way. That probably contributed to my very controlling nature. I had poor boundaries as the result of an imposing, aggressive mother, so I identified strongly with her less-than-healthy behaviors to protect myself. I grew up very critical, judgmental, and opinionated. I treated my younger sisters as she treated us, and was very demanding.

In effect, the child says, “I will give myself guidelines. I will become my own father-figure and be my own moral guide. I will police myself so no one else will police me; I will punish myself so no one else will punish me.” Ones try to surpass what is expected of them by adhering to the rules so rigorously that no one will be able to catch them in error, thus earning independence.

Leo, a successful business consultant, recalls the difficult demands of his childhood.

As a child I learned quickly that there was only one right way of doing things and only one—my father’s way. His way would sometimes change—he was inconsistent. But his way was always the “right” way . . . So, in reaction to my father’s inconsistencies, I developed a conscience that launched me into a quest for the “true” right way that I myself could subscribe to.

In a sense, Ones feel that they need to outdo the expectations of their protective-figure. They feel that they must come up with a better set of rules for themselves; they decide right or wrong. But in so doing, the child feels guilty for judging (and implicitly condemning) its own protective-figure. To escape the guilt of this situation, young Ones construct an identity that allows them to see themselves as good and responsible and others as lazy, sloppy, or at least less correct and “mature” than themselves. Such self-justification becomes the bedrock of the One’s identity and the emotional pattern that will be reenacted throughout their lives.

Heart Triad: E2, E3, E4

According to Ichazo, experiences in early childhood lead to the development of certain false Egos to which people become attached and which they identify as their true selves. For the heart types E2, E3, and E4, the focus is on shame and a competitive drive to cultivate an image. In RH’s theory of the types’ parental orientation (based on the correlation of types with Frued’s theory of libido fixations, but redefined), E2 is oriented toward the protective figure (representative of patriarchal qualities of authority, structure, discipline, guiding the child in the ways of the world; usually the father but now always), E3 is oriented toward the nurturing figure (representative of matriarchal qualities of warmth, caring, nurturance, approval, gentleness, and sensitivity; usually mother but not always), and E4 toward both. Below you can find a summary of the childhoods of the heart types and their causes, with quotes on the childhood wounds from Naranjo, Jaxon-Bear, Maitri, Palmer, Chestnut, and Riso-Hudson following each (in the summaries, their points are also given weight respective to that order).

Enneagram Two

For an E2, the wounding message of “It’s not ok to have your own needs or be a burden” is picked up in a childhood where the child felt rejected and their needs were not met and felt secondary to those of the parent. This embedded in the E2 a belief that others did not care about their needs. So in defense of the pain and shame of this frustration, the E2 projected that shame outward and blamed others to escape it, and thus turned to a self-satisfied and self-satisfying stance where others had to give them special attention. But with the message still ingrained in the E2’s subconscious, the child suppressed and denied their own needs to the point of believing they have none and are untouchable, creating a prideful stance within them. So while, gradually, the E2 learned that they would only get the love they wanted if they were helping or pleasing others, the unconscious need to not see themselves as needy or dependent made the E2 turn to the belief that others were not capable of taking care of their needs and that was the reason why they hadn’t and had rejected the E2 child, and through helping others, they were in reality empowering others to be able to help them in return.

Looking at the E2 childhood, RH notes an ambivalence toward the protective figure who represents the paternal parental qualities; in some way, the E2 felt that there was a lack of nurturance, guidance, or structure coming from the protective figure. Generally, all authors note the E2 feeling a lack of support with their needs rejected, resulting in the E2 learning to ignore their own needs—this tendency is also what made Naranjo call SP2 the countertype of E2. Maitri especially notes how the mother seemed to give and withhold care inconsistently and so making the E2’s needs seem secondary to her own, teaching the child that mother does not love them and rejects who they are. In line with this, Naranjo concludes a defensive shift from rejection by mother to becoming father’s favorite or princess.

Emotional pain was then turned into a demand for attention and need for reassurance of being loved, and thus resulting in the type’s seductive fixation of Flattery. But even with that need for attention, the E2 child had learned that their needs are too much for other people and, with the defense of seeing themself above the help they were rejected, began to deny their own needs and try to consciously tune into others’. The effort of being super-supportive of others, they hoped, will motivate others to meet their unstated needs in reciprocal fashion. And so they learned to aspire to be needed and wanted by others. They became the good child who was the light and joy of the family; became the little nurturing mother in the house, striving to keep their parents happy so their needs would be met and they’d receive the love other children took for granted. This might have manifested as E2 helping younger siblings with domestic chores or taking on parental tasks to make their lives smoother while also earning their family’s respect and admiration. RH explains this motherly role as a result of the orientation toward the patriarchal protective figure—the E2 was ambivalent toward the figure, not being satisfied by them but also not discarding them, and so found their place in the family as the complementary feminine role to the protective figure to win their affection and support. And this early childhood lesson went on to cause the E2 to take a similar approach to anyone who could give them the love they want.

But the orientation toward the protective figure has more consequences. Most authors note the presence of this figure; a parent (usually the father) who was the focus of attention and whom the E2 child had to please. The qualities commonly associated with this parental figure are being pleasure-seeking and/or an untouchable challenge; Naranjo notes these fathers are usually E7. Looking at this focal figure, another quality of E2s begins to make sense: the orientation toward power and will. Because in wanting to win the affection of this protective figure who represents masculine qualities such as power, the E2 learns to have the same attitude toward people who align with the same general themes and attempt to gain the same qualities through them.

Maitri explains this as the E2 trying to compensate for their feeling of being disconnected from God’s Holy Will (Ichazo’s holy idea for E2) and the inherent connected purpose of the world through imitating it by becoming willful and affecting the way things transpire. And because of losing the sense of their own purpose due to being rejected and not considered in childhood, this causes the E2 to be focused on creating that sense of purpose themselves, especially through guiding others and wanting to connect to prestigious and powerful figures who are part of the superior group in the E2s hierarchical division of the world. Naranjo describes a similar transition from pain and estrangement to a compensatory willfulness and rebellion, with whims as a way to claim what the person thought was owed them—a breaking of the Holy Will that seeks compensation in willfulness and becomes attracted to that power. This can be seen in the E2 child competing with the mother who rejected them to gain father’s love and enjoying the challenge of seduction (sometimes through goodness, sometimes disobedience) or the possessive attention it causes.

Because of this, the E2 begins to see winning love as a competition. Love itself becomes giving or getting attention and help to satiate needs, and the E2’s focus on it makes their whole personality become a strategic defense against the shame of having to acknowledge need and be rejected—the shame, instead, is turned outward because of the type’s structure, with only others seen as the shamed ones with needs. This skewed view is what gives E2s the passion/vice of Pride; even though the root of the type is in the fear of getting their needs rejected and not being wanted or needed by others, and the suppression of own needs, hurts, and self-doubt and instead being lovely is to escape that shame and be easier to be around for others as they are dependent on the love and attention of others, in refusing to acknowledge this vulnerability and need and only focusing on their positive traits, the E2 comes to see themself as superior. With this imbalanced and somewhat delusional mindset and the lesson that love will not simply be given to them, the E2 grows to give from a place of control, seeing themself as the saviors who, in helping others, is in reality empowering them to be able to give the E2 the attention they now think they deserve for being so good and selfless.

And here is where the E2’s duality shows itself. While the E2 cultivates the image of generosity and thinks they are good for people, true selflessness is not imposing one’s own will and agenda in helping others and ignoring what the person really wants. For the “seductive false humility” to become true humility, the E2 needs to go against the lesson they learned and face the fear of rejection to acknowledge their own limitations and neediness. Until then, the more the E2 defends against the shame of rejection and becomes what others want, all to gain their affection and have their own hidden needs met, the less they are able to open up and truly feel loved. They will feel the role they played is not giving them authentic recognition and love, and will keep having to competitively outperform themselves because of refusing to see their own limitations and resulting in others continuing to want more, but they will go on, because this is the only way they know they can be appreciated and escape the fear of being rejected and unwanted. Still, through it all, they will long to hear they are appreciated just as they are, needs and vulnerabilities all.

Claudio Naranjo on E2

From Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo:

Here is how a student of protoanalysis described her situation growing up: “I was my father’s bride. He made me believe that I was the woman of his life, and that was a lie. He loved me so much ... but he didn’t marry me, he was married to mother. I was happy with my father, the pity is that it had an end.”

Here is another account reflecting the special father-daughter bond: “My father called me his ‘sign.’ He said I had a special mark on my neck that only he could see, and because of that I was magnificent and unique. I believed it.”

Not every type II person remembers a childhood as a happy, loved, and pampered princess or an adorable, favorite son. In some we hear a story of deprivation, and on occasion this surfaces after some therapeutic exploration. It is possible to bring the person to see how the time of becoming a little princess was preceded by one of emotional pain. In these cases it seems as if the child wanted to be specially reassured of mother’s or father’s love through being specially cared for, delighted in, and tolerated in her whims or bouts of crying. It is as if the child were saying: “Prove to me that you really love me!,” and the demand for special expression of love was essentially a reaction to having felt rejected.

Thus, for instance, a patient says: “For my mother I was ugly, dirty, ordinary ... and I could not allow any of her view to get into me, for I would panic at sinking into this ugly image. It is in this way that I defended myself with pride and through feeling the center of the universe.” In this case it can be seen that the imaginary reconstruction of the self can precede and be more fundamental than the seeking for an external alliance to confirm the proud self-image. It also suggests that the compensation for oral frustrations of infancy involves not only the denial of frustration, but also a compensatory assertiveness. Just as this person asserted being the center of the universe, another had to adopt an attitude of “don't step on me” in face of two very hard brothers, and still another says: “I had a twin who was a model child, and I was the opposite. I rebelled. I reacted with prideful rebellion in face of my mother's rejection.”

A transition from frustration to a self-satisfied and self-satisfying stance, and self-image generally can be seen, among women, as a shift from the experience of relative rejection by the mother to the development of seductiveness in view of becoming father’s favorite.

“My mother was dry and skinny. My father was immense, happy, with a round face and with a very beautiful skin. It was no help for my becoming fat. Whoever doesn’t like it let him go to the skinny and dry ones."

The following example involves a variant: “I did not receive attention, I felt abandoned by my mother. I had two fathers. My fantasy has been more that of Cinderella than that of a princess. I had to expect my prince, who was my father, who had abandoned me. And this has been a clear fantasy always. It was with my second father that I was the favorite, in spite of not being his daughter. I have much of my mother’s perfectionism, but I was also very seductive. With that mother there was no help to being in the shadow.”

Hearing ennea-type II histories I have noticed something akin to a breaking of the will that seeks compensation in willfulness. Frustration is transformed in the compulsive search for freedom that characterizes this character’s intolerance for rules and boundaries. As a woman has said: “Whims were the proof of love.” An instance of this is an acquaintance who remembers that when she was taken away from her mother’s to her grandmother’s house as a child, she was promised many beautiful things to lure her, overcoming her reluctance. Later, feeling betrayed, she demanded ever more beautiful things, seeking her compensation with a “vengeance.”

Here is another quote on egocentrism as a compensatory love thirst: “There were economical differences and I began to work at fourteen, and I think whims were demands through which I charged what I felt was due to me.”

It is not surprising that often type VII fathers appeared in the history of ennea-type II women, which makes sense given their typical seductiveness, gaiety, orientation to pleasure, and family orientation. Just as in type I the desire for love becomes a search for respect, in type II the love-wish becomes a search for intimacy and the expression of tender feelings through words and caressing. In one case as in the other the secondary search interferes with the primal satisfaction. Not only, in this case, because the development of the “seductive apparatus” makes the person less than complete and thus less lovable, but also because to feel loved a person needs to be in touch with his/her lovewish, and this is repressed in the proud along with their denigrated self-image.

A feature of early life history coherent with the position of superiority and giving of ennea-type II that I have observed is that of becoming a mother’s helper vis-a-vis the care of siblings. I illustrate with a fragment of a report by a group of type II women: “All of us carried a lot of adult responsibility as very young children; became the little mother in the house or the mother in the house at early ages. And we kept, we strove to keep our parents happy, so that our needs would be met. If parents were happy, then we got some love and attention and approval, but if not, then we were the ones that had the wrath poured on us or whatever. It was a safer environment to be in if parents were happy. Most of us expressed ourselves in a way that said that we were providing for one parent what the other parent wasn’t in some ways, became the companion for the father if the mother wasn’t that or vice versa in many activities."

The following individual report suggests that an enneatype II can seek to be a “good little girl”: “After you established a certain level of performance it became expected and after that you had to do a little more because you did make them happy, but after a while that was just expected, so in order to make them happy you had to do more." And so they had to keep the performance extraordinary. While it may be said of a type II girl that she is a “good little girl” just as the type I girl is, the difference is that in this case performance occurs in an atmosphere of wish fulfillment rather than frustration.

Another factor in early childhood history that had been brought to my attention is some measure of over-protectiveness and over-possessiveness by one of the parents—a problematic side of being a favorite related to the thirst for freedom and which has led some to become independent at an early age. It is common for type II girls who did not have freedom to be with friends, come from large families and have been told: “You know you got siblings to play with, you don’t need anybody else," and to be relatively confined.

From 27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram by Claudio Naranjo:

In his family, the E2 child has been a source of joy and fulfillment. He often had the role of alleviating pain or lack, and illuminating the shadows of the family. For him, his difficult role did not represent an authentic recognition or value, but it was the only way he found to be seen, and it became a massive defense against the pain of the humiliation of having been used. The great narcissistic satisfaction of being “the light of the eyes of Mommy” for boys, or Daddy for girls, is paid with the impossibility of fulfilling one’s own role.

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E2

From From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation by Eli Jaxon-Bear:

Traditionally, the Two was Daddy’s little girl. These were the little girls with the curls who were cute, funny, and curled into your lap with a coquettish smile. I also know many male Twos, who also learned very early how to be sweet and wrap Mommy around their little fingers. For gay male Twos, the issue is being Daddy’s little boy.

A male Two reported that by age five he was taking care of his younger brother and sister. He would sit and rock the cradle and keep them both quiet. He diapered his baby sister and started cooking for the family by the time he was seven. He is a baker by trade now and says, “I love it! I love taking care of people.”

Another Two reported having the very clear memory of lying in her crib, needing attention. Yet, she would never cry because her mother was already so busy with the other five children; she didn’t want to be a burden.

This same Two said she started dancing at four years old and won her first medal at five. She kept dancing and winning medals until she was eleven. She said she was willing to do whatever it took to keep the spotlight on her. She started cooking when she was three, and has scars on her hand from an accident she had at five while making custard for her family. She started washing dishes as soon as she could stand up; she would stand on a chair to wash them. When I asked how old she was when she started sewing, she said she didn’t start using the sewing machine until she was five. Before that it was just hand sewing.

Another female Two recalled:

I learned to be funny and cute to get [Daddy’s] attention so he would have fun with me. That was the only thing that really worked. I’m sure it caused difficulty because my mother was so removed and so empty and quiet, she must have been jealous.

This observation is profound for a Two. She won Daddy’s love in competition with Mother. And Mother, never being able to voice her loss publicly and sometimes not consciously aware of it, became resentful of her child.

Quite often Twos come into therapy with a feeling of deep connection with their fathers and an unhappy relationship with their mothers. When questioned, they really don’t know the root of the conflict with their mothers. When they explore it, they often find that winning Daddy’s love was the unconscious issue.

Another female Two said:

I was very aware that my father was enamored of me, and he was. He was also very enamored of my mother. She was a full person. I was just totally innocent and unaware of any kind of sexual stuff until somebody turned me on to sex. It wasn’t until I was about eighteen or nineteen that I had the first conscious thought of any kind of sexual attraction between my father and me.

Then it wasn’t until my twenties that I was aware of any possible conflict in our family. I always had the sense of having an idyllic childhood. Ours was the family everybody wished they had. The resentments, jealousies, and competition in our family were very subtle, because everything was so “good.” People were really lively, happy, and affectionate. Things were very couched. My mother’s sadness and resentment were couched in sweetness.

Being naive about sexuality is an appropriate description; this is actually a pre-genital fixation. It is not a sexual attraction to Daddy at all. Sex isn’t really the issue. For Twos, wanting to be held and cuddled is usually more important than sex; sex is often a way to keep their partner or to give them what they seem to want.

A counterexample to the above was shared by a sexual Two. She said her parents had her dancing and entertaining sailors by the time she was four or five years old. At that point she felt her sexuality and loved it. She has been sexually active ever since with a huge variety of partners.

Sandra Maitri on E2

From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri:

For someone who is an Ennea-type Two, losing touch with Being in early childhood also means losing the awareness that she is part of the ongoing flow of the whole universe. There develops a sense of being cut off from the unfoldment of reality, and the sense that she is not an inseparable part of it, which she might feel initially in relation to her mother or family, and later more globally. Rather than experiencing herself as a cell in the larger body of the universe whose functioning is intrinsic and important to the functioning of the whole, she feels herself to be peripheral and unimportant. Lost is the sense that she has a place and a purpose in life in her own right, and so lost is the sense of inner momentum and direction. Personal development and unfoldment as her natural human potential and driving force become replaced with the sense of being cast out by the universe, left without direction in some backwater. This is her fixation, her fixed cognitive belief about how things are. (We see that the phrase for Ennea-type Two’s fixation given by Ichazo is flattery. This refers to a Two’s solution to her sense of disconnection from God’s Will: playing to others.)

Lost is the perception of the intelligence and directionality behind what occurs, and so she feels that she cannot trust that the way things are going is okay, and must make things happen the way she thinks they ought to be. Not only does she lose a sense of personal purpose and of direction but she also loses the sense that the universe is inherently supportive of her. She develops the conviction that she is a separate person, unloved and rejected by Being; and lacking an inner sense of inherent purpose and connection with the cosmic Will, she must take things into her own hands and make things happen. Lacking a perception of being part of God’s Will, in other words, she takes on that function and imitates it through becoming willful. She imposes her individual will on reality within and without and tries to make it conform to how she thinks it ought to be through manipulating it. Fundamentally she is trying to create a sense of direction, momentum, purpose, and support which she has lost contact with in the process of losing contact with her essential nature. Lost is her trust and perception of her own essential Will, the momentum of her soul, and so she feels she must manipulate reality and herself to survive.

Her inner sense is one of flatness, a lack of dimensionality and of depth. Hence the nickname of this type, Ego-Flat. It is as though there were an inner glass ceiling, a limit to the depths she can contact within herself. Without perception of the support of Being and convinced that her soul does not have an inherent gravitational momentum toward this realm that she has become estranged from, salvation must therefore come through others. She turns her gaze to them for that missing sense of a foundation, an underpinning, a mainstay. The door to her depths seems to lie in making intimate contact with others, and in this crucial assumption we can see the overlay of her early relationship with mother, which we will look at shortly. Her inner orientation is focused outward on others whom she tries to please since she feels dependent on them to connect with herself, and her inner states ascend and plummet depending on the quality of her contact with them. This dependency is the central psychological orientation of Twos.

This dependent orientation rests on the Two’s loss of contact with and loss of value for her inner process. She rejects her inner world and her own experience, mimicking her unconscious sense of having been rejected by the universe. What she is experiencing is not what is supposed to be happening, and seems much less important, valid, and interesting than what some valued other is experiencing. There is no sense that she is being propelled to any place of significance—or indeed any place at all—by anything within herself, and so she must attach herself to the momentum of someone else. Rather than being moved to actualize her potential, then, she is driven to connect with some special other.

The vicissitudes in her early interactions with her mother are filtered through her sensitivity to Holy Will, and the result is the sense that who she really is was not attended to and her real needs were not met. Her needs and wants seem subordinate to mother’s will—who gives and withholds nourishment according to her own timetable, and the inevitable lack of complete attunement translates in the preconceptual language of the soul into the sense that mother does not love her and rejects who she is. The Two is acutely sensitive to rifts in attunement, and the impression left on her soul is that mother’s needs are more important than hers. What develops is the sense of not being centrally important as a person and of her needs being secondary to those of mother and later to those of all significant people in her life. Her function becomes satisfying their needs, and she loses touch with the potential for her own unfoldment as a person.

Whether a Two’s mother was in actuality more self-centered than the mothers of other types or not, the imprint left on a Two’s soul is that mother is self-absorbed and so not fully there for her, not fully available or loving. The Two comes to believe that since she could not capture mother’s love and attention, she is not inherently lovable and must therefore manipulate to get love, and her soul becomes oriented toward that pursuit. From one angle, all of the Two’s subsequent personality traits can be seen as efforts to catch mother’s attention and as seductions to win her love in an attempt to heal this wound in her soul. Her focus becomes, then, to make herself lovable and loved.

Often in the history of a Two is the sense of growing up in the shadow of an idealized parent who imposed his or her will on the Two—a parent who was the focus of attention and to whom the Two had to subordinate herself and had to please. This may have been the mother, but often is the father, and this pattern repeats in later life as the Two attempts to become connected with a prestigious and prominent partner. There is often in the history of Twos the sense of having been rejected by the mother and of being the father’s favorite, but in many cases there is the sense of being both parents’ most beloved child. In this lies one of the paradoxes of Twos: while often being the preferred child of one or both parents, Twos nonetheless feel rejected. This is probably because in the Two’s soul, her value in the family seemed to have come through the role she played, the image she presented, the things she accomplished, rather than from her real self.

[...] The Two’s image, then, becomes one of selflessness, giving without limits, sacrificing herself for another, being self-effacing, compliant, empathic, sensitive, and attuned to the needs of others. She demands of herself that she be, or at least present herself as being, totally compassionate, loving, considerate, understanding, in touch with and doing something about the suffering of others, and like a Bodhisattva, putting her fulfillment second to saving everyone on the planet. On top of all that, she must above all be humble. Naranjo used to characterize the Two “package” as “seductive false humility.”

Only these lovable attributes are allowed by the Two’s superego, which relentlessly requires that this saintlike image be attained. The punishment is guilt, and Twos are experts at guilt tripping both themselves and others. Guilt for not living up to this image forms part of a Two’s emotional atmosphere, consciously or unconsciously. The inner demand to fulfill the image is impossible because it is an image, and so not their reality. On the one hand, they feel guilty for not fulfilling this angelic image, and on the other hand, they feel guilty when they have succeeded in making someone believe that’s how they really are since they know it is not the truth.

Helen Palmer on E2

From The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer:

Twos were the children who were loved for being pleasing. They quickly recognized the qualities in themselves that were appealing to the different adults in their lives and learned to put on a performance that met those needs. They were loved children, who learned how to keep the flow of affection coming their way:

My father was remote and hard to get, which in a way made the game of getting his attention more exciting, because none of my brothers or sisters were any good at it. I felt like a barometer, always feeling out where he was at. I’d get home, and go to his study, and I remember hesitating at the door until I could feel out what his mood was like, so I would know how to be that evening.

It felt like figuring out which of my characters I should be for the night, and once I got into the character that seemed to fit, then I’d be that one to please him. I gave them all names years later in a therapy session, where I also remembered whole sets of feelings that they each had.

The one I liked best was Princess. She was very sweet, and when I was Princess I’d tell him all the things that I had done during the day while he was at work. I would also sometimes pretend that I was Princess during school when he wasn’t there, and then I could speak out very bravely, because I felt like I was a king’s daughter, and I was representing him.

Another common scenario is reported by Twos whose sensitivity to the needs of others developed because they had to support their parents emotionally.

I was a helpful child, who believed that my family was basically incompetent, and needed a lot of support. So by taking care of my parents I made them strong enough to take care of me. I got my parents to go to Sunday services because I thought that it strengthened them, all the while knowing that I was Jesus’ favorite in the Sunday school for bringing them to the faith.

As an adult, there was a repeating pattern of giving myself over to a man and, by serving him, getting him to serve me. I would work and give him the money to support us, so that he could “pay my way.” If I thought that I was actually taking care of myself, it felt like not being loved, because I wasn’t being taken care of by him.

Another childhood prototype is described by Twos who recognized the manipulative possibilities of becoming indispensable and loved and used their seductive abilities to extract what they needed from other people.

I had a real triangle situation. My father was generous and a lot of fun, and my mom was in the way. So I just always put her first, and myself second, and by keeping the peace with her I could get anything I wanted out of him.

It was extremely seductive in a nonphysical kind of way. There was always this intense bond between us. He wanted control, so I would either flatter him by being pretty and playing up, or else I would outright disobey him. I disobeyed not because I really had to date the wrong fellow, or get home too late, but because I got an intense kind of possessive attention out of my father when I disobeyed, which made me feel like I really mattered.

Beatrice Chestnut on E2

From The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut:

The archetypal story of the Two begins with an experience, often very early in childhood, of some crucial need not being met. For instance, this history often includes inexperienced or overwhelmed caregivers failing to provide some aspects of basic love and care. This failure could include all kinds of basic needs, but especially early emotional needs, like the need to feel recognized and loved unconditionally.

From this experience of unfulfilled need, Twos adapt to others based on the idea that their needs are too much for other people and that they can’t be loved as they are. Twos develop a survival strategy in which they repress their needs in favor of tuning in to the needs of others. The effort of being super-supportive of others, they hope, will motivate others to meet their unstated needs in reciprocal fashion.

The whole Two personality can be seen as a strategic defense against the humiliation of having to acknowledge need. Twos’ early experience that their needs are “too much” causes them to subconsciously conclude that because their needs are neglected, they themselves are somehow not worthy of love or care. From then on, any open refusal of need fulfillment can revive the early psychic pain caused by those needs going unsatisfied in the first place. Twos experience this refusal as humiliation because it confirms their image of themselves as unworthy.

This initial scenario also leads the Two to develop a range of unconscious strategies to get their needs met through indirect means so they can avoid the painful experience of their needs (and their “self”) being directly rejected. On one hand, asking for needs to be met seems unthinkable to the Two, as it seems sure to invite further rejection. On the other hand, the Two finds that repressing these needs seems to both reduce the internal pressure of unmet need and make them easier for others to be around. (Thus, a Two might think: “If this person I want to connect with doesn’t like angry people, I just won’t be angry!” or “If the parent that I need to take care of me doesn’t like sad people, I will get rid of my sadness.”) By becoming what others want them to be in order to gain their approval or affection, the Two builds a personal network of positive connections to (hopefully indirectly) meet the needs they have so carefully hidden from view.

This early coping strategy protects the Two, but at considerable cost. Underneath their upbeat and friendly exterior, Twos often feel a deep sense of sadness that comes from believing that they are unlovable. This puts Twos in the unfortunate position of needing to disown parts of themselves to ensure that others like them. This habit of repressing needs can make Twos sensitive or even averse to being dependent on others, even in normal, nonintrusive ways. But as flattering and supporting others to earn love or approval becomes habitual, the Two gradually becomes more and more defended against the risk of potential rejection, and less and less able to open up and receive love from others in a genuine way.

Chris, a Type Two, describes his childhood situation and the development of his coping strategy:

I was an only child and the only grandchild on my father’s side of the family. My grandparents took care of me a lot when I was very young because both of my parents worked full time. Two years after I was born, my parents and I moved out of the United States to pursue better economic opportunities overseas. This move involved leaving my father’s extended family and moving to Greece. When we moved back to the U.S. again seven years later, I had to leave behind my mother’s extended family that had raised me from the time I was two until I was nine.

While I don’t recall consciously feeling the pain of specific unmet needs, I know that being passed to different grandparents, not always having my parents around to take care of me, and losing the support of two different sets of caretakers before the age of ten had an effect on me. On the one hand, I got a lot of attention because I was an only child, but on the other hand, I think I may have felt rejected or abandoned when my parents weren’t around and when I had to leave people (twice) whom I had come to depend on.

My mother is a very critical Type One and my father is a very protective Type Eight. From early on, I adopted a strategy of pleasing people, primarily through entertainment (I could—and still do!—sing at the drop of a hat). This ensured I was the center of attention (and not ignored) and bonded to others in some way. (It also was my way of distracting people from the loud political arguments du jour.) I projected a happy exterior and learned to control my own anger based on the coaching my mom would give my Eight father—but this “tempering the temper” advice also caused me to hide or squelch my negative emotions. Not expressing negative feelings was also reinforced by my grandmother, who was always concerned about “what the neighbors would think.”

As an only child raised primarily around adults. I was encouraged to be independent and self-sufficient. In elementary school, I always carried extra supplies to offer to other classmates. I often felt like an outsider—because I had grown up in another country and was the new kid who spoke with a foreign accent—and so tried to make friends by offering these gifts of supplies to anyone who might need them. I quickly lost the British accent I had acquired living abroad as I wanted to conform to the dominant culture to be accepted. Being nice, helpful, and generous was the only way I could come up with to get along with everyone and have them like me. I also hid my homosexuality because I didn’t have any role models to let me know that it was possible to be gay and still be liked and accepted. To that end, I even waited until I had moved out of my parents’ house to come out to them, for fear of being rejected by them while I was still living there (and so still needed them).

Riso-Hudson on E2

From Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

As children, Twos were ambivalent to the protective-figure, the person in their early development who was responsible for guidance, structure, and discipline. This is often the father, but other people can also play this role, including the mother or even an older sibling. Twos did not identify strongly with the protective-figure, but they also did not psychologically separate from the person entirely. As a result, Twos felt that they could best fit into the family system by creating an identity that was complementary to the protective-figure. Since the orientation is toward the protective-figure who represents the qualities associated with patriarchy—authority, structure, discipline, guiding the child in the ways of the world—the child began to identify with the complementary, matriarchal role. Young Twos learned to become “little nurturers” as a way of gaining safety and security in the family system. In other words, they believed that if they could nurture others in their family sufficiently, they could win the affection and protection of the protective-figure. This relationship with the protective figure sets the stage for a similar orientation toward everyone who can give Twos the love they want.

This ambivalent orientation to their protective-figure helps explain why Twos' self-esteem is conditional. Twos do not love themselves unconditionally, and this is really the source of all the suffering that Twos will experience or cause. Their self-esteem is based on the condition that they be absolutely good and “unselfish.” They must see themselves in this way because they believe that only by being extraordinarily good and generous people will they ever obtain love from others. Further, the more dysfunctional the Twos’ family systems were, the more they will feel that they must sacrifice and repress their own needs in order to get love.

Unfortunately, the more Twos see their own needs as selfish, the more they must find indirect ways of meeting them. Twos’ superegos are ever vigilant, judging not only the “selfishness” of the Two, but the responses of others to the Two’s help. (“That was a nice thing Brenda said, but if you were really a lovable person, she would have given you a hug.”) In average to unhealthy Twos, very little can satisfy the superego. The Two cannot be self-sacrificing enough, and no response from others is sufficient to make Twos believe that they are loved. Ironically, Twos try to maintain their psychological survival by trying even harder to convince themselves and others (as well as their punitive superegos) that they truly are being good, selfless, and without needs.

While there is certainly nothing objectionable about Twos seeing themselves as good and loving people when they are genuinely good, problems begin when they need to feel that they are good all the time. Even when they are far from good, Twos must see themselves as good for others. The irony is that their need to think of themselves as all-good and helpful is never more urgent than when they are frantically needy, self-centered, and manipulative.

However, when they are healthy, Twos are able to move beyond their desperate search for love by learning to nurture themselves. They understand that self-nurturance is not selfish: in fact, it is essential if they are going to be of any real help to anyone else. They know that to the degree that they can love themselves unconditionally, they do not have to get love from others by being good all the time. They can then be caring, unselfish, and disinterested, in the most positive meanings of those words, because their love is truly without agenda. Unfortunately, at the lower end of the personality continuum, the "love" of unhealthy Twos is nothing more than a veneer for the desire to create dependencies so that they can hold on to others. Because of the intensity of their neediness, unhealthy Twos do evil in the name of good and can no longer tell the difference.

From The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

During their childhood, Twos come to believe three things. First, that they must put other people’s needs ahead of their own; second, that they must give in order to get; and third, that they must earn a place in the affections of others because love will not simply be given to them. They felt that the way to be loved was to repress their own needs and to attend to the needs of others, lavishing attention on everyone else in an effort to be liked and wanted. To the degree that their childhood environment was dysfunctional, they also learned that to acknowledge their own needs was a form of selfishness and was strictly forbidden by their superego. (“Good people do not have needs. Taking too much time for yourself is selfish.”)

Thus, Twos learned to function within the family system—and in all subsequent relationships—by being the helper, the selfless friend, the pleaser, and the giver of attention and nurturance to everyone else. Young Twos may have established a place for themselves in the family by looking after siblings, or by doing housework, or by taking care of their parents in a variety of ways. They are deeply conditioned to believe that by sacrificing themselves, they will be rewarded with whatever is called love in their family system.

Lois, an expert educator and administrator, shares some of the sense of burden Two children feel.

For as long as I can remember, I felt that it was my job to take care of others in my family. I felt I needed to help my mother and father to alleviate their stress. I am the second oldest of six children. I took care of my twin sisters who are eleven years younger than me. I recall many times when I felt all depended on me. I spent the biggest share of my childhood cooking, cleaning, and washing clothes to help my mother who always seemed to be overwhelmed with her lot in life.

This orientation creates a major problem for Twos, however. To fully identify with the role of nurturer and to maintain the positive feelings that this role creates for them, Twos must deeply repress their own needs, hurts, and self-doubt. Once this repression occurs, Twos have increasing difficulty acknowledging their own needs and pain and are drawn automatically to the needs and pain they see in others. On a deep psychological level, Twos are trying to fix in others the hurts they are unable to fully acknowledge in themselves.

Maggie is a gifted therapist who has devoted her life to helping her clients heal their childhood wounds. Here she speaks vividly about her early self-abandonment.

On the first day I went to school for first grade, I saw many children playing at the playground. They were yelling, screaming, pushing, and running. I felt like I had fallen into hell since I was not used to being around children, and these children appeared to me to be very "out of control." What to do? Across the play yard I saw a little girl. She was crying very hard. She looked disheveled, and her hair was messy. Her shoes weren't tied. She needed help! Bingo, I made a beeline for her, put my arms around her, and told her not to worry, I'd take care of her. It was instant codependency. I felt confident and needed. It would be many years before I ever realized how frightened Iwas and how that other child was my mirror.

Given this inner dynamic, Twos learn to deal with their negative feelings by focusing on others, trying hard to please and help them. However, the more dysfunctional their background, the more they will expect rejection, and the more desperate they will be to elicit a positive response. Ultimately, they will do almost anything to get some sign, some token, that they are loved.

Enneagram Three

For an enneagram 3, their wounding message is “It’s not ok to have your own feelings and identity.”

There are other variations of this message such as “It’s not ok to fail” or “It’s not ok to not work hard.”

Once you realize this wounding message, it’s easy to see how that has ingrained the type 3’s core desire and core fear.

For a 3 that core desire is to be valued/admired/successful and the core fear is being not valued/not admired/unsuccessful. They believe that if they have their own feelings or identity they will not be valued/admired.

What type 3’s long to hear is “You are loved and valued for simply being you” (the real you; not the mask you wear).

Hearing this and understanding this allows the 3 to have a weight lifted off of them.

To the heart - These children felt rewarded only for what they did and how well they did it. their feelings were discounted and ignored, only their performance and what was expected of them mattered. This harmed their ability to love themselves and others. Admiration replaced real love.

These children only experienced love if they were serving or satisfying others; their own needs seemed selfish. As a consequence, they tuned in to others’ needs and wants rather than their own. Love came to be described as the act of giving to others, even when the love was not always returned.

Twos aspire to be needed by others. In a child, this may manifest as The Two helping younger siblings with domestic chores or taking on parental tasks to make their lives smoother while also earning their family’s respect and admiration. They believe that by being responsible and nurturing, they can eventually win the love which most children accept as normal.

As children, Threes felt deeply connected to the nurturing figure in their life. This could have been the mother or father, depending on the home. They learned to intuit the nurturing parent’s needs before they were expressly stated, and strived to meet those needs. They sensed that they were loved or valued for what they achieved rather than who they were. When they received a look of approval, they basked in it, and worked hard to gain that look of approval again. Unlike the Two, who tried to gain approval through being needed or nurturing, Threes gained approval by achieving goals, success, and benchmarks. They gathered tokens of achievement in hopes of being loved. These could have been actual medals or trophies or straight A’s.

Threes developed the habit of working on their ego self rather than their true self. They struggled with an underlying feeling that their true self was undeserving or worthless. In secret, they often believed that if people knew who they really were they would reject or abandon them. So they tried to look good, smile brightly, and win prizes or achievements that would distract them and others from the true self inside. identifies with what he has falsified, believing in his false image and losing all connection with its truth inside.

As a child, you felt very connected to the nurturing figure in your household. You loved the look of approval and felt your achievements were the most valuable interactions with the household figure over conversations about who you thought you were inside. You received nurturing through recognition from the goals you achieved, the success you reached, and the benchmarks you hit. You may have developed a feeling of rejection or abandonment for aspects of your identity that weren’t achievement-based. Your focus has been on your ego, not your true self.

Affirmation: “I am loved regardless of my achievements and success. No matter who I am, I am loved by those in my life.”

Claudio Naranjo on E3

From Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo:

It is not surprising that an athletic constitution supports the active and energetic character of type III. It seems to me likely that physical beauty and general intelligence may also be among the factors leading to the implicit choice of vanity as a way of psychological survival.

Though it is common to hear that type III individuals felt stimulated during the time of their growing up to comply with parental expectations and ideals, it is also very common to find that their desire to attract attention to excellence in one form or another has arisen in reaction to an earlier experience of not having been seen or heard enough; thus it would seem that the wish to be brilliant has been a reaction to the fear of being ignored. "I was the youngest of five. There was no place for me so I had no other resource than shining to get attention."

A factor that I have noticed often in women in the situation of not being seen or acknowledged enough is the presence of a type V father.

Also frequent in ennea-type III life histories (especially in the preservation subtype) is a sense of not being able to count on anybody which has stimulated the child's autonomy. Efficiency in this case does not only stem from a desire to attract parental love through a good performance; it also arises from the need to care for oneself. "I had to seek safety for myself and my sisters. Fighting at home was continuous." "I had to take care of myself. The conflict level at home was such that my attitude became 'everything is fine here'."

It is not uncommon for a type III person to come from a family in which there was illness or some kind of chaos, the situation in which a great problem (such as father's alcoholism) competed with the attention that parents might have given to the child, and contributed to the child's incentive to take care of itself.

Often, too, there are memories of situations conveying to the child that it was unsafe to say the truth or reveal his or her feelings and wishes. "A childhood memory that I have that just sprang into my mind, to confirm and affirm deceit was: We had apple trees and whenever we would eat the green apples, we would get the diarrhea. And my mother had forbidden us to eat the green apples. And she went out to hang up the clothes and found apples with bite marks in them. And so she promised anyone, ‘If you tell the truth, you will not be punished. Who ate the green apple?’ Well I had taken a bite out and so did my sister. So I admitted it. I got the spanking and my sister got a penny out of the sugar bowL To me, I was so confused and I thought, ‘Well what's the point of telling the truth. So you learn then to be deceitful.’”

The self-controlled characteristic of type III can be understood not only in view of survival and image manipulation: there is often behind it all a story of stem discipline. Speaking for a group of three women of the same character, one of them said: "We all could identify with the strap. If we didn't get it someone else got it. And I remember for me that was always a real horror, you know, you'd do anything to not 'get it' and so then the good behavior kind of thing and sometimes not knowing what it was for, but the strictness again. That things had to be a certain way. It wasn't perfectionism, but it was proper not to, I think it had a touch of shaming, but it was a sense of being shamed if you didn't do it the way it was to be done."

It is not uncommon for the type III individual to have a type III parent, in which case we may think that the concern with appearances has arisen through identification. "My mother turned me into a doll: ballet lessons, dressing up nicely, not raising my voice, no laughing, no feeling ... She died when I was nine and my father continued her task." At times, seduction was an added incentive in mimesis: "My father was a very dignified man. He was retired, but he had a white shirt and he wore gold rings and a blue serge suit always. He was very, very proper. And this came off on me as a role player. He was a role player."

"Parents always needed to look good to the neighbors, parents always needed to look good. You know, we needed to look good as three's, but we had a three parent, and so that three parent passed on that they always had to look good and so we were their product and so we had to look good." The most common ennea-type among mothers of type III individuals is type IV and in these cases it is possible to speak of a rebellious disidentification-a desire not to be a complaining and problematic person, but one that acts independently causing others the least trouble. This may coincide with a situation in which the child feels that it cannot afford to have problems since it is put in the role of having to take care of mother.

It may be said that throughout the character development of type III the search for love has led to a motivation to perform well and eventually the wish to please and to be acknowledged, becoming autonomous, obscures the original love wish. Also there is a striking sexualization of the love wish so that being loved is equated with being attractive and successful.

From 27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram by Claudio Naranjo:

During childhood he learned to be a nice son, they are laughing and accommodating to meet the expectations of a mother who in most cases is demanding and cold, and which tends to project onto the child the expectations of his own sa Narcissistic dissatisfaction. Whether it concerns the father or the mother, people with character three tell that they have felt like a pretty object to present to the world, as an extension of parents.

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E3

From From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation by Eli Jaxon-Bear:

Threes start producing at a very early age. They usually report that they started working by the time they were five, and never stopped. Threes learn early on how to fulfill the family’s (often the father’s) dreams and expectations.

Threes are usually precocious as kids, looking and acting like miniature adults, often acting grown up by the time they are seven years old. Many Threes have already lost touch with their deep feelings by the time they are four or five years old. Later on in life, there is often an infantile quality when emotions are released through alcohol, drugs, or sex.

As children, Threes were rewarded for producing and always strived to produce whatever the family desired. One Three reported that as a child there were no rules. While growing up she never had a curfew or any other limits set. This was because she already instinctively knew what the rules were and followed them without any instruction.

A mother spoke of her daughter:

She was perfect even in the womb. Her birth was perfect, with no struggle. She even looked like a perfect baby. Most babies look wrinkled or hairy. People would look at her and exclaim what a perfect-looking baby she was. She never cried. At six months of age she actually spoke her name! I didn’t even have to put diapers on her at night, because she never wet the bed.

Another Three reported that he always got straight A’s. When his father asked him where his homework was—he would do his homework at school—he started bringing it home to do. One day he was doing his math homework as he always had, calculating the answers in his head and then writing them down. His father wanted to know where the work was, so from then on he wrote it all down.

Frequently, when I work with Threes in therapy, they do not have easy recall of childhood memories. It often takes them longer than most to begin to remember the traumas of their past. They usually report that they are constantly growing and evolving, so what happened or what they were like yesterday is irrelevant. Their interest is not in the past, but in present and future success.

Adult Threes often look young for their age. Quite often, especially in the sexual subtype, they have a button nose and an unlined face. The face appears not to have been lived in. Howdy Doody has a classic Three face, as did John Kennedy, Shirley MacLaine, Jimmy Carter, Dick Clark, Debbie Reynolds, Doris Day, and Shirley Temple. All have (or had) faces that appear almost like masks.

Threes sell out to images of the world. What the world expects, they produce. The image they produce depends on the class and social circumstances of the family.

Threes often report a phase of acting out a rebellious stance at some point in their childhood, such as hanging out with gangs and wearing motorcycle jackets. This phase usually does not last very long. In retrospect, Threes admit that even during their rebellious phase they were just playing a role for peer-group acceptance.

It’s interesting to note that most Threes report never wearing out their clothing. The desire for neatness, image, and being good, subconsciously manifests even in having shoes that never wear out.

Sandra Maitri on E3

From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri:

From a psychodynamic point of view, the loss of the Holy Idea has, as we have seen, left the Three with the sense that she is not part of the fabric of the Whole but rather a separate actor who must create a reality and a life. From a historical vantage point, she has reacted to the lack of holding in her early environment with the attitude that “I’ll do it myself.” The sensitivity of Threes to their essential nature not being seen and reflected by the environment, filtered through the loss of the Holy Idea, creates the interpretation they must do to survive and to be loved—that their value is rooted in their ego activity and arises from their role and achievements. So the take on their childhood is that their survival was up to them and that they were loved for their accomplishments and not for themselves. Sometimes there was physical deprivation in the past of a Three, or she had to take care of herself as well as other siblings at a very young age because of an absent, overextended, or simply neglectful parent. These kinds of backgrounds, filtered through the loss of Holy Law, lead to the “self-made man,” clearly a Three archetype, in which someone from destitute roots pulls himself up by his own bootstraps to achieve phenomenal wealth and fame.

Sometimes the deprivation a Three has experienced is not physical at all—many Threes are of course born into affluent and powerful families. In these cases, the neglect is more of an emotional withholding in which conforming to the family’s ideals and the Three’s achievements were all that seemed to receive much notice. Nannies or a kindly grandmother might have taken the place of mother, who had other, presumably more important, things to do. The message that filtered through the Three’s sensitivity was that she was a showpiece valued only for her role. Regardless of the childhood circumstances, the message Threes get is that their survival and their value lie in their performance and achievements, and their personality becomes focused around image and action.

As the name of this ennea-type—ego-vanity—indicates, the issue of vanity is central to the psychology of Threes. The word vain is defined as “having no real value, meaning or foundation,” and this graphically describes the soul, cut off from awareness of Being, in which the shell of the personality is experienced as preeminent. Indeed, one’s real foundation—which alone can give a true sense of meaning and value to one’s life—is missing. This is the deepest level of the vanity of Threes. Vanity is also defined as “inflated pride in oneself or one’s appearance, attainments, performance, possessions, or successes; hunger for praise or admiration; the ostentation of fashion, wealth, or power regarded as an occasion of empty pride or a vain show.” These are more superficial manifestations of the fundamental vanity of Threes, that of the personality usurping the place of Being.

Helen Palmer on E3

From The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer:

Threes were prized for what they could produce and achieve, rather than for themselves. They eventually learned that the way to approval and love was successful performance, so they became adept at self-promotion and at projecting an image that incorporated the ideal characteristics of a role.

There has never been a time when I haven’t been measuring my value in terms of something tangible that other people could look at. I had a mother who was definitely interested in prepresidential material, and there were four siblings, close in age. I had a conventional middle-class upbringing, where there was a lot of talk about love, but not much contact. So achieving became like a horse race, with a very limited amount of recognition for me as being special, different from everybody else. The way to get that recognition was to ace the piano recital, or make the calendar that was selected for the class billboard, or whatever else would get people’s attention.

When I was performing I was being noticed, being fed from that small well of love. So it became a cycle, every achievement became the benchmark for the next success. Achievements weren’t cumulative, you had to keep on doing more, so my value came to mean what I had done that day, or on that test, or in that interaction.

The characteristics of a type are most exaggerated during the late teens and the twenties. The following statement was given by a seventeen-year-old high school senior and is typical of a young Three’s preoccupation with competitive achievement and the avoidance of failure in other people’s eyes.

Besides having to get straight As in school, I’m featured in the big dance performance that we’re having, and I‘m trying really hard to lead a successful social life. I work every day from one to five, besides going to school from eight to twelve. I go home and do my homework, and make up dances, and stay up until two in the morning. Basically I do it because if I don’t, then nobody’s going to like me. I want to do really well in school, but I can’t say that it’s because I‘m gung ho about the classes that I’m taking. I most want to come up with a good report card, because then people think that I have everything. So going to school is more for being recognized than for a purpose.

I did gymnastics for six years, four hours a day, six days a week, from six to ten every night, and for the last three years that I did it, I hated it. I didn’t know that I hated it at the time, I didn’t know that I hated it until I quit. It was just go. Go home, do homework, go to gymnastics, do more homework, go to sleep, go to school, just go, go, go. You don’t have time to stop and think, Do I really enjoy what I‘m doing? I’d go to competitions, and I really wouldn’t like them, but who could afford to sit around complaining? And I’d win, and my father and mother would think it was great, and I’d think, More, more, go for more.

It got to the point where I had problems watching the Olympics on TV. It got seriously down to either quit or have a nervous breakdown. Finally what persuaded me to quit was that a friend quit, and it was okay and nobody hated her. So one day I just gave up. So then I don’t have anything to do, so I have to fit all this extra stuff into my schedule, and I go out and find myself a job, and start dancing, and I‘m class president, the whole thing. Now I have to get into Stanford.

So I don’t tell anybody that I’m applying to Stanford, or at least nobody who’ll be around to find out if I don’t get in. I can’t describe how bad it feels to go out for something and not be sure you can win, so if it turns out badly, even my best friends won’t find out that I failed, and I’ll try as hard as I can to forget it. I‘m gone, I’ve got other stuff to do.

Threes become the ideal prototype of whatever group they value. If they are raised in a family that thinks highly of public performance, then they will strive in that area. If the family values other kinds of achievements, then a Three child will work hard to conform to that image. A woman who was raised in the country describes her family situation.

From the time that I was little, my mother told me that I was going to do something special. Not that I was special, but that I was going to do something really special. She was a single parent, and pretty unstable emotionally, so how I pleased her was to pretty much raise my younger brother and sister. Academics was not what I was encouraged for, it was more for being a helper around the house, for taking care of people. I created my own boutique and sold it after six months at a profit. It was a success from the instant that we opened the doors. My businesses have always come easily, because I know exactly what people want, and I give it to them.

In terms of productivity, I could take a couple of classes on a business topic and get myself hired to teach. Once I’ve got the surface elements, there’s an internal challenge to get in there and be accepted as an authority, be respected by people whom you admire. As a child I didn’t feel loved for who I was, but got stroked for a job well done. It’s a weak spot for me that I have to watch. Almost anybody can get my time if there’s strokes and recognition involved.

Beatrice Chestnut on E3

From The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut:

Threes report that they received the message early on that they were loved for what they did. Whether implicit or explicit, perhaps due to well-intentioned parental praise for specific accomplishments, as children, Threes came to believe that the path to gaining support, approval, and admiration from others was performing and succeeding at tasks. Threes develop a sense that they are not loved for who they really are as individuals but for what they do. This leads them to adopt a coping strategy of conforming to parental expectations and conventional ideals of achievement. Thus, their need for admiration grows out of an early experience of being praised for achievements rather than affirmed for aspects of their “real self.”

Alternatively, Three children may not have gotten the attention they needed, so they feel motivated to attract attention—to stand out and get noticed—by doing things to impress others. They become successful through the effort they expend in an attempt to avoid being ignored. Some Threes, for example, lacked parental support or protection as children, and they learned to be doers in order to survive. When a child loses a father in particular, he or she may feel a need to become supercompetent in order to fill the gap left by the absence of the archetypally masculine (active, protective, and productive) parental presence.

Faced with the perception that they must prove themselves to be admirable in some way in order to earn love, Threes develop a survival strategy in which they identify with and then become what others value. Type Three individuals possess a sensitive radar, or antenna, for what others like, admire, and view as successful. They turn themselves into a person who does or has whatever others associate with success and achievement. Similar to the Type Two’s strategy of determining what others need and like and then shapeshifting into that, Threes shape-shift to match an image of competence, attractiveness, and high status. Thus, Threes are not only oriented toward attaining goals and looking good, they are also highly competitive and focused on winning.

Motivated by a need to feel affirmed in the face of an early lack of attention or a perception that approval is linked with performance, the Three coping strategy provides both a focus on performance and a defense against painful feelings. “Doing” thus takes precedence over “being” and feeling for the Three. Doing seems to bring the desired response of approval from others, while “being” becomes a blind spot, as feelings are avoided so as to not create any emotional obstacles to doing. This (understandably) leads Threes to be “human doings” instead of “human beings.”

Threes therefore cope with a world that doesn’t offer them unconditional love by identifying with their image and their work, seeing themselves as equal to the image they create, and believing they are what they do. As their image and their work represent things they can control, Threes strive to match an image of what others admire; they work hard to earn approval by achieving a socially sanctioned definition of success and avoiding failure at all costs.

Candice, a Self-Preservation Three, describes her childhood situation and the development of her coping strategy:

My mother used to tell me I was such a good baby that she could leave me alone in my playpen for hours while she chased my older brother. Even as a child, I was proud of that. It was only when I saw how appalled others were at my mother’s behavior that I realized my “pride” in self-sufficiency was misguided. I vacillated between being fearful about being ignored and feeling safe in my ability to fly under the radar of my mother’s intrusive codependence. My brother was diagnosed as schizophrenic when we were in our early twenties and he committed suicide at twenty-nine. I’ve often felt that I hid behind him—being ignored and able to do for myself saved me. In those days, psychiatrists literally blamed mothers. My mom, who was a lot better than many, carried enormous guilt. My becoming industrious and reliable allowed her not to “worry” about me. This capacity has always trumped birth order in our family. When something goes wrong, my phone is the first to ring despite being the third of four children. I’m just back from helping my ninety-five-year-old father get settled at home after surgery. My younger brother and older sister had both been there before me. A friend of my father’s said to me, “When you come to town, things get done.”

As a Self-Preservation Three, I have an instinctual sense of what needs to be done and how to do it efficiently. It was hard to acknowledge that I’ve trained those around me to expect me to take over, so in more recent years it has been an interesting experience to step back. Before I jump in, I now ask the following questions: Does this have to done at all? Does it have to be done right now? Does it have to be done by me? It’s been amazing to see how much wasn’t needed but served my “doingitis.”

“I’m fine” was my mantra for years. I always bristled at the descriptions of Threes as wanting to look good. When I read that Self-Preservation Threes want to look like they have it together but don’t want to own their image consciousness—that they have “vanity for having no vanity”—I knew I’d found my home. I wasn’t happy about it, but I knew it was true. A recent broken ankle gave me an opportunity to observe myself and my reactions to offers of assistance. I can feel the “I’m fine” rising physically and have to consciously counteract it.

Another challenge I’ve faced is recognizing and feeling my emotions. I’ve often joked that “emotions are not aerodynamic and Threes don’t like to be slowed down.” One great find was The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler. She describes dozens of emotions as if they are people. It helped me access a realm that I had avoided (originally) to help my mother not worry about me. It opened the gateway to truly feeling the loss of my brother, which carved a path for other emotions to pass through me. I am now fine not being fine.

Riso-Hudson on E3

From Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

As young children, Threes were connected to the nurturing-figure, the person who in their early development mirrored them, cared for them, and provided affection and a sense of the Three's personal value. Young Threes are highly adaptable and responsive to the emotional states of others, and so learn to adjust themselves to the reactions and subconscious expectations of their nurturing-figure. This person is usually the Three's mother or a mother-substitute, but not always. In some cases, the mother may have been largely absent, physically or emotionally, and it fell upon the father or a sibling to nurture the baby. In other cases, a nanny or grandparent may have fulfilled this role. In any case, it is important to understand that the nurturing-figure is the person who cared for the child and who provided mirroring.

In their formative years, Threes learn to tune in to the desires and hopes of their nurturing-figure. The expectations of the nurturing-figure need not be expressed explicitly. With the remarkable intuitive gifts of children, young Threes know what will please their nurturers and which behaviors produce approving looks and smiles. All of this is quite natural, and if the nurturing-figure is reasonably healthy, he or she mirrors the child's true qualities and the Three will mature into a well-balanced person with good self-esteem. But to the degree that the nurturing-figure has unresolved narcissistic needs of his or her own, the Three will have to make much greater adaptations. To please the troubled nurturer, young Threes will have to abandon themselves to become the person who will be approved. In cases where the nurturer was more pathological and needy, Threes will have to disconnect from their own feelings and needs almost entirely. Because the nurturing-figure's expectations are so unrealistic, the child is doomed to fail. Little that the child can do will get the nurturing-figure to approve of them or validate their existence. The result is a desperate individual with deep narcissistic wounds and an intense underlying hostility for being forced to abandon his or her own heart.

As adults, Threes continue to play out this pattern learned in early childhood. They seek out people whom they admire and esteem to give them validation and admiration. Threes are not interested in indiscriminately getting everyone to like them: rather, they focus on specific individuals who they themselves view as valuable, successful people. Although this motivates Threes to do those things which will make them seem worthwhile to others, this also leaves them highly vulnerable to fears of rejection. They will work tirelessly to avoid ever being rejected, ever being seen as a "loser." The admiring gaze which they sought from their nurturing-figures made them feel that they were loved and valued, and in one form or another, they are always seeking that look in the eyes of others. Admiration makes them feel alive and worthwhile—at least for a while. Without it, they feel empty and hostile because their underlying feelings of not being valued for who they are begin to surface.

Average Threes perceived as children that they were generally valued for what they accomplished, for the quality of their performance, not for themselves. In adult Threes, this can lead to highly effective work habits, but it can also lead to powerful fears of intimacy. They may initiate relationships, but then end them before the other person gets to know them well, or have relationships with people other than the person they most want to be near. This protects their fragile self-image, but at a great cost to their happiness and connection with others. Threes believe that others will love them only for their image and for their success, but if people were really to get to know them, they would see the person beneath the image and they would be rejected. Because of difficult childhood experiences with their nurturing-figure, average Threes cannot accept the idea that others could love them just as they are. It seldom occurs to them that the most important person who has rejected them is themselves.

To give up their performance and risk exposing the vulnerable self within feels like an enormous risk to Threes. They feel that their authentic self has been rejected in the past and are secretly terrified of having it happen again. They also become convinced that their real self is relatively undesirable and that only their performance is worthwhile. Having put so much effort into it, to give it up seems unthinkable. Yet, if Threes never take that risk, they may become successful in the eyes of others, but will never know what it really is to be themselves, nor will they be able to relate to, much less feel love from, anyone else. Sadly, newspapers and magazines are full of stories about highly successful people who "have everything going for them," but who suddenly contradicted their popular image in startling and tragic ways. One can imagine the anxiety and desperation of a person who has tirelessly worked to accomplish what they believed would make them feel good about themselves, only to discover that their feelings of emptiness remained and were more painful than ever.

[...] The Three-Eight-Seven group (the nurturing-figure-oriented types) are the personality types which defend themselves aggressively (Homey's "moving against" types). From developmental psychology, we know that the early bonding and mirroring experiences between the mother and child result in the development of the self-image, thus these are the ego-oriented types. They are then motivated to assert their egos into the environment and to find direct ways of gratifying their ego needs. Threes want attention, so they actively pursue those situations which will get them recognition. [...]

From The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

As children, Threes were not valued for themselves—as very few of us were. Instead, they were valued for being and doing certain things extremely well. They learned to get validation of their worth through achievement and performance. But it never really satisfied them because it was a validation not of them but of something they had done or something they tried to become.

Marie [a skilled therapist] continues:

As a child Ialways felt that Iwas mymother's favorite. We spent hours together, and she convinced me that there was nothing I couldn't do if I really wanted to do it.That was a blessing and a curse. I remember as a child convincing myself that I really didn't want to do something because underneath I knew it would be too difficult for me. And I knew that if Idid anything,I had to do it well and succeed. Once in high school, I stayed home pretending to be sick on the day of a speech competition because I was afraid of not doing so well, and I knew no other way out. I still have guilt feelings about that.

Threes have a very deep emotional bond with the person in the family who played the role of the nurturer. Usually the nurturer was the mother, but it may not have been. The child hoped this person would tell them, in effect, "You are wonderful! You are pleasing to me! You are welcomed into the world!" Because they want to continue to be validated by the nurturing figure, Threes as infants learn subconsciously to adapt themselves to do and be those things that will be pleasing to that person.

Often the expectations of the nurturing figure are not directly stated. Threes may internalize these subconscious expectations and live them out without realizing it. For example, if the mother is a teacher who really wanted to be an actress, theThree child would likely be drawn to the theater, not necessarily liking it but feeling it was something he or she had to do. Even as young adults, Threes maynot be at all sure why they are pursuing a certain career, only that they are doing what it takes to make their family (especially their mother) proud of them.

Threes thus learn to play the role of the Family Hero. The child gets the subtle message, "It is not okay to not be okay." The reason for this is that on a deep psychological level, if you are trying to redeem the wounds and the shame of your family, you cannot be hurt or shamed yourself. You have to at least seem to have it all together.

Now an outstanding therapist who has a firm grip on his need for attention, Albert reflects back on his early years as a budding show-off.

Since my dad was in India during World War II, for my first fourteen months, my mom and I lived with my grandparents and an aunt and uncle. I was the first and only child, grandchild, and nephew! I got tremendous attention, doting, and reinforcement, especially for intelligence and achievement.At eighteen months, I was supposed to have had a tremendous vocabulary, and by three years old, I knew all the states and capitals. It's amazing that no one ever pushed me down the stairs for what must have been my really obnoxious vocabulary and geography recitals!

Threes who grow up in highly dysfunctional environments are left to struggle with enormous pent-up rage and hostility because almost nothing they do is enough to please their unhealthy nurturing figure. They can turn themselves inside out like pretzels, trying to come up with something that will win them approval and acceptance, but usually nothing works. Eventually, they split (dissociate) from themselves—burying their genuine desires and inner life—and do more extreme things to get attention. The final result can be a life of deep loneliness and frustration, even if they have achieved some kind of worldly success.

Enneagram Four

For an enneagram 4, their wounding message is “It’s not ok to be too much or not enough.”

There are other variations of this message such as “It’s not ok to not fit in” or “It’s not ok to be so emotional.”

Once you realize this wounding message, it’s easy to see how that has ingrained the type 4’s core desire and core fear.

For a 4 that core desire is to be authentic/uniquely themselves/have their own unique identity (aka who they truly are) and the core fear is being inauthentic/not truly themselves/having not identity (fear having to blend in when that’s not who they are).

What type 4’s long to hear is “You are seen and loved for who you are.”

Hearing this and understanding this allows the 4 to have a weight lifted off of them.

These children felt abandoned by one or both caretakers. They felt alone, cut off from the source of love for reasons they couldn’t understand. They were not “seen” or mirrored, and felt different from their parents. As a result, they turned inward to their feelings and imagination to cope in isolation.

Fours as children felt abandoned by their caregivers. They felt isolated from the source of affection for reasons they couldn’t comprehend. They didn’t feel “seen” or heard, and they didn’t feel like their parents. As a response, to deal with abandonment, they retreated inward to their feelings and fantasies.

Fours desire to discover their identities because they believe it will relieve them of the feelings of sadness that have afflicted them their entire lives.

Many Fours fantasise about encountering someone who will fully accept them for who they truly are. They aspire to find that bond in a friend or romantic relationship because they felt so estranged from their family as children.

As children, Fours felt disconnected from both the parental figures in their lives. This could have been for extreme or mild reasons. Some Fours were abused by both their parents, while others just felt like their parents didn’t see them for who they really were. In many cases, Fours felt like their parent’s advice and comfort was very generic; as if it were meant for a child who was totally different than they were.

Because Fours felt so out of place in their own families, they tried early on to accept what made them different – to notice it and evaluate it. This was a coping mechanism that helped them deal with feelings of rejection and isolation. However, through developing this coping mechanism they often set themselves on a trajectory of feeling unusual, different, and out of touch with ordinary people. More than most things, Fours want to find their identity because they believe this will take away the feelings of melancholy and loneliness that have plagued them their whole lives.

To be passionate envious means, in some way, to be Eternal children with a demanding gaze directed towards the other. But since envy is a neurotic need, the goal it is to always maintain the state of waiting and lack.

Many Fours daydream about the possibility of meeting someone who will finally see them for who they really are. Because they felt so disconnected from their families growing up, they hope to find that connection in a friend or romantic partner. Unfortunately, many people fail to meet this idealized “other” that the Four hopes to find. However, with time and maturity, Fours learn to accept what ties them to other people rather than focusing on what makes them different. Through doing this, they are able to form longer-lasting bonds and friendships.

As a child, you most likely didn’t feel close to either parental figure in your household. This outcome could have been due to abuse from either parent or your sense that they just really didn’t “get you.” Being the individualist you are, you felt like they weren’t providing custom parenting to fit your needs. Because you felt like an outcast from your family, you learned to deal with the feeling of rejection early in life. You may have developed your longing for connection to a friend or partner to finally know you the way you wished your family had known you. Due to this, you have found much happiness in long-lasting friendships and relationships.

Affirmation: “The world will see me for who I am. I will create meaningful connections with those who understand me.”

Claudio Naranjo on E4

From Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo:

It is pertinent to quote here the famous Frieda GoldmanEisler24 study, showing a correlation between oral-aggressive tendencies and problematic breast feeding. This correlation has been usually understood as a confirmation of the idea that insufficient breast feeding lingers as adult pain, yet it is possible to think that it may also reflect the fact that a child constitutionally endowed with a greater oral aggressiveness, (i.e. a tendency to bite the nipple) displeases its mother, which may contribute to the interruption of breast feeding. Beyond what it literally proves, it may be viewed as paradigmatic of a more general relationship between childhood frustration and adult discontent. Indeed, later psychoanalysis has emphasized a frustration in maternal affection at a later stage, after the "rapprochement" stage of establishing an early bonding with her. This accounts for a "paradise lost" quality to the experience of type IV individuals. Unlike the apathetic type V individual, who does not know what he has missed, the type IV person remembers it very well at an emotional level-if not necessarily through reminiscences.

Occasionally an intense experience of abandonment was not matched by an obvious external fact, but has been subtle enough not to be perceived by others and may be forgotten until it is recovered in the course of psychotherapy. More than abandonment, we see in these cases events in which the child was disillusioned in regard to a parent, moments of discovery that the parent has never been there for him or her. As for instance in the following passage from an interview: "I wanted to be a tap dancer, I was seven, eight years old and that was the rage. And I can remember we had very little money. We had just come to New York and we had lost everything in the depression and my mother had saved up, and saved up, and saved up. And anyhow I was going to get this one day the dancing shoes, the tap dancing shoes and the leotard and my father was going to lower side New York, East side, to get an inexpensive one and I can remember all that day, I was just, Oh! talk about being on the heights of the world, the top of the world and that evening coming up the stairs, I remember my mother went toward the door and I was with her and the door opened and he had nothing with him. He had nothing with him. He did not have a package with him. And so mom, I mean this was all I was talking about for ages, and mom went to him and said well where is, you know where is Monica's shoes. And he looked at her and at that moment he didn't remember. I don't know if he didn't remember or what, but he said, 'Oh,' he said, 'I fell asleep and I left it on the subway.' And it was just awful. I think with that it was always like, you know, you're worthless."

The typical life history of type IV is painful, and it is often apparent that the causes for pain were unusually striking, so it is clear that painful memories are not only a consequence of claiming attitude or tendency to dramatize pain. Beyond the cases of rejection, I have encountered some instances where there was a loss of a parent or other family members. I have noticed how frequent the experience of being ridiculed or scorned by parents or siblings has been. Sometimes poverty contributed to the painful situation of all, and other times a cultural or national difference between the family of origin and its environment contributed to a generalized sense of shame.

In the following illustration various sources of pain converge: "I grew up on an ethnic street. My mom and dad were Slovak, and everybody on the street spoke Slovak, and we had our own little variety store, and the kids played together. So it was very strange for me to go to school, to an English School and then come home and be in an altogether different environment, in a different culture. And my sister-in-law who married my brother, she's English, and she says that she was told never to go down to Water Street, because that's where all "those kids" were, you know, that you don't associate with and always kind of had that sense when I was growing up that I was very different. What I'd like to comment on is the abandonment by mom, and that was in a couple, three other cases. When dad was in a rage, mother would back down. When some change was needed, like when we needed to move our home. Or to get him to find a job, she was the dominant one, but when he became very violent and abusive-and he was violent-then she would back down and would sort of stand in the background and say don't do it, but even not that, .... Once when there was a great deal of violence, I don't even remember her taking care of me afterwards. I didn't feel abandoned by my mother physically. She was there and I felt used by her to king of maybe fill her needs. My dad went off to war, and she would dress me up and pretty me up and carry me around, and I was the first child and the first girl and the first grandchild on my dad's side, and grandmother took care of me a lot when mom was busy later in the store after we moved from my grandmother's house, but my mom took me to her mother's house when I was two months old, we were already traveling on the train back and forth. And I've done a lot of traveling and movement back and forth all my life. Maybe I, has a connection with my inner movement, I'm always going, I don't know. The other thing I wanted to, well, the being used, used in all the roles—victim and scapegoat and every family member practically and then feeling used in my relationships after a time whenever I would go through feeling very pleasured and filled and fulfilled, there would come a point where all of a sudden I felt used. And I would just kind of like drop off and stop everything and a lot of fear in that too. I don't know why the feeling used and the fear would come in there together.

Besides ethnic background, the presence of alcoholism or other social disgraces may have inspired a feeling of not having a normal family and become a source of envy. A daughter of poor parents says, for instance: "I felt envy towards a girl who attended school in a uniform."

The experience of siblings is, of course, a common factor in that of early envy. Thus a young man says: "I was the fifth among seven, I was neither with the older ones nor with the little ones. I felt alone without a place."

Another man says: "I was a boy among four girls. My mother didn't touch me very much, so as to avoid making me 'soft', so that I wouldn't be like the girls, but at the same time there was a message of 'don't be like your father'. I strongly felt a lack of warmth and shame." Still another says: "I have been the eldest among my brothers and all went well until others appeared and then I entered in a dynamic of incessant competition with much complaining." Still another says: "I wept a lot, I felt the competition of my brother who studies much and was an athlete. I sought refuge in books and identified with those I read."

Particularly striking in the early history of ennea-type "IV women is the frequent occurrence of a more or less incestuous relationship with the father, or sexual abuse by another male relative.25For some this experience has not been problematic ("I miss the physical contact I used to have with my father."). For others it caused difficulty with the parent of the same sex. Still others remember it with disgust or guilt. The following situation is surely not unique: "I loved my father, he made me feel a happy woman, but he ridiculed me and rejected me later."

Most ennea-type IV individuals answer "yes" to the question whether did they receive more attention and care through suffering and needing. "Pleasure was forbiddenll says one, "a reasonable cause was the' best incentive." Another observes: "They didn't pay any attention if my whipping was unfounded," another pointed out that she has always played the victim to get attention, but she usually did not succeed and was rejected instead.

It is clear that occasionally a type IV child was not conscious of suffering until puberty or suffered secretly. So one answered to the question above "yes and no-no because it was a silent suffering and few people saw it; yes because my body and my face expressed it and that attracted attention." Of course it is not uncommon for the parents to react differently to the child's need: "My mother had compassion and received suffering well, even though not always she paid attention to me when I wept. My brother ridiculed crying." Occasionally it is possible to discern an element of seduction in being sick, in that the mother liked the role of nurse: "My mother liked to take care of me when I was sick, and in that way she dominated me."

It is quite common for "self-defeating" women to have had a mother of the same character along with a weak father. Also I have noticed more sadistic fathers (ennea-type VIII) in the histories of type IV's than any other except for type VIII itself. In such instances, of course, the sado-masochistic relation with the parent of the opposite sex contributed to the crystallization of the overall personality style.

On the whole we may say that the suffering individual inwardly cultivates his pain, as those beggars in Oriental countries who cultivate their wounds. While type I seeks to be good and claims his due in the name of justice, type IV only claims in the name of pain and unfulfilled need. If the pursuit of love in type I becomes a pursuit of respect, in the self-defeating type it becomes to some extent an implicitly dependent pursuit of care and empathy.

From 27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram by Claudio Naranjo:

It is quite common that in the childhood life of an E4 there has been a real experience of frustration and loss: event Typical coughs could be the loss of a parent, the presence of sibling perceived as privileged (or who occupied an important position due to the need for spice cures les), or a family situation in which the E4 has felt that should step aside and renounce a paradise that had already been bore.

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E4

From From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation by Eli Jaxon-Bear:

The childhood of the Four is the story of the lost garden. While self-preservation Fours often feel the loss of connection and begin their suffering in the womb, most Fours report a period of infant or childhood bliss. As children they basked in the garden of love, feeling cared for and loved. They saw Daddy as the sun that shone and nourished them. But at some point they were expelled.

The classic story is of a little girl who’s crazy about her daddy, and he’s crazy about her. They play, they hug, and they are very affectionate. Then, at some point, the father becomes aware of his feelings of sexuality toward his daughter and is frightened. One day she hops in his lap and he says, “No, get down.” As far as she is concerned, something is wrong, and it is her fault that she has been expelled.

The Four feels fatally scarred by this pulling away, this loss of love. It means, “There is something wrong with me.” In both male and female Fours, the fixation seems to revolve around loss of love from the father. Some self-preservation Fours have described womb experiences in which they knew they were not wanted by either parent. They already felt unloved and took it

personally. A female Four describes her experience of feeling this loss of love from her father, and taking it personally throughout her life:

Ever since I can remember I have felt that there was something wrong with me. When I was young, I felt that I was Daddy’s little girl until maybe age four or five. Around this time, he started drinking. Since then, there has been a sense of emotional abandonment throughout my life.

It really shows up in relationships with men. When I am living alone I feel more strong, more centered, more together. But as soon as I get into relationship with a man, I go right to sleep, the veil comes down, and suddenly I feel worthless and unlovable and needy.

While frequently there is also a lack of maternal nurturing, Fours most often fixate on the loss of the father. The exception to this is when the mother is perceived as the dominant partner. In order to regain the garden, Fours have to be so unique that the rules don’t apply. As soon as they reach late puberty, they usually act out the worst behavior and relationships their parents could imagine. They often start sexual relationships extremely early, and will date interracially if that is the family phobia.

If the Four’s parent is a crusader against drugs, there is a good chance the Four will experiment with drugs and flaunt it. It is not rebellion, however. This point never crosses to the nonconformist side of the Enneagram, even though initially Fours may appear to be the most nonconformist of people. They will dress outrageously, do and say outrageous things, but it is all within the context of being part of the family. They are actually addicted to their parents and for a long time they will try to prove, “I am so special that I deserve admittance back to the garden.”

The sense of loss of the garden creates a longing. The loss gets re-created over and over again as Fours fall in love, create emotional blowups, and leave. Then they long for the next relationship or regret what they have ruined. Either way, relationships are longed for and then destroyed, endlessly. Fours often feel they have to blow up the relationship before it gets too deep and the lover discovers the scar, the tragic flaw, and leaves. In childhood they fear and create issues of abandonment, issues that persist throughout their lives.

Sandra Maitri on E4

From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri:

Like a boat loosed from its moorings, the inner experience of a Four is of being a separate someone who is cut off from Being and set adrift. There is a poignant inner sense of disconnection and estrangement from others but, more important, from the depths within. This loss of contact with Being is experienced by a Four as having been abandoned, as though Being has withdrawn or withheld Itself. Initially this is experienced as though her mother or family has pulled away from her, but at root is loss of contact with Being. What is left is a sense of lack and of lostness, which feels as though the very substance of herself were missing. There is a great longing to reconnect, to become anchored again in the connection that has been lost.

This sense of abandonment and of longing to reestablish the link with Being, however unconscious, is central to the psychology of a Four. It is so central that a Four’s whole sense of self is constructed around it, to the point that longing becomes more important than getting, and people or situations that offer constancy and relatedness are often unconsciously undermined and rejected by Fours. Fours unconsciously cling to the experience of themselves as forsaken, perpetuating this deep inner sense.

Since one of the propensities of human psychology is to experience the mothering person of infancy as the embodiment of Being, the inevitable disruptions of contact with her become synonymous to a Four with disconnection from that source, Being. Filtered through the Four’s sensitivity to Holy Origin, mother, who is the source of nourishment and survival to an infant, is experienced as detached, disengaged, or absent altogether. There may indeed have been actual abandonment, neglect, desertion, not having been properly cared for, and subtle or overt rejection by mother. Such experiences are not limited to Fours, of course, but because of their sensitivity to being cut off from the Source, such experiences become focal and lead to their predisposition to view others as inevitably abandoning.

The main inner mood of Fours is a sad and heavy sense of lack, a feeling of being cast away, and an inconsolable and insatiable longing, as though they are in perpetual mourning for the connection that has been lost. Hence Ichazo gave this type the name Ego-Melancholy. This sense of lack may be experienced as a feeling of scarcity, a sense of deprivation, of meagerness, of an inner poverty or destitution, of a crying inner neediness. A Four may not know or be able to put her finger on exactly what it is that she lacks, but she is convinced that something is definitely missing. At the core is a profound despair that she will ever be reconnected or included in God’s love. She will always be on the outside and will never know how to get in. Everyone else has the secret, but it has been denied to her. Her grief about this lostness is dangerous to feel: it might throw her into the despair or make her feel ordinary. We will return to the latter momentarily. So, on the Enneagram of Avoidances, despair (lost)/simple sadness appears at Point Four.

[...] Longing connects them with the lost Beloved of childhood—Being filtered through mother. In the deep recesses of the soul, to let go of longing would mean letting go of this Beloved, and this would mean being truly lost, adrift, and without hope of redemption. So the addiction to desiring and yearning for what is just beyond her grasp keeps the Four in contact with this Beloved. It also makes Fours incurable romantics, raising them above ordinary life through the idealism and nobility of their quest—at least in their own psyches. They thus remain loyal to the lost Beloved and in this convoluted way attempt to stay connected with Being.

[...] To quote Greenberg and Mitchell, Klein “suggests that early, primitive envy represents a particularly malignant and disastrous form of innate aggression. All other forms of hatred in the child are directed - toward the bad objects.... Envy, by contrast, is hatred directed toward good objects. The child experiences the goodness and nurturance which the mother provides but feels it to be insufficient and resents the mother’s control over it. The breast releases the milk in limited amounts and then goes away. In the child’s phantasy, Klein suggests, the breast is felt to be hoarding the milk for its own purposes.... As a consequence of envy the infant destroys the good objects, splitting is undone, and there is a subsequent increase in persecutory anxiety and terror. Envy destroys the possibility for hope.”3 We will return to the subject of hope and hopelessness later, as it is particularly relevant to understanding the psychology of Fours. Missing in Klein’s understanding of infant envy is the interpersonal element—that the child, whose identity is still merged with her mother, is responding as the Four experiences her mother—as hateful and vindictive. A Four’s experience of her childhood is often that her mother would not let her shine or occupy a place of central importance, and was competitive and envious of her.

Helen Palmer on E4

From The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer:

The underlying theme is childhood loss. Fours describe many variations of being abandoned by someone important in early life. They often describe a literal abandonment, the most common example of which is a divorce, in which a beloved parent went away. Another theme is having been born into a grieving family, in which the child was valued for identifying with a close adult’s misery. The following statement was given by a talented dancer who has spent most of her adult life without relationship, entirely dedicated to her art.

I was an incubator baby, and so frail that my parents were told that I would not be likely to survive. I think that they withdrew from me to protect their own feelings, so that although I was not literally abandoned, that image feels correct for me. Then when I was a baby, my father began to die. I always think of myself as a person with a casket in the front room and scented flowers in the house. There’s an attraction that I have to people who are around crisis and death, because they are far more in touch with their deep self and willing to be honest in some soul way.

Another childhood situation is described by Fours who felt abandoned because a parent came and went, or was alternately cruel and kind. The child became attached to the promise of affection and love and became angry when it was taken away.

When I was born my father took my mother on a trip around the world in celebration of my successful birth and left me behind with a nanny. I adored him and did everything I could to please him. He was dashing, popular, and unavailable, except when Mother was also there. He would go away on long trips, and before he’d return, I’d be frantic about getting him to stay. It would feel like this would be my only chance to hold him. He would bring presents and tell stories, and then he’d be gone again or, worse yet, he would be gone with her, and there I would be left again, getting ready for the next time around.

There are several theories of depression that are anchored in the idea that childhood anger was turned inward against the self. Romantics commonly describe early feelings of loss that have resulted in recurring depression during their adult life.

This statement was given by a man who traveled around the world for ten years in search of the perfect companion. At different points in his journey he idealized radically different types of women, both for their physical appeal and for certain qualities of being that he attributed to the culture in which he found himself. Predictably, as he would begin to fall in love with one of his women, he would also begin to miss the special qualities of the rest. At the time that he gave this statement he had made millions of dollars as an importer and was totally preoccupied with his continuing search for a wife.

I asked my mother if she breast-fed me, and she said, yes, she did for a while. My guess is that I had satisfaction as a baby, and then one day it was missing; which is, incidentally, the same way that I feel treated by her: she’s there for me and then she’s not. That’s become like a life stance: “I was happy once, where did it go?” For my whole life I’ve been in search of it—where did it go?

Yet when people ask what I’m missing in life, and what it is I think I’m seeking, it doesn’t place itself as seeking “that thing, or that person, or that money.” I’m searching for it, that feeling of connection with something wonderful that is always hidden and always out of reach.

Beatrice Chestnut on E4

From The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut:

Most Fours report having suffered some sort of actual or perceived loss of love early in life. Things usually started out well, but at some specific point in time the Four child experienced some sort of abandonment or deprivation, and to make sense of this loss—and to achieve some sense of control in light of it—the young Four unconsciously became convinced that they somehow caused it. While this is almost never true in reality, it gives the Four child a feeling that they can do something to regain what was lost through their own efforts, even while their mistaken sense that something about them caused the rejection persists as a inner sense of unredeemable deficiency.

To cope with the pain of this loss, Fours adopt a strategy of focusing on and longing for that which was lost, and at the same time making themselves “bad” as a way of explaining and controlling it. They dream of finding an idealized, special love connection that will make up for or reverse their loss. But because they can’t help feeling hopeless about ever regaining what they lost—both as a natural response to feeling deprived and a defense against being disappointed again—they often get stuck in feelings of grief, melancholy, and shame, which makes it difficult or impossible for them to really open up to receiving the love they long for.

The memory of something valuable that was lost also causes Fours to dwell on the past and continue to mourn what they once had. As Naranjo explains, “unlike other people who forget and resign themselves, [Type Fours] harbor a keen sense of ‘lost paradise.’” Fours thus end up seeing themselves as “not good enough” to be loved as a way of defending against opening up to the possibility of love, because allowing themselves to hope for love leaves them vulnerable to the worst kind of pain: the re-experience of that early loss, and the confirmation of their worthlessness that goes with it. They dwell in painful feelings of hopelessness and melancholy to protect themselves from the sadness and shame that comes from believing they are essentially unlovable and so will never get the love they need and want.

At the same time, Fours can’t help yearning for an ideal or special kind of love and recognition that will prove they are worthy after all. Looking for an idealized love connection that will redeem their inner sense of lack quells the sense of shame they may feel as a result of the sense that their inadequacy somehow caused their initial experience of loss. But even while they fantasize about being loved as a way to soothe themselves, they thwart their attempts to receive love in the real world because they are so convinced that they aren’t worthy of actually being loved. They tend to pursue unattainable people and engage in “push-pull” patterns in relationships: they idealize and move toward the perfect partner in fantasy, but reject the possibility of connection in actuality when they perceive the reality of it as too mundane or flawed.

Overidentification with feelings of hopelessness and melancholy, together with the search for confirmation that they are special or superior, distracts Fours from the real way out of their particular defensive trap: actively taking the risk of hoping for real love and opening up to receive it. While they long for the love and acceptance they need, Fours habitually prevent themselves from realizing their quest for love because their false self (personality) firmly believes they can’t get what they are looking for.

All of the Enneagram personality types put up defensive obstacles to attaining what they need out of a fear of repeating the experience of the early pain of not getting it. Fours do this by harboring negative beliefs about themselves and over-identifying with feelings related to loss or abandonment, closing themselves off from the possibility of finding satisfying and nurturing relationships. Allowing for the possibility of being loved for who they are feels like a dangerous setup for further loss and further shame-inducing experiences.

For non-Fours, the Four coping strategy can seem counterintuitive, as it rests on feeling bad about yourself as a way to avoid feeling worse about yourself. As Naranjo points out, this is a strategy of “seeking happiness through pain.” By hiding out in suffering, by having a need to suffer, Fours distract themselves from the inner work they would need to do to open up to receiving what they really want—what they incorrectly, but defensively, believe they can’t have.

Grace, a Type Four, describes her childhood situation and the development of her coping strategy:

My first critical loss of safety and holding occurred in my early infancy. At ten days old, while being fed, I aspirated, turned blue, and almost died. I was rushed to the hospital and spent the night in the ICU.

The fifth child of seven, I was two and a half when the twins were born. Up until then, I had enjoyed a lot of love and attention as the first girl after four boys. I have a picture of my mother sitting on the edge of the bed with two infants in her arms while I stand nearby with my face contorted, desperately looking up at her, confused and heartbroken. She’s turned away from me, offering a strained smile for the camera.

With two infants to tend to, my mother was too busy for me; my day in the sun was over. I was no longer the object of her love and adoration. With six siblings vying for attention, and both my parents overwhelmed and distracted, I learned early on to suppress my sensitivity and needs. On the outside I was independent and assertive. On the inside I was painfully insecure and felt a lot of shame. I had to develop a thick skin and use my anxiety and anger to be heard amongst the chaos and to protect my tender heart.

Riso-Hudson on E4

From Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

Fours are disconnected from both parents. As children, they did not identify with either their mothers or their fathers. ("I am not like my mother; I am not like my father.") They may have had either unhappy or solitary childhoods as a result of their parents' marital problems, divorce, illness, or simply because of personality conflicts within the family. In some cases, Fours may have had relatively "normal," uneventful childhoods. Nonetheless, even with a supportive environment, they did not see themselves reflected in either parent: they felt that their parents did not see them as they actually were or that what their parents conveyed to them was somehow irrelevant. The advice and reactions they got seemed to them to apply to a generic child, not to themselves. Lacking definitive role models, Fours as children turned inward to their feelings and imaginations as the primary sources of information about themselves from which they could construct their identities.

From childhood, Fours felt essentially alone in life. It seemed to them that, for reasons they could not understand, their parents had rejected them, or at least that their parents did not take much interest in them. Fours therefore felt that there must be something deeply wrong with them, that they were somehow defective because their parents did not give them the kind of nurturing attention which, as children, they needed. As a result, they turned to themselves to discover who they are.

Self-knowledge became their most important goal, the means by which they hoped to find some self-esteem. Fours felt that if they could discover who they are, they would not feel so different from others in the deep, essential way that they do. However, instead of creating themselves through introspection, Fours ironically become trapped in self-consciousness. Their self-consciousness alienates them, making them feel vulnerable, and arouses their aggressions at themselves and others, particularly their parents. But because they also feel powerless to express their aggressions or to do anything about their condition, they withdraw from their parents and from others, turning their aggressions mostly against themselves.

Because the formative relationship with their parents was primarily one of disconnection, Fours also begin to develop a sense of ego identity based on their difference from others. There were few qualities in their parents that they identified with, so Fours began to inventory all of the ways in which they were unlike the people around them. Eventually, this sense of difference becomes a strongly developed and defended part of their self-image, and many Fours have difficulty seeing the many ways in which they are like everyone else. To be "ordinary" becomes a frightening prospect, since a sense of "being unique" feels like one of the only stable building blocks of their identity. Ironically, although Fours cling to their "differentness," they also envy and resent people who seem to enjoy a more normal existence.

Their disconnection from their parents also produces a longing for the "good parent"—the person who will see them as they truly are and validate the self they are trying to construct. Fours usually experience this as a longing for an ideal mate or partner. They will often project this role onto new acquaintances, idealizing them and fantasizing about the wonderful life they will have together. Unfortunately, as Fours get to know the person better, they become disenchanted, realizing that the other is not the perfect parent who will rescue them from all their problems. Fours see very quickly that the person is just an ordinary human being: the other's "blemishes" soon become the focus of the Four's attention, and they lose interest in the person. Before long they are back to their search and fantasies again, but generally with more desperation to find the person "of their dreams."

[...] Last, the Nine-Five-Four group (the types oriented to both figures) are the personality types which defend themselves by withdrawing (Homey's "moving away" types). They are the loners, intellectuals, and dreamers of society. Because their childhoods produced an orientation to both parents, they have problems interacting with others, since they tend to be overwhelmed by forces either inside or outside themselves. All three types tend to dissociate themselves from reality in different ways, constructing elaborate "inner realities" which they use as a defense against their actual environment. In Freudian terms, they have problems expressing and sustaining their own immediate id impulses, especially those involving self-assertion and aggression.

From The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

Fours feel that they are not like their parents. Many Fours report fantasizing that they were mistakenly switched at the hospital, or that they are orphans or some kind of changeling. They often express this as feeling that they have not been "seen" by their parents, that they did not connect sufficiently with their parents or their parents with them. In psychological terms, Fours feel that they have not had adequate mirroring, or at least the mirroring of actual qualities and talents that they can make part of their developing identity. (In family systems theory, Fours tend to identify with the Lost Child role.)

The result is that Fours believe that something must be profoundly wrong with them, launching them on a lifelong "search for self." They feel "If I am not like my parents and I cannot see myself in them, then who am I?" This also predisposes Fours to focus on what they lack—on what is missing in themselves, their lives, and their relationships. They feel abandoned and misunderstood by their parents and, later, by other significant people.

Hannah works as an administrator in a university. She is a well loved wife and mother but still suffers periodically from her type's feelings of alienation.

I learned very early on not to depend on my mother, to play by myself and seek my own solutions. Myfather, ambivalent about having children in the first place, began traveling a lot when Iwas in grade school, so I experienced more abandonment.

As a result of this pattern, Fours respond powerfully to people who trigger their desire for mirroring, for being seen and appreciated for who they are. On the most profound level, Fours are always looking for the mother and father they feel they did not have. They may idealize these others as "saviors" who will rescue them from their plight. But just as easily, Fours can become disappointed and enraged with others for letting them down or for not adequately seeing their personal struggles and suffering. The other is seen as the source of love, goodness, and beauty—qualities that Fours usually believe they lack—setting the stage both for expectations of being completed by the other and for terrifying fears of abandonment. People who do not fit into one of these scenarios tend to be of little interest to average Fours; it is as if those who do not produce strong emotional responses in them are somehow less real.

Because they have doubts about their identity, they tend to play "hide and seek" with others—hiding from people, but hoping that their absence will be noticed. Fours attempt to remain mysterious and intriguing enough to attract someone who will notice them and redeem them with their love. But self-concealment and self-revelation alternate and can be expressed with such extremes of intensity and need that Fours inadvertently drive the longed-for rescuer away. Until they can recognize.this pattern and see the unrealistic expectations they put on their intimates, Fours run the risk of alienating others with their emotional demands.

Head Triad: E5, E6, E7

Write a summary and main point of head childhoods about fear and love deprivation and not fitting in and so on.

Will do later.

Enneagram Five

For an enneagram 5, their wounding message is “It’s not ok to be comfortable in the world.”

There are other variations of this message such as “You don’t have enough energy/skills to make it here” or “It’s not ok to let your guard down because you won’t be able to handle things competently.”

Once you realize this wounding message, it’s easy to see how that has ingrained the type 5’s core desire and core fear.

For a 5 that core desire is to be competent/capable/knowledgable (finding a way to be comfortable in the world) and the core fear is being incompetent/incapable (fearing their needs being a problem for others).

What type 5’s long to hear is “Your needs are not a problem.”

Hearing this and understanding this allows the 5 to have a weight lifted off of them.

These children received no meaningful interaction, emotion, or affection from caretakers. Or, the child had intrusive, over-controlling parent(s) and felt exposed and defenseless in the face of this intrusion. As a result, they built walls around themselves and retreated to the mental realm.

In childhood, Fives felt ambivalent towards both their parental figures. They were never quite sure what their place was and where they belonged. Essentially, they felt like “odd ducks,” forever on the outside looking in rather than nurtured and accepted as one of the group. Sometimes there were obvious reasons for this: Parents may have been alcoholic, abusive, or played favorites. In other situations, it could have been that they just didn’t feel understood, or they picked up on clues that made them feel a particular way even if their parents didn’t intend for it to be so. But whatever the case, Fives felt like little they could do was wanted or needed by their family.

To cope with this feeling of “otherness,” Fives retreated from the outside world and from their families. They often hid away in their rooms, looking for a subject they could master or an area of expertise that would allow them to find their place in their families or in society. This area of expertise needed to be something unique to themselves. If all their siblings were learning to play the piano, for example, then they would learn to play the accordion.

There is sort of an unspoken message from Fives that says, “Don’t ask too much of me, and I won’t ask too much of you.” They resent intrusions and demands on their time. Close physical affection can feel overwhelming and bothersome to them. They feel that they need as much time as possible to themselves to devote to mastering their subjects of interest. They learn to distance themselves from their emotions and identify themselves as their thoughts. They may believe their thoughts to be good, while the outside world is bad. At average to unhealthy levels, they believe if they can avoid expectations from others they will be happier.

Unique in your approach towards the world, you feel on the outside of most things. As a child, you felt unsure about your parental figures and felt the gravity of the disconnect between you. You locked away your true self and found security in knowledge and a world without emotion. You can feel overwhelmed by physical touch and displays of affection, making it more difficult for your parents to satisfy those nurturing needs. You may have developed the coping mechanism of distancing yourself from your emotions and connecting yourself to your thoughts.

Affirmation: “My thoughts and ideas matter. But it is also important for me to feel my emotions and connect with my body.”

Claudio Naranjo on E5

From Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo:

What is most striking in regard to the form of love deprivation in the story of ennea-type V is early onset, so that the child never had an occasion to establish a deep bond with its mother. Unlike ennea-type IV whose emotional reaction is that of mourning a loss, ennea-type V feels an emptiness and does not know what he is missing. The syndrome of hospitalism described by Spitz—in which children provided with nourishment but not with maternal care may languish to the point of death—seems emblematic of what happens more subtly in the aloof adult who suffers from apathy and a depression without sadness.

The situation of mother deprivation (literal or psychological) may be complicated by a lack of alternative relationships when the child is the only one in the family and the father is either distant or the mother jealously interferes with the child’s relationship to him. Unrelatedness to others in such instances stems from the lack of a deep relationship experience at home.

Another element often encountered in the childhood of ennea-type V is that of a “devouring,” invasive, or excessively manipulative mother. Before such a mother the child protects his inner life by withdrawing and learns to be secretive.

These and other experiences contribute in the story of the ennea-type V individual to a sense that it is better to go it alone in life, that people are not loving or that it is “bad business” to relate to others for what love they offer is manipulative and entails the expectation of receiving too much in exchange. Thus life is organized around not needing others and saving one’s resources.

As is well known in connection with schizophrenia research, schizoid persons often have a schizoid parent. I know somebody in whom both parents were schizoid: “They formed a couple that was like a capsule, a world apart.” She says, “I lacked nothing but I never knew what was happening at home. When I was little my mother jokingly answered when I called her, after not responding for a while: ‘I?, I am not your mother!’ ”

No less common, however, is the antecedent of a type VI parent. A young man with an ennea-type VI father and an ennea-type IV mother reports: “I felt a little caged in, the best was outside, my greatest interest has been to run away, to be far from my parents. I had a difficult time with my parents because they constrained me too much, and my solution was to escape inwardly. Even when I was able to move away outwardly I continued to do so.

“If I had learned to disappear or not be there or the idea of abandonment, I sometimes wonder if it started when the doctor abandoned me when I was to be born. The nurses said, he just left for lunch and they tied my mother’s legs together. Another abandonment, maybe I learned from was, as a baby in the crib, my parents left the phone off the hook and they worked in a restaurant and they said, ‘We listened sometimes to see if you were crying or not and then we’d come’.”

As in the case of ennea-type VIII, ennea-type V seems to have given up in the search for love. To the extent that his dependency needs are only under control, however, he longs for a love that is expressed through the willingness to leave him alone, without demands, deception, or manipulation. The vehemence of the ideal militates—as in other instances—against its earthly realization.

From 27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram by Claudio Naranjo:

E5 describes his childhood as a place and a time of sleep. ledad that goes beyond the events; relationships have They always have a formal and affectively aseptic style. The mother, while invasive and controlling, maintains a dis emotional importance. It does not facilitate the expression of feelings, no She is empathetic and does not participate in the child's world. Care may not be lacking, but it is not transmitted through intimate contact, including physical contact.

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E5

From From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation by Eli Jaxon-Bear:

Fives most always had an intrusive parent. Often it was an overprotective mother. They frequently report that their mother went through their drawers looking for clues about how “her baby” was doing. Fives often report a sense of being smothered by mother’s love, or feeling suffocated by a lack of space.

One Five reported that when he was about seven years old, he had a fold-out of a Playboy bunny. He folded it into a tiny square, only inches across, hid this in a box, and hid the box in a secret place in his bedroom. When he returned from school, it was laid out on the bed awaiting his return.

With no place to hide, young Fives often retreat into their minds. One Five reported spending all her free time alone up in a tree. They retreat into books and scholarship as a way of creating free space.

Sandra Maitri on E5

From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri:

Simultaneous with the loss of contact with her depths, a Five also loses these perspectives on reality. So not only does she lose her sense of connection with Being but she also loses a sense of interconnectedness with others and with the rest of reality. As she inevitably identifies with her body in infancy, its boundaries become determinate to her, bounding and disconnecting her. She develops the conviction that she is separate from - everyone and everything else, although obviously at this early age this conviction is only a dimly felt sense that only later becomes conceptual. Separateness as fundamental replaces interconnectedness, and as a result, she grows up without a sense of true place or function in human society and, beyond that, in the universe.

This sense of being fundamentally separate is common to all ego structures, no matter which type. It is one of the deepest beliefs of the personality and hence to the majority of humanity, and for most of us it feels like an indisputable sense of how things actually are. It is only when we have experiences that move us past the boundaries of our egoic consciousness that we experience ourselves as one with and part of all of existence.

Sealed off from others, contained within the limits of her body, the Five experiences a profound sense of isolation. She grows up feeling estranged from others, living in her own little bubble, and rarely feeling fully part of her family or community. Filtered through the loss of the sense of connectedness signified by Holy Omniscience and Holy Transparency, her experience of her primary relationship to another—her mother—is of not being fully bonded with her. A Five’s memory of their early relationship is often tinged with the sense of not being fully related to, deeply loved, wanted, or fully nourished, a sense of having futilely sucked at a dry tit. A sense of deprivation, of contact or sustenance having been withheld, is left indelibly in her soul. Seemingly paradoxically, she also often has the sense of her mother being invasive, intrusive, manipulative, engulfing, and devouring, not respecting her boundaries or her space. While this may sound like the opposite of a withholding mother, the common thread is the experience of mother not relating to, connecting with, and being attuned to her reality. Rather, mother seems wrapped up in herself and so not really perceiving the Five or meeting her needs.

She ends up feeling unseen, unappreciated, and not understood, and this becomes part of her ongoing sense of self. So rather than experiencing herself as someone whose needs are apparent and whose inner process is penetrable by another’s understanding as in Holy Transparency, she feels invisible. Not only do her needs and desires feel to her unseen by others but her inner world also feels to her ungraspable by them. Her inner workings do not seem to her like something others would understand, empathize with, and have compassion for. She experiences herself as different, not like other people, lacking shared human commonalities. The gulf between herself and others feels unbridgeable, and her boundaries feel impenetrable.

This sense of invisibility and isolation is both her suffering and her attempt to defend against it. In response to her mother’s distance from her and mother’s unattuned intrusions, she withdraws from her mother in order not to experience the devastating pain of feeling neglected. It is also an attempt to preserve herself, to seal off and hold on to a sense of self in the face of experiencing herself as unseen. This fear of loss of self arises because her not fully differentiated consciousness cannot distinguish clearly between mother and herself, and so if mother doesn’t see her, she begins to lose a sense of her own substantiality. The solution her soul arrives at, then, is to separate and isolate herself to survive. Her soul is frozen in the infant state beyond tears and rage when needs go unmet and quiet resignation and apathy take over. In her movement away, she mimics her experience of her mother’s remoteness from her, and by extension the remoteness of Being, and this withdrawal becomes her dominant strategy in life. Mother becomes all others and life itself, and she pulls back physically, emotionally, and energetically from all of the forms mother takes in her psyche.

Helen Palmer on E5

From The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer:

There are two family patterns that commonly make children want to withdraw. The first is described by those who felt so utterly abandoned that they accepted their fate, but learned to detach from feelings in order to survive. The second, and the more commonly reported childhood, is one in which the family was so psychically intrusive that the child closed down emotionally in order to get away.

The following statement was given by a man with a classic Five profile. He has made a great deal of money in an obscure business specialty in which he is the lone expert in the field, but he prefers to live in a rundown section of San Francisco, because the rent is cheap and the Chinese restaurant where he takes all his meals is half a block away.

What I remember is the silence and liking to be alone. It was like five people spinning on separate orbits in different rooms of the house. Not much talk and definitely no touching. Our parents had both been born deaf and, like all deaf people, they couldn’t modulate their voices. So you’d be in public with them, with this weird shouting, which drew a lot of glaring and made you try to disappear into a pea on your plate.

The main feeling was not wanting to be seen, so I got expert at blending into the potted palm, and distracting myself by fading into the pictures on the wall when I was out with them, trying the best I could to disappear from being there.

The second childhood prototype was given by a computer processor who likes to work at night, when there is no one in the office except occasionally cleaning people and more than a hundred silent machines.

I grew up living with seven people in three rooms. There was no way to be alone, unless you were outside or in the bathroom. So I invented my own place on a tree platform. I would go up there to space out, read, and spy down on everybody else.

I had to keep changing trees when my brothers found my spot. I was desperate to be alone, because it was the only time I could be by myself, instead of having to try to get away from people making me do what was good for them.

Then I started to grow up, and the terror was parties or anything to do with meeting people and dressing up. I just wouldn’t be there on time and have to get into small talk and say predictable things. The first thing I’d look for on the way in was the location of the exits, and I’d chart my flow pattern from the front door to get into position near one of them. The worst would be getting pinned into a conversation, particularly with someone who wanted to get something out of me.

Beatrice Chestnut on E5

From The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut:

Fives typically report that they had an early experience of being either neglected or engulfed by others at a time when they needed other people to survive. Caregivers were somehow not responsive to the Fives’ needs, and they learned that they could not achieve anything by force or seduction.11 Because there was nothing to do but to live in privation, they learned to hold onto their meager resources.

To cope and find protection in a world that hasn’t provided for their needs and to shield their young sense of self from external threats, Fives withdraw inside themselves. Finding other people either threatening or depriving, Fives essentially give up on receiving the sustenance provided by relationships and find satisfaction in knowledge and intellectual interests instead. Whereas some types cope by putting attention outward, seeking comfort through the approval or nurturing of others, Fives resolve to be self-sufficient and retreat from relationships as a way of saving themselves and protecting what little inner resources they believe they have.

To avoid needing other people and having to open up to dependent relationships, Fives minimize their needs and adopt an economical way of being. This leads to a tendency to withhold limited resources, and to a “greediness” or hoarding mentality when it comes to time, energy, information, and material supplies. They often pride themselves on having an ascetic or minimalistic way of life.

And to the extent that all coping strategies start with the need to adapt to some sort of deprivation or injury related to the need for love, Fives hold on to themselves and give up on relationships as a source of love and support.In this way, the Five coping strategy is based on a scarcity model—in the face of a lack of what they need, Fives unconsciously decide not to need very much from the outside and so turn inward, reduce their needs, and conserve their inner resources. This movement inward and toward independence as a solution to early deprivation (or intrusion) manifests as a sense of having a tight hold on one’s inner life as well as a focus on the economical use of effort, energy, and resources.

This defensive strategy naturally leads Fives to acquire habits through which they distance themselves from others. This strategy can make Fives seem aloof and uncaring, but they are much more sensitive on the inside than they appear. This coping strategy involves not only distancing themselves from relationships and the need for relationship, but also separating themselves from their own emotions, in part because feeling their emotions might move them to reach out to others. In this way, through their compulsive avoidance of life and of others, they remove themselves not only from the “interfering world,” but from themselves.

Thomas, a Social Five, describes his childhood situation and the development of his coping strategy:

From a very young age I preferred my own company to that of others. I often read books or entertained myself with fantasy games. Figuring out how things worked was more important to me than playing with my siblings or other kids. I actually found it fun to read encyclopedias and other books that provided large amounts of information about the world. Although I was regarded as a clever child by those around me, I found it much easier to be a loner. The handful of friends I had as a kid were usually the other “loners” with whom I shared common intellectual interests.

I remember being nine years old and playing “thinking games” with my best friends. We would analyze the people around us, classify them according to sets of colors, animals, celebrities, and general archetypes, and write questionnaires to test out our theories. We created a secret language for what we wrote so we could communicate with each other privately through layers of encoded messages.

I never liked talking about myself and learned that by asking questions and listening carefully I could deflect other people’s attention away from my own personal feelings and inner world. On one level, I felt inadequate, and on another, deeper level, there were precious layers of my identity that I needed to hold on to as much as possible. When my parents would take us shopping, I would always downplay my needs or choose the least expensive items out of a desire to avoid being a burden on them. I would hoard the sweets my mother would give to us in a big jar in my cupboard and not eat them.

Riso-Hudson on E5

From Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

As a result of their formative experiences, these children became ambivalent to both parents. Fives, like Twos and Eights, were in search of a niche within the family system, a role that they could fulfill that would win them protection and nurturance. For whatever reasons, though, they perceived that there was no place for them to fit in—that nothing they could do was wanted or needed by their family. As a result, Fives withdrew from active participation in the family to search for something that they could "bring to the table." Fives want to find something that they can do well enough to feel like an equal of others. Unlike other types, however, since Fives' underlying fear is of being helpless and incapable, they generally look for areas of expertise that others have not already explored. In a sense, their agenda is to focus on the search for and mastery of subjects and skills, until they feel confident enough to "reenter" the world.

In the meantime, Fives strike a kind of unstated bargain with their parents which carries over into all of their subsequent relationships: "Don't ask too much of me, and I won't ask too much of you." Fives feel that they need most of their limited time and energy to acquire the knowledge and skills that they believe will make them capable and competent. Thus, average Fives come to resent intrusions upon their space, their time, and certainly upon their persons. What to another type might feel like a comfortable distance can feel uncomfortable to an average Five. The reasons for this may relate to the Five's feeling of not having a place in the family. They may have felt crowded out or figuratively or literally intruded on by their parents and their agendas. Their parents may have nurtured them erratically, or may have been emotionally disturbed or alcoholic or caught in a loveless marriage, and therefore not dependable sources of love and reassurance. The result is that these children become ambivalent not only toward both parents, but ambivalent toward the world.

Fives attempt to resolve their ambivalence by not identifying with anything other than their thoughts. They feel that their thoughts are "good" (that is, correct, and can be safely identified with), while outside reality is "bad" (and must therefore be vigilantly watched), so that it can be repulsed at a moment's notice. In average to unhealthy Fives, the sense of being crowded may have resulted in their feeling unsafe in their bodies. They then become profoundly detached, indifferent to physical comfort, and extremely cerebral, as if the quality of their material existence was irrelevant to them. Fearful Fives are willing to jettison many comforts and even needs in order to protect the space and time they feel they need to pursue their interests—that is, those areas they are trying to master.

They continue to find their parents, the world, and other people fascinating and necessary, but Fives also feel that they must keep everything and everyone at a safe distance lest they be in clanger of being overwhelmed by some outside force. Thus, from the very way they think—their "cognitive style"—Fives set up a strict dualism between themselves and the world: they see everything as essentially split into two fundamental areas—the inner world and the outer world, subjects and objects, the known and the unknown, the dangerous and the safe, and so forth. This sharp split between themselves as subjects and the rest of the world as objects has tremendous ramifications throughout their entire lives.

From The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

Fives often report that as children, they did not feel safe in their families; they felt in danger of being overwhelmed by their parents, and so they started looking for a way that they could feel secure and confident. First, they retreated from the family into their own private space—mentally, physically, and emotionally. Second, they turned their attention away from their personal and emotional needs onto something "objective."

Young Fives typically spend long periods on their own; they are quiet children who shy away from playing with others, instead occupying their minds and imaginations with books, practicing a musical instrument or playing with a computer, collecting insects or plants, or playing with board games or chemistry sets. It is common to find young Fives who are exceptionally advanced in some areas (such as spelling or mathematics) but who are unwilling to even try other basic activities (such as riding a bike or going fishing). Others in the family, especially anxious parents who want their Five child to be more "normal," will typically try to pressure them into joining in social activities. These efforts usually meet with intense resistance.

Although brilliant, Michael was isolated as a child and in many ways penalized for his intellectual gifts, even by his own parents.

As a child I had allergies and many respiratory infections that kept me home from school a lot before age eight.As a result, I had a lot of time to sit around and read and spent less time playing with other kids. My coordination was not good, and I didn't want to do what most of the others wanted to do anyway. So I became known as the nerdy bookworm with a runny nose.

While Fives' imaginations can be a source of creativity and self-esteem, living there almost exclusively fuels their anxieties about themselves and the world. It is not simply that young Fives see the world around them with startling clarity, they also elaborate on it in their minds—a faculty that will have profound repercussions later on, for better or worse.

Mason, an architect and community planner, recalls the difficult events that eventually led to his retreat into the mind.

I was the youngest child of five children with a blind father and a loving mother who was too busy providing for her kids and husband to spend any time with me. I had a jealous older sister who continually told me that I was a mistake, that nobody wanted or loved me, and that I should just die or go away. I lived my life as though that was true and had ambivalent relationships with my parents and siblings. I just hunkered down and created my own world of reality and fantasized myself as the leader in my own made-up world.

Thus, Fives do not expect anything from others, except to be left alone to pursue their own interests unimpeded by anyone else's demands or needs, especially their emotional needs. It is as if they were saying, "I won't ask much from you if you don't ask much from me." Independence—or perhaps more accurately, nonintrusion—is therefore sought by Fives as a way of attaining safety and the feeling that they have control of their lives.

Not being intruded on also allows Fives the time to develop something "to bring to the table" when they eventually do feel ready to connect with others. For example, they may learn the piano principally because they enjoy it and it gives them time alone; it also bolsters their self-esteem and provides a niche for them in the family. Music is a potential bridge to others, but it is also a way of disappearing: rather than talk with anyone, they can play the piano for them.

Fives are psychologically stuck in the separation phase of childhood—the period around two to three-and-a-half years old—when children are learning to operate independently of their mothers. For whatever reasons, young Fives felt that the only way to become independent was to make themselves not want nurturing and emotional connection with their mothers. Thus, at an early age, Fives learned to cut off from painful feelings of need and longing by staying in their minds.

Lloyd speculates on what caused his sense of detachment.

I have felt disconnected from my mother since before I can remember. Her heart was broken at least twice before I was born: she married a man who was unable to consummate their relationship and blamed this on her appearance or lack of appeal; it later turned out that he was gay and trying to "act straight." After she married my father (who was very safe, trustworthy, and unadventurous), they had a son who died three days after birth. Two years and two miscarriages later, I was born. I think my mother was unable to fully give her heart to me after all that.

Learning to cut themselves off from nurturance—even from desiring it—becomes a way of defending themselves against further hurts and frustrations. This becomes significant for adult Fives and explains their reluctance to become more emotionally engaged with others. To leave the safety of their minds, to reoccupy the body and feelings, is to reexperience the primal frustration and anguish of their infant selves. Such feelings completely overwhelm a Five's capacity to focus their mind—their basis of self-confidence—and are therefore powerfully defended against. Even to want something ordinary too much could upset their inner security; thus adult Fives go through life avoiding the things they most want, repressing their longing and finding substitute pleasures in their interests, hobbies, and creativity.

Enneagram Six

For an enneagram 6, their wounding message is “It’s not ok to trust yourself.”

There are other variations of this message such as “You need to check in with others first” or “It’s not ok to rely on your gut.”

Special Note on 6’s:

6’s are unique in that there are two ways a 6 will act out their wounding message (and core fear).

They will either be a phobic 6 in which they depend on authorities and trusted advisors (I can’t trust myself so I will trust in others) or they will be counterphobic and not trust those in authority or advising roles (I can’t trust myself so maybe it’s not actually scary and I should just get over my fear) (counterphobic 6’s can look a bit like 8’s)

Once you realize this wounding message, it’s easy to see how that has ingrained the type 6’s core desire and core fear.

For a 6 that core desire is to be secure/supported (their world can be scary since they can’t trust themselves) and the core fear is being without support/without security (without others, they fear they won’t be safe).

What type 6’s long to hear is “You are safe and secure.”

Hearing this and understanding this allows the 6 to have a weight lifted off of them.

To the trusting nature. These children were raised in an unpredictable situation with no safe place to go. They lost faith they would ever be protected. As such, they turned to their own inner defense of doubting, disbelieving reality and rejecting their own instincts/inner guidance.

In childhood, Sixes felt connected to the protective figure in their home. However, this connection wasn’t always positive. They internalized their relationship with this figure and learned to depend on them for a sense of security or guidance rather than trusting their own inner voice. If the authority figure was unjust or malevolent in some way, then the Six would internalize their anger and direct it at themselves, becoming self-destructive. If the protective figure violated their trust, they would become distrustful and rebellious of all authorities. If the protective figure failed in any way, the Six child would internalize this failure and respond In kind. Usually, this results in the Six feeling ambivalent towards authority.

Sixes crave the security of authority and the assurance of a support network, but they also distrust and doubt authorities and others (including themselves).

The Six abandons their own inner voice in an attempt to gain support from protective figures. They hope that with enough support they can finally feel secure and become independent. They feel separated from their own internal guidance, and can either become agreeable or aggressive in an effort to find their “people.” They feel plagued by a need to find the “right” course of action. But they don’t trust themselves – they usually have an “inner committee” of imagined authority figures, friends, and various mentors that they have to please before they move forward. They have imaginary dialogues with this inner committee trying to figure out how these other people would feel about it before they make a decision. Their doubt, anxiety, and tendency towards overthinking becomes a burden that they can only get rid of through growth and maturity.

As a child, you were very connected to the protective figure in your household. This enmeshment may not have been a good thing; you may have relied on this figure too much, making you doubt your inner voice. You may have developed a hard time trusting yourself, and if your protective champion has lost your trust, you may also have issues with authority figures in your life. You rely on other authorities to support you so you can feel more secure and have a sense of independence. When you have lost trust in your own voice, you can experience overthinking as a burden in decision-making.

Affirmation: “I know what is best for me. I do not need permission from anyone. I am the best person to make decisions for me.”

Claudio Naranjo on E6

From Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo:

In addition to perceived lack of affection there is in the background of type VI a fear of punishment, especially the punishment of emotional rebuke. Most striking are the problems of authority, generally in relation to the father who tends to be the authority-bearing parent. Yet in relation to authority, too, the subtypes are differentiated, the avoidant one becoming the most yielding and the counter-phobic one the most competitive and rebellious.

In addition to the fear connected to rejection or punishment by an authoritarian father (frequently type VI or type I) there is also in the childhood of the fearful a contagion of fear through the internalization of an over-protective world view from the mother’s side. Bombarded by such statements as: “Be careful, you’ll fall down/ Be sure you don’t talk to strangers/ Be careful with men—never trust them,” the child learns to distrust his own resources and the world around him. Sometimes it is possible to find a life history of invalidation such that the child learns to doubt his perceptions, as in the following:

“But the first seven years of my life that’s my ongoing memory, is him coming home, them fighting, my being afraid that they were going to kill each other. One night … when I was four, it must have been a particularly bad year for his drinking and their encountering each other. Because I have since come up with other incidents from my brothers and sisters. But this one night in particular, well: my brothers had a room, my sisters had a room, and I had a small bed in my parents’ room ‘cause there wasn’t space anywhere else. So, being the youngest, I was always the first one put to bed and whenever my dad would get home, I guess when the bars closed, the fighting would start. I always knew that once I was put to bed, I was to stay there, that you just didn’t leave. But this one night the fighting was just really bad. So I found that I would get paralyzed with the fear. But this particular night all of a sudden there was a surge of adrenaline and I flew out of bed and down the stairs. And … I thought at that moment that my fear had come to realization because my mother was flat on the floor, and my dad was sitting in a chair and I went over to her, but I couldn’t rouse her at all, and I looked at my dad and I said, ‘She’s dead, you killed her.’ And he just, he was in a stupor and he just said, ‘No. She’s faking and there’s nothing wrong. Go back to bed.’ And I can remember wanting to stay there, but I was so afraid of him that I went back to bed. And when I went back to bed I think I eventually cried myself to sleep, but the next morning I remember hearing my mother call my one brother and sister to come for breakfast before they went to school. And so I got up real quietly ‘cause I didn’t want to disturb my father who was sleeping it off. That was usual in the morning, I had to be very quiet. But when I went downstairs, nobody said anything about the night before. And that was so typical. And so it’s the whole fear thing, but also the self-doubt. Is it in your head or is it in reality?”

Sometimes inconsistency in parental behavior has contributed to the child’s anxiety. Not knowing whether he would be punished or not, for instance, the child had occasion to doubt the outer world before doubting himself. Just as most ennea-type VI individuals have grown up in an atmosphere of strong authority, most of them have been the target of distrust by their parents—and thus we may think that self-doubt is the end result of an internalization.

Another commonly shared experience is being made to feel guilty: “See how much your father works, you should not give him more troubles.” Religion may be an important means of accusation and sexuality a common target. Another, causing pain to their parents: “They made me feel very unfair to them through the damages that I caused them while they loved me so much and did so much for me.”

A self-victimizing and complaining type VI mother may contribute greatly to such feelings and is a common occurrence in the family of type VI individuals: “My mother was very authoritarian with angry threats and’ blackmailing (IV); she ate my father up (VI). She always spoke in the plural and always was in the foreground. I always felt from her a great disrespect toward my interests and inclinations, and she hit me a lot. My father used to say that women are absorbing.”

A common though not universal experience is the lack of communication between the parents: “At home the only conversation was complaining.” “There were always fights at home.” “My parents had many discussions, they were alwaystrying to be right.” It is easy to see how such conflicts may be echoed in the high ambivalence of the ennea-type VI individual, which is not only an ambivalence in regard to his impulses but one linked to a dual perception of each parent, who is evaluated not only empathetically but through the other parent’s eyes.

The search for love becomes differentiated in type VI according to subtypes. The counter-phobic and the aggressively paranoid individual demands obedience, just as he has understood loving his own father as obedience. The avoidant phobic person, on the other hand, has learned to equate love with protection, a source of security to compensate his/her insecurity—a strong person to lean on. The dutiful social type is too uncertain or ambivalent about individual people to give them authority and chooses instead the impersonal authority of a system as parental surrogate, an internal action that may be viewed as implying a competition with parental authority. It is as if he were telling father: “I’d rather follow Christ than follow you, and you’ll have to understand that it is better to be a good Christian than simply an obedient son.” In shifting his allegiance or loyalty from a parent to a religion, or to reason, he is also shifting his expectation of love from the world of real people to a world of larger-than-life authorities, that exists mainly in a phantasmic reality, like Don Quixote’s Dulcinea.

From 27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram by Claudio Naranjo:

During childhood, the lack of a parental guidance or authority (understood here as a function not ne identifiable with the physical father) connected with the reality, irrationally punitive or emotionally dangerous, and a relationship with the father or with the mother lived, on the one hand, castrating and injurious, and on the other, as a source of protection.

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E6

From From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation by Eli Jaxon-Bear:

Sixes frequently had an incompetent parent, usually the father. Their father might have been an alcoholic, a failure in business, or simply absent from the family. One Six described her father going bankrupt at his donut business when she was six years old. She went to work babysitting to help take care of the family. Yet no one outside of the immediate family was allowed to know this family secret.

Sixes often describe being four or five years old and having to take care of Mommy. They often feel that they were cast into the role of adult before they were ready. The feeling of incompetence becomes the root of their doubt. Having an incompetent father later manifests as the Six’s distrust of the competency of authority. All this leads Sixes to doubt themselves and the world, and to believe that things are not what they appear to be. It also leads to a lifetime of looking for heroes, then knocking them off the pedestal. Feeling betrayed by their father, Sixes become addicted to continual self-betrayal projected out as betrayal by the other. This perceived betrayal by others becomes the justification for betraying others in the safety of secrecy and alliances, and in the name of truth and decency.

Sixes often report that in childhood there was a family secret. It might have been that Mom was an alcoholic or that one of the kids was adopted. The Six whose father went bankrupt moved to another town and told everyone that Dad sold his old business in order to move here. This family secret creates a warzone mentality. There is a tight bonding in the loyalty of the family, and a constant alertness to make sure that no one outside the group finds out. This crystallizes as the Six’s idealization of loyalty. In the name of loyalty there is often self-betrayal projected out as the betrayal of the father.

In the self-preservation Six, we often find that actual issues of survival manifested in infancy. One self-preservation Six reported that she was asthmatic and came close to death in infancy. Another almost strangled in the crib. In reliving the memory, he felt that there was no one there competent to help, and he had to scream for help to ensure his own survival.

Another self-preservation Six describes the feeling of danger whenever his alcoholic Eight father was in a bad mood:

I remember being punished almost randomly. Punishment was more dependent on my father’s moods than on my behaviors. I felt terrified of him when he was angry and was never sure what I had to do to stay “out of trouble.” I had to learn how to be sensitive to his moods. I knew when it was the right time to ask him for something I wanted and when it was time to make myself invisible. When I was younger, he spent most of his time at work or in bars. When he was home, sometimes he was warm, loving, and fun to be with. At other times he was like a time bomb ready to explode at one of us. When he was in a bad mood, we all had to be quiet and stay out of his way. If I were to be heard playing, fighting, or laughing, this could set his anger off. I remember fearing that he would kill me if I ever crossed him. My mother later agreed that this was a possibility.

In the sexual Six, we sometimes find deep trauma in the birth process. Sexual Sixes often report having dangerous or bloody births, where blood, sex, birth, and death are all present in a terrifying knot. Thus, there can be a deep terror around any of these issues.

In the childhood of most Sixes, the bogeymen lurks in the closet. They scare themselves with their own thoughts and nightmares. These children then make judgments about themselves and their ability to hurt someone with their thoughts. This process keeps the bad thoughts out of their consciousness. However, it creates a haunting of the subconscious that further inhibits their ability to act.

Sandra Maitri on E6

From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri:

The soul of a Six seems constellated around and frozen in reactive alarm to early unmet physical needs, to impingement, or to an atmosphere of physical danger. This state of apprehensive guardedness in anticipation of the next trauma, which a Six feels hopelessly unprepared for, drowns out everything else. The environment was perceived by him as untrustworthy or unpredictable, and the young Six’s parents were viewed through this unstable lens. He may have had an alcoholic parent whose behavior seemed to change apparently at random; or a parent subject to unpredictable fits of rage, triggered by something apparently insignificant. One of the parents may have had dramatic mood fluctuations, or there may have been great variations in the quality of attention the child received. The main caretaking parent may have felt insecure about handling the infant Six’s body or fulfilling his needs, or this parent may have simply had a timid personality. One parent may have been a stern authority figure, demanding absolute obedience and permanently intimidating the young Six. Regardless of the actual parents’ reality, these were the factors focused upon and left as imprints because of the Six’s sensitivity to Holy Faith and Holy Strength. The “interpretation” made by the child’s developing consciousness was that one or both parents or the environment as a whole couldn’t be consistently depended upon to fill his needs, which feels life-threatening to a totally dependent infant and young child. The soul, then, becomes and remains fixated around survival anxiety and the fear of physical death. The inability and helplessness to meet his own needs, coupled with a seemingly undependable other, become imprinted and form the core of the sense of self of this ennea-type.

This take on reality, which solidifies in early childhood, shapes the soul of a Six and mushrooms into a whole worldview that Almaas describes as cynical. Without Holy Faith there is indeed a form of faith, but it is the conviction that the universe is basically unloving and unsupportive and that human beings are ultimately self-serving and self-aggrandizing, caring nothing for the consequences of their actions on others. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and regardless of whether a Six puffs himself up in an attempt to prove that he is one of the strong in the struggle or outrightly considers himself to be one of the weaklings, this is the way reality looks to him.

Helen Palmer on E6

From The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer:

Sixes report that they were raised by authorities who were untrustworthy. Lack of trust commonly centered on punishment or humiliation by parents, particularly when the parents were unpredictable and erratic in how they dealt with the child. Very occasionally a Six reports that the family lived with a secret that had to be kept quiet. Young Sixes had to predict the behavior of adults who were likely to flare up without any clear indication about what the child had done.

The more hyperalert Sixes say that they were often punished because their parents were personally disturbed, rather than because they had actually done something wrong. They say that they had to watch others carefully, because they were treated erratically, that if they didn’t sense the threat beforehand, they could be taken unaware. Sixes learned to hesitate, to check out danger signals, to figure out the authority’s position before they made a move themselves. Afraid of being hurt or embarrassed, young Sixes had to know what others intended to do before they could take a position themselves. It is this outwardly directed focusing of attention, coupled with the feelings of children who are powerless to act in their own defense, that perpetuates the Devil’s Advocate’s neurotic style.

My father was the kind of man that you didn’t know whether to laugh or to duck. If you laughed when you should have ducked, then you did that only once. I learned to read him when I was young; one eye on my homework, and the other eye on his mood on the other side of the door.

If it was going badly on his side of the door, then I had an escape hatch. I’d go out my window and across the fire escapes to the roof of the next apartment building. I’d wind up doing homework on the roof, wondering if he’d be asleep before I had to go home.

The common theme is that of a child who felt unprotected, without a safe place to go. The background level of apprehension that adult Sixes live with stems directly from this sense of being on a losing side, without a strong figure who would offer protection.

Both my parents were alcoholics and held themselves to be failures in life. There was a lot of sneaking around about liquor, and hidden bottles, and lying about it. The idea was to keep bad news to yourself, because it would only be a burden to them, and they couldn’t help anyway.

We lived in borderline neighborhoods, and I was pretty much the new kid around, because we moved a lot. I would be going out of the house, and suddenly I’d be waylaid for my milk money, or my lunch would be taken by somebody much bigger than I was. Whenever I left the house, I was always looking for where somebody might be hiding on me. I couldn’t relax on the street or in school, because of having to stay on top of whoever was around.

The Six child became mistrustful of authority figures. This resulted in either a dependency on authority “to take care of me because I feel weak and afraid,” or a rebellion against authority “who is trying to take advantage of my weakness by making me afraid.”

I had three sisters and was the first boy. My parents were both highly competitive, strong people with a great many expectations for their first son. I was also my mother’s dearest, so when anybody did anything that did not meet expectations, a lot of fury went down her lightning rod, which was me. So I went to an Ivy League college and, needless to say, saw some of the same punitive characteristics in the U.S. government that I saw in my parents.

My family was very conservative, as (most) second-generation Jewish immigrants were, and so my mother was horrified to discover that one of the first causes that I took up was the sexual freedom league on campus. If someone had said at the time that I was just trying to get my parents uptight, I would, of course, have disagreed, but with a little maturing, I can see that some of that was true.

I‘ve recently gone back to grad school in economics, and I have to say that I still hold my radical views, hopefully with a good deal of the kneejerk rebellion taken out of my opinions.

Beatrice Chestnut on E6

From The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut:

The Type Six personality usually begins with a child who experienced some sort of ongoing threatening situation early in life. This is an individual who gets an early sense that the world is a dangerous place. Sixes often tell stories of living with a parent who was an alcoholic or mentally ill or violent or too weak to protect them. They may have experienced shifting expectations, objectively dangerous conditions, or periodic punishments.

Living with some form of untrustworthy, unpredictable, or inconsistent caretaker, the Six child develops a coping strategy centered on becoming an expert at picking up small cues that signal the presence of danger or threat. They specialize in detecting signs that help them know what is going to happen next, which allows them to prepare for and otherwise proactively deal with challenging or scary situations. This skill shapes the child’s basic way of taking in and processing information from the outside world.

Sixes thus develop a way of absorbing and sorting information based on picking up on signs, subtle or not, of the negative or threatening intentions of others. Being able to predict when and if someone was going to hurt them was their way of trying to stay safe. Eventually, the automatic sorting process of a Six’s mind gets attuned to detecting incongruities or whatever lies beneath the surface of things.

In conscious and unconscious ways, Sixes become focused on perceiving negative data in the world and looking out for and thinking about dangerous or problematic things that might happen before they happen. Through imagination, Sixes develop a radar for trouble that they can’t turn off. While this habit makes them highly intuitive and analytical, these tendencies can also get skewed toward worst-case scenario thinking, projection, and self-fulfilling prophecy. Sixes get good at detecting what may lie beneath a false presentation, but they also mentally manufacture dangers that don’t exist to confirm their internal sense of threat or doubt.

As mentioned above, Sixes’ survival responses to fear are analogous to “fight or flight” reactions. The “flight” (or fearful, “phobic”) strategy is to run away, to hide or somehow withdraw, or to seek the protection of others. The “fight” (or fear-denying, “counterphobic”) strategy is to move toward the perceived source of danger and manage it through strength or intimidation. In the middle of these two ends of the fear-response spectrum is a third fear-based survival strategy that represents a mixture of phobic and counterphobic reactions and constitutes finding safety in obeying or adhering to an authority. While this authority may be an actual person, it is very often the “impersonal” authority of a set of guiding rules or reference points—a system of knowledge or an ideology about how one should behave.

In light of their history with inconsistent or threatening authority figures, Sixes both wish for a truly good authority (sometimes unconsciously) and question and rebel against the authorities in their lives. Being habitually suspicious of anyone who might have power over them, the defensive strategy of the Six involves a wariness or skepticism toward unfamiliar others in general, and especially authority figures. Importantly, however, the three Six subtype characters vary with respect to their approaches to authority. The Self-Preservation (phobic) Six tends to be the most quietly avoidant; the Social Six the most yielding and compliant; and the Sexual (counter-phobic) Six, the most competitive and rebellious. Despite this, however, all three have the tendency to be suspicious and antiauthoritarian if the conditions call for it.

Often, Sixes’ issues with authority grow out of an early experience with an authoritarian father or an overprotective mother. A threatening father figure reinforces a child’s fear of rejection or punishment, and an anxious or overprotective mother can send the child a message that the world is not safe and that he or she does not have the inner resources to deal with external threats. However, a Six’s father may have also been absent or weak—and the specific father a given Six had may influence their dominant subtype. Naranjo suggests that Sixes who are inclined toward hero worship and insecurity (Self-Preservation or Social Sixes) often display an excessive need for a good father they didn’t have, while Sixes who tend toward grandiosity and a heroic view of themselves (Sexual Sixes) likely experienced a rivalry or competition with their fathers (or took the place of a weak father).

The Six child thus often suffers from the lack of a good “first authority,” someone who would have provided a model of confidence and security in meeting threats. In light of this, the Six coping strategy can be viewed as a compensation for the lack of a strong, protective, benevolent father figure.

Jack, a Sexual Six, describes his childhood situation and the development of his coping strategy:

Jack was the oldest of three children. From the time he was born, his mother suffered from migraine headaches. She usually managed to cope during the week, but would get a debilitating migraine every Friday. At that time, there were no medications available that would ease her pain, so she would be out of commission for the entire weekend. Jack’s father (a Type Five) was very absent. With his mother often unavailable and his father not able to be present, Jack experienced life as uncertain and his authority figures as undependable. In this situation, Jack came to feel that he had to be independent because he could only really rely on himself.

Jack’s mother was a phobic Six, and Jack internalized her belief that the world was an unsafe place. Her anxious focus on safety contributed to Jack having an underlying sense of fear. His father was not a good role model of strength and Jack would get angry when his mother would berate his father in front of other people and his dad wouldn’t stand up for himself. He would feel mad at his mother for humiliating his father and pissed off at his father for being so passive. He can see that his drive to be strong and independent grew out of the painful experience of witnessing his parents’ conflicts and needing to go off on his own as a way to escape them.

Jack learned early on that he had to be his own authority. While he really wants and looks for a strong authority in his life, he owns that he’s very particular and he’s always on alert and looking for incongruities in others’ behaviors, whether in a potential authority figure or his other relationships. There have only been a few authority figures in his life that he’s had a high regard for because he can’t help believing they can’t be relied on. He looks for good authorities and people he can trust, but keeps expecting them to let him down or prove themselves untrustworthy. Even in his friendships, he’s always “waiting for the other shoe to drop.” His wife is the only person in his life he’s ever been able to be with and relax his habit of being vigilant.

Riso-Hudson on E6

From Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

As the result of their formative experiences, Sixes became connected with their protective-figures. The protective-figure was the adult in the child's early environment who provided guidelines, structure, and sometimes discipline. This was the person who occupied the traditional patriarchal position in the family. Most often this was their fathers, or a father figure, such as a grandfather or teacher, but in many cases the mother or an older sibling may actually be the protective-figure. As children, Sixes wanted the security of approval by their protective-figures, and felt anxious if they did not receive it. As they grew up, their connection with their protective-figure shifted to an identification with substitutes for this person, such as civil authorities or belief systems from which they could obtain security.

From the perspective of depth psychology, the role of the protective figure is to help the child break away from the mother so that the child can function independently. Unconsciously, Sixes are looking for people or structures that will help them be more independent. Ironically, the more unsure of themselves Sixes are, the more dependent they become on the people or systems they have turned to for assistance in becoming independent.

Because they are connected to the protective-figure, Sixes powerfully internalize their relationship with that person, whether it is a loving, supportive one, or a difficult, destructive one. They continue to play out in their lives the relationship with the person who held authority in their early childhood years. If Sixes as children perceived that their protective-figure was benevolent, and a reliable source of guidance and encouragement, as adults they will continue to look for similar direction and support from others, be it their spouse, their job, their therapist, or a mentor. They will do their best to please this figure or group, and will dutifully observe the rules and guidelines they have been given. In this case, though, Sixes will feel extremely disappointed and betrayed if the other person or situation violates their trust or fails to live up to their expectation of support.

On the other hand, if Sixes experienced their protective-figures as abusive, unfair, or controlling, they will internalize this relationship with authority and feel themselves always at odds with those who they believe have power over them. They walk through life fearing that they will be "in trouble" and unjustly punished, and adopt a defensive, rebellious attitude as a protection from the cruel protective-figure they project into many of their relationships. Sixes who suffered extremely dysfunctional childhood environments may have been so devalued or ill-treated by their protective figure that they end up leading self-destructive, wasted lives as they unconsciously live out their protective-figure's negative image of them.

Furthermore, just as Threes abandon themselves to varying degrees to become more acceptable to their nurturing-figures, Sixes abandon themselves to gain the support of their protective-figures. They believe that if they get enough support, they can become independent. This is because Sixes feel cut off from an internal guidance, their own ability to move forward in the world with confidence. They may act this out directly, through a phobic, dependent approach to life, or they may react against it with assertive, counterphobic behavior. Either way, Sixes are not really experiencing their own inner capacity and strength, and must constantly look outside themselves for reassurance, support, and evidence of their ability to successfully engage with life. As Sixes deteriorate, however, either their dependency on allies and authorities or their hysterical reactions to them increase, until they actually destroy their own security.

Because they have been taught not to trust their own inner guidance, Sixes internally question their activities to see whether they will meet the internalized standards of the protective-figure—their superego. Like Ones, Sixes are often trying to figure out the "right" course of action, and they attempt to do this by thinking about how their various mentors, allies, and authority figures would respond to their choices. Sixes may go around and around in this process for days if the decision is a major one, because they are afraid of alienating any of their supporters. It is as though Sixes must regularly hold committee meetings in their imagination to "check in" with the different people with whom they have identified. Highly counterphobic Sixes may well bluster at authorities they see as unfair, but they too need their support network, and do not want to take actions which might jeopardize it. Of course, less healthy Sixes may undermine their system of support because of their hysterical reactivity and paranoia, but they will then go to great lengths to reconnect with some other source of security. In all Sixes, the pattern of orienting themselves to life by obtaining the reassurance and approval of others is one which is deeply ingrained in their nature.

[...] The Six-Two-One group (the protective-figure-oriented types) are the personality types which defend themselves by being compliant (Homey's "moving toward" types). In general, these are the should-and-must personality types. While compliance dominates the overall picture, they are in fact a mixture of aggressive and compliant tendencies. Under pressure either from others or from anxiety, the should-and-must types tend to explode in destructive behavior. The influence of the protective-figure or patriarch and of internalized superego prohibitions symbolized by this person create the highly superego-driven types One, Two, and Six. All three types feel obligated to engage in certain behavior, often at the expense of other things they would like to do, and often take the role of authority figures themselves in different ways, since they have internalized many of the prevailing mores of society.

From The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

The Basic Fear of Sixes (of being without support or guidance and of being unable to survive on their own) is a very real and universal fear of every child. A small infant cannot live without Mommy and Daddy; the child is absolutely dependent on them. Clear memories of the terror behind this dependency are repressed in most people. But sometimes they are intense enough to break through, as in the case of Ralph, a consultant in his fifties.

I remember waking up in my crib and standing up and holding on to the side of it. I heard my parents laughing and talking with the neighbors while they played cards in the living room. I would hear the click of the cards as they were being dealt around the table. I called several times for my mother to come up to my darkened bedroom. Each time my fear increased. In desperation I then called several times for my father. No one came up to see what I wanted, and I finally went to sleep. Until I was eleven years old, I would not let my parents out of my sight if we were more than ten miles from home. I was afraid they would abandon me.

At a certain point in their development, however, toddlers do a remarkable thing. Despite their tremendous dependency, they begin to move away from their mothers, to assert their independence and autonomy; in child psychology, this is called the separation phase.

One of the most important ingredients that helps the child find the courage to separate from the mother is the presence of the father figure. (This is not always the biological father, although it often is. It is the person who provides discipline, structure, and authority in the family.) If the father-figure is present in a strong and consistent way, he provides the guidance and support for the child's bid for independence. He teaches the child about the ways of the world—what is safe and what is not—and mirrors the child's own Essential inner guidance and support. Of course, for most of us, this process has gone somewhat less than perfectly, resulting in our insecurities as adults. But while everyone experiences this to some extent, Sixes are particularly fixated on it.

Further, if the Six child perceives that the father's support for independence is insufficient, he may feel in danger of being overwhelmed by the mother and all she represents to him. This heightens the child's need to keep up his guard and leads to Type Six's deep ambivalence and anxiety about trust, nurturance, and closeness. Thus, Sixes long for approval and closeness but feel the need to defend against it at the same time. They want to be supported but not overwhelmed.

Joseph, a journalist in his forties, has explored some of these issues in therapy.

I had a very powerful, controlling, somewhat dazzling mother. She was capable of withdrawing her love at a moment's notice, angrily, and often inexplicably. It was a highly conditional love, and depended above all on absolute loyalty—to her values, beliefs, and judgments, no matter how erratic and off the wall they might be. I often felt that it was my role to confront my mother—to fight for my own survival. The problem was that my approach was negative: I resisted her and survived but never felt confident that I had prevailed. It was never going to be possible to both win the approval of others (most notably my mother) while also maintaining my independence and developing my own sense of self.

To resolve this dilemma, Sixes try to form an alliance with the father figure. But this usually leads to ambivalence—the father-figure/authority seems either too strict and controlling, or too unsupportive and uninterested. Many Sixes end up in an uneasy compromise: they offer outward obedience yet retain a feeling of independence through inward rebellion and cynicism, as well as large and small acts of passive-aggression.

Enneagram Seven

For an enneagram 7, their wounding message is “It’s not ok to depend on others for anything.”

There are other variations of this message such as “Nobody will take care of you” or “You need to do things for yourself.”

Once you realize this wounding message, it’s easy to see how that has ingrained the type 7’s core desire and core fear.

For a 7 that core desire is to be content/satisfied (not needing to depend on others) and the core fear is being deprived/trapped in emotional pain (fearing not being able to do/solve it for themselves).

What type 7’s long to hear is “You will be taken care of.”

Hearing this and understanding this allows the 7 to have a weight lifted off of them.

These children were deprived of nurturing, or it was too-soon removed. They handled this lack by searching for distractions to minimize/repress fear and pain. They decided to focus on positive options and rely on themselves to fulfill their desires and gain a sense of nurturance.

In childhood, Sevens felt disconnected from the nurturing figure in their home. This could have been the mother, father, or grandparent – whoever was doing the bulk of the nurturing and caretaking. For whatever reason, whether it was abuse or misunderstandings, the Seven felt that they couldn’t count on getting the nurturance they needed on a consistent, dependable level.

In order to deal with this, Sevens learned to focus on “transitional objects” or toys and activities that would feed the emptiness inside. They developed the unconscious message that they needed to nurture themselves because nobody else would do it adequately. So they would seek out distractions, activities, possibilities, and objects that would excite their senses and keep them busy. Gaining whatever they thought would make them happy became symbolic of having the nurturing that they always felt was just out of reach.

As a child, you may have felt disconnected from the nurturing parental figure of the household. Whether it was abuse or misunderstanding, you may have developed a mistrust for this caretaker, feeling they are not dependable. You most likely coped by playing pretend a lot and keeping yourself busy with games and activities. You may have developed a sense of mistrust in caretakers in your life, and you may depend on objects and filling your schedule to the brim to bring you joy and nurture instead of others.

Affirmation: “I want to build a better connection to those in my life, including myself. I want to get in touch with my heart.”

Claudio Naranjo on E7

From Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View by Claudio Naranjo:

I think it likely that the highly strategic type VII arises most commonly from a background factor in which a good intellectual endowment and genetically determined verbal ability are also present. Just as it is natural for an inborn fighter to settle on “moving against” people in the case of type VIII, it is natural for one who is clever and good with words to become an explainer in his approach to getting his way.

It is appropriate to begin the consideration of the environmental aspect of the nature/nurture equation with the issue of breastfeeding, for there is evidence of the correlation between prolonged and happy breast-feeding and a trusting and optimistic personality.14 As in the case of the relation between unsatisfactory breast feeding and the oral-aggressive shown in the same study, I think that we may consider the finding paradigmatic for a more general relation between happiness in early childhood and cheerful optimism in later life. It is common for ennea-type VII people to report prolonged childhood satisfaction.

When we look at the life history of the cheerful and trusting individual, however, we find that there frequently has been a fall from paradise even more distinct than in the case of type IV, so a regression to the passive and trusting attitude of the child at the breast has taken place in response to the frustrations of later life. Just as type VII does not want to see the harsh aspect of life, it seems that the child has not wanted to deidealize his mother or sometimes his father. Memory in such a case supports fantasy to deny suffering.

I have described such a transition from a happy early childhood to a less happy situation in the life of a type VII individual in The Healing Journey.15 I was a witness to my patient’s remembrance (in the course of psychotherapy) of the idyllic relationship he had sustained with his nanny before he was old enough to share his meals with his parents and was exiled from the warmth of his nanny’s kitchen to the cold atmosphere of the dining-room, when he was for the first time exposed to sustained contact with his not-so-welcome mother.

Other examples may be less dramatic, such as the following: “At home child rearing ended at the age of two, then we came under the care of our aunt and our parents became like phantoms … I was breast fed until I was two without any kind of schedule. My mother went along with my father in his journeys and they took me with them until I was three, then they left me in the house of an aunt to begin my schooling.” Or: “My mother was very over-protective and I began speaking early and was graceful and sweet. School was a shock for me. I was completelyunprotected before aggression. I was a victim of my class. I sought refuge in a world of fantasy.” Still another: “For me the family was great, life flowed very well, and I had no cares. I think it is at school that I began to be problem ridden.”

A frequent element in the life stories of ennea-type VII people that I have heard is that of an outrageously authoritarian parent vis-a-vis whom a soft manner of rebellion seemed most appropriate. Most commonly this happened with type I fathers whose excessive dominance and sternness was experienced as lovelessness and not only contributed to an implicit judgment to the effect that authority is bad, but to the experience of an authority that is too strong to be met head-on, and also to a correlative misconception of love as indulgence (i.e. as being free from discipline). Mothers have often been experienced as over-protective and permissive (commonly type IX).

“What got my father most nervous about me is that I did not confront him, but I did what I felt, in spite of his rules. My father was physically imposing, I did not face him, but there was no way in which he would control me.”

In response to the question, “What circumstance led you to develop a strategic disposition in face of your parents and life in general?,” one subject explained how his parents were always right and this would have overwhelmed him if he had not cheated.

The seductiveness of ennea-type VII is usually apparent in relation to the parent of the opposite sex, and type VII men are most commonly mother oriented (just as type VI men are mostly father oriented). There may be a sense of competing with father in the protection of mother, or caring for her to compensate what hurt father has caused her. “My mother was very seductive and she always presented my father as an ogre, an intimidating man.”

Of course it is also true for ennea-type VII that the presence of a similar character in the family has been a factor: “At home it is as if there were ‘VII’ values, for the things that I heard there are so fantastic and marvelous that it seems you are in another world. Now I can see it better. My father is a crazy VII, for him there is not such a thing as a pound of meat, only cows. We have an industrial refrigerator. Bedrooms, little by little, become pantries. Aside from that he has everything; in animaginary place, he does. It is as if he has a magical bag and everything becomes reality. I was celebrated for being graceful. My mother used to say that I was not beautiful, but I could conquer the world through charm. Everybody laughs at home and there is freedom to show one’s craziness. My mother likes very much when people express themselves very well and values culture.”

Another factor I have noticed in the story of “oral optimists” as a whole is the frequency with which the father is fearful. In a little piece of research, in seven out of eight instances the father was either VI, VII or V. In another, four out of five responded in the affirmative to the question, “Did you adopt a weak and gentle position because you lacked an example of healthy aggression, because you lacked the image of a strong father?”

Type VII tends to become a pleasure-seeker to the extent that love becomes equated with the indulging of his wishes. Also the love search becomes a narcissistic striving to the extent that the means of attracting love—being ingenious, funny, and clever, for instance—develop into autonomous motives, and the pursuit of a charming and amiable superiority, an end in itself. Thus as in other personality orientations, a particular facet of love becomes a love substitute, and an obstacle towards a satisfying love life.

From 27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram by Claudio Naranjo:

Since its childhood, the E7 develops an intellectual baggage that allows you to understand how to move agilely in the face of obstacles. This function has been experienced in family relationships, in which often the E7, in the absence of physical or emotional father, took over to relieve mother's pain or depression. For males, this has meant a distant relationship 333 Page 335 Page 336 2 7characters in search of being-or rejection -of the father; for women, on the other hand, it has been fulfill a masculine role, leaving aside the feminine dimension na (whether it refers to the erotic or emotional aspect). This support role did not translate, as for the El, into rigid assumption of responsibilities, but led to a compulsive need to please and be recognized as skilled harlequin who puts himself at the service of the other without renouncing his pious advantages.

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E7

From From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation by Eli Jaxon-Bear:

Sevens come from a full range of childhood situations. Initially, I expected them to come from well-to-do families, and many of them do. However, there are the examples like the one just mentioned. This is a man who was the fifth of seven children. He shared a bed with two brothers. His father was a furniture mover, and the boys had to help move furniture on the weekends. This Seven was the one who cracked jokes and kept things light; he cheered up the rest of the family. Now he does some standup comedy about growing up in the barrio and travels around teaching workshops.

A female Seven described growing up in a poor black family, being chased by neighborhood bullies, and experiencing times without enough to eat. She made it sound like fun, and enthralled her audience with the story. She said she was having a great time back then, too.

One man reported that he had a miserable childhood filled with the tensions between his parents. His solution was to go out and play with his friends, making believe there was nothing wrong.

Sevens often report having trouble with their fathers, and being closer to their mothers. They typically take an anti-macho position in life and embrace the feminine. A Seven’s life is often a signal to Mom that everything is okay.

Sandra Maitri on E7

From The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri:

A Seven feels that he has lost his place in the vast pattern of unfoldment in the universe, and as he matures, the more he loses trust in his soul’s capacity to unfold naturally. With this blind spot, it seems to him that reality does not support him in naturally developing and fulfilling his potential. His solution is to take matters in his own hands and to try to figure out how things work—what the plan is—and to try to make his process fit into it. Mapping and planning for the future, then, become his personality’s imitation of Holy Plan, and become a substitute for full engagement in the present. Hence, as mentioned earlier, the name Ichazo gave this type, Ego-Planning. This orientation forms his fixation, his fixed cognitive view on himself and life, as we see on the Enneagram of Fixations.

It is, of course, only much later than early childhood that this future orientation and planning tendency begins to show itself, and we will return to it later. Focusing on his early childhood, filtered through the Seven’s sensitivity to his Holy Idea, his experience becomes that of a paradise lost. It may be that he never actually experienced blissfulness in his early months with his mother or that there was a period of fulfilling and supportive contact, only to be interrupted for one reason or another. If there was an initial period of closeness, circumstances such as mother returning to work, illness, the birth of another sibling, or a sudden change in the family’s fortune may have severed it. If there was no such period, it is likely that his soul unconsciously intuited what might have been and so what was missing. In either case, what remains in a Seven’s soul is the imprint of losing the breast—whether actually or metaphorically—and so losing his source of nourishment, love, warmth, and safety, as though he has lost the juice of life itself.

This sense of the source of life drying up and disappearing on him forms an inner desolate wasteland that feels unbearable. Like Fives, this core state of deficiency feels dry, parched, and empty, an inner wasteland devoid of life. Emptiness, barrenness, and lifelessness in any form that they take, whether physical, emotional, or mental, become the primary things that he avoids since they remind him of his early loss of mother and, through her, of Being. His whole personality becomes geared toward avoiding this dry pain. While we find pain on the Enneagram of Avoidances at Point Seven, it is really this core sense of barrenness and disconnection from the vibrancy of life that forms a Seven’s deepest pain and which his personality is oriented toward not experiencing.

To avoid his inner desert, he envisions, makes real in his mind, and plots his course toward the oasis that he knows is out there somewhere, where he envisions that warmth and emotional lushness await. Mapping and planning, his central preoccupations, can be seen from this vantage point as attempts, albeit unconscious, to plot out his reconnection with Being, the source of true satisfaction. His orientation, then, is toward a future that exists primarily in his imagination, a utopia in which all of his wishes will be fulfilled. Envisioning and imagining what is possible replace facing and being in the present.

Helen Palmer on E7

From The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer:

Sevens have pleasant memories of their childhood years. The reports have a happy picture-book quality: a boy on his swing, a girl in her pinafore. There is usually no bitterness. “My Dad stole us from our mother. I was eight and had forgotten her by the time that I was nine.” Even with an objectively bad scenario, there is little residue of hatred or blame. In scenarios that contain objectively bad memories, there is the flavor of “I decided not to be like that” and “I found things to do so I didn’t get dragged down.”

I’ve thought a lot about being a Seven and why that point speaks to me. When I first saw a panel of Sevens tell their stories, I could relate to everything except that business about being afraid. I just don’t see myself that way.

But then I remembered a time when I got lost on the way home from a new school, knowing my mom was going to cream me for showing up late, and being really terrified of what would happen when she got hold of me. And then I ran into some kids playing soccer, and I just played until it got dark.

So Mom called the police when it got to be suppertime, and they came to pick me up. I remember myself riding home in the cop car, just shitting because I was so scared. And then I started looking at the lights reflected on the back window, and I remembered the soccer game, and I went right back there.

I knew that no matter what she did to me that I could just stay in my mind and play soccer until whatever it was would be over and I would have survived.

The skew of attention is toward positive memory. The boy who says he took up karate to save himself focuses on a description of his best belt tests. The girl who ran away at fifteen minimizes the reasons why and describes the excitement of her escape. Here we have the opposite skew of attention from that of Sixes: Devil’s Advocates tend to remember the worst and Epicures, moving toward pleasure and away from pain, tend to remember the best.

For Sevens there are a great many recollections from childhood that are positive and objectively real. There is a tendency to favor the mother over the father, but the paranoid rebellion against male authority takes on a sweetly antiauthoritarian tone.

I loved both my parents and had a typical kind of country life. Nobody hurt me, I had a lot of love and support, and the only complaint I had was that I had to bicycle three miles to get to see my friends. I used to tell myself stories when I was alone, and I didn’t much like to be told what I had to do.

I realized that I could outthink my father when I was in about sixth grade. I loved him, but I knew that I could think faster. I got him to agree to anything I wanted by first editing out the items that he’d disapprove of and then pushing for a version of what he wanted that had as many loopholes as possible.

Beatrice Chestnut on E7

From The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut:

Sevens often report having had a good experience early in life, and most recall having a generally happy childhood. And their early life may indeed have been pleasant and carefree—but certainly for some Sevens, selective recall makes it better in memory than it really was. This rosy recollection is not surprising because Sevens’ central coping strategy is to automatically reframe negatives into positives—to avoid the dark side and focus attention on the bright side. As Naranjo suggests, sometimes “memory in such a case supports fantasy to deny suffering.”

While Sevens often do experience a prolonged period of childhood satisfaction, many say that they experienced some sort of fear-inducing event, which they felt ill-equipped to deal with. Often there was a “fall from paradise” at a particular point in time, an experience that motivated the child to unconsciously cope with his fear by withdrawing back into an earlier stage of development in which he felt secure and omnipotent. By psychologically backing up and reverting to a slightly earlier stage in which they felt good and had a sense of control, Sevens take refuge in a happier, safer-feeling experience. From then on, when feelings of anxiety, fear, or pain threaten to emerge, Sevens employ a similar strategy: they automatically move away from trouble and toward thoughts, feelings, or imagined experiences that are stimulating, fun, and pleasant—often without having the conscious awareness that they are making this shift.

Type Seven individuals thus adopt the unconscious survival strategy of pulling back from distressing aspects of reality by moving toward what’s positive in terms of pleasurable thoughts, fantasies, and plans. This defense provides the child (and later, the adult) with an effective strategy for avoiding pain and other uncomfortable emotions. It also leads Sevens to develop skills and strengths like an active imagination, a positive temperament, and an inventive mind. But avoiding harsh realities makes it hard for Sevens to handle (or even register) difficult emotions in naturally challenging situations. Automatically avoiding such things becomes habitual and unconscious. As the thinking behind this Seven life strategy goes, why would you choose to be sad (or anxious or uncomfortable) when you could be happy instead? Feeling good rather than bad seems to Sevens like a choice they can continually decide to make—and the thought of doing otherwise seems absurd to them.

In the history of many Sevens, often there was a good relationship with one parent, usually the mother, and a more challenging relationships with the other, usually the father. As Naranjo explains, the Seven most commonly had an authoritarian father “whose excessive dominance and sternness was experienced as lovelessness and not only contributed to an implicit judgment to the effect that authority is bad, but to the experience of an authority that is too strong to be met head-on.” A typical familial pattern for Sevens with regard to mothers, or mother figures, is that they are often experienced as “overprotective, permissive, and indulgent.” However, the gender roles may be reversed in some cases, with the mother playing the “paternal” authoritarian role and the father being perceived as more loving.

Based on their parental experience, Sevens get the idea early on that authority equals limitation and control from the outside. And Sevens, along with Type Eights, are among the types who most dislike being told what to do.

Sevens respond by retreating into the mind—and, more specifically, into imagining a positive future, best-case scenarios, and stimulating ideas and options. This distraction functions as a way of turning away from a potentially negative reality that might evoke unpleasant emotions. Thus, Sevens develop a talent for reframing a troubling present into a more positive and intellectually stimulating experience. In this way, as Naranjo suggests, Sevens “defend themselves through intelligence.”

Having learned to view fun and pleasure and “soft” forms of rebellion as strategic ways of meeting the dangers of being controlled and avoiding bad emotions or getting stuck in discomfort of any kind, the Seven becomes a pleasure-seeker and a good talker. More than just open-minded and exploratory, their search for stimulation through interesting and engaging experiences represents a way to defend against present discomforts: it “takes them from an insufficient here to a promising there.” They automatically avoid dealing with the threat of immediate unpleasantness by thinking about what they have to look forward to. They develop a mental focus on future possibilities and options as a way of distracting themselves from a deeper fear of getting stuck in unpleasant feelings and being limited by circumstances beyond their control.

Sam, a Type Seven, describes his childhood situation and the development of his coping strategy:

Sam was the youngest of Seven children and his mother’s favorite. He was eight years younger than his nearest sibling. His mother had wanted to have him as a way to repair her difficult marriage with his father. Sam remembers his early life as one in which he was in caught in the middle between his parents’ conflict. He had the sense that his mother really loved him, but his father was very angry and always yelling. Often they would fight over him and he would be put right in the middle of their battles. In this difficult situation, Sam retreated into the world of his mind. He read a lot and dreamed of places he would go and things he would do.

One time, after a particularly bad fight, he remembers his mother taking him to a hotel to get away from his father. As his mother cried, he recalls focusing on looking out the window and deciding he would enjoy the rain that was falling. He got intensely fascinated by beauty of the rain drops.

When his mom died when he was nine years old and he was left with a father who didn’t want him around, his underlying insecurity increased and he continued to take refuge in his imagination. To this day he doesn’t like controversy and conflict. Although he draws on his high energy and quick mind as assets in confronting people in court as a lawyer, he acknowledges that he doesn’t deal very well with conflict in his personal life. If he is alone he will simply ignore any anxiety he might feel, and when he is out with friends he will get “charismatically nervous.” He still reads a lot and he still retreats to his imagination and embellishes things in his mind as a way to escape from what might be happening in his life that feels uncomfortable.

Riso-Hudson on E7

From Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

As young children, Sevens were disconnected to the nurturing-figure, the person in their early development who mirrored them, cared for them, and provided affection and a sense of personal value. This person is often the mother or a mother-substitute, but not always. In some family systems, the father, or an older sibling, provided nurturance to the infant. In any event, Sevens perceived that there was some problem with their nurturing-figure. They did not feel bonded with this person, or feel that the person was a safe and consistent source of nurturance. For a wide variety of possible reasons, Sevens felt frustrated by their nurturing-figures: they did not feel that they could depend on getting what they needed from them. As a result, Sevens try to compensate for the nurturance they feel they did not receive by getting things for themselves.

It is probable that, in most cases, their nurturing-figures did not intend to frustrate them when they were children. Some other childhood deprivation, such as poverty, war, being orphaned, or a long illness, may have shaken their expectation that the good things of life would be given to them. There may have been an absence of the nurturing-figure at a critical stage, or some accident that shook the child's faith that he or she would be adequately supported. It may also be that Sevens naturally need a great deal of contact and stimulation which may be more than the nurturing-figure can provide. Thus, for whatever reasons, the fear of deprivation becomes the fundamental motivation for this personality type. The other side of the psychic coin is that Sevens begin to demand that all their desires be satisfied. Possessing whatever they think will make them happy becomes symbolic of having the nurturing and sense of well-being they feel is always just beyond their grasp.

[...] The Three-Eight-Seven group (the nurturing-figure-oriented types) are the personality types which defend themselves aggressively (Homey's "moving against" types). From developmental psychology, we know that the early bonding and mirroring experiences between the mother and child result in the development of the self-image, thus these are the ego-oriented types. They are then motivated to assert their egos into the environment and to find direct ways of gratifying their ego needs. [...] Sevens want to be satisfied and stimulated, so they do things that they find satisfying and stimulating. [...]

From The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:

The Seven’s childhood is flavored by a largely unconscious feeling of disconnection from the nurturing figure (often, but not always, the biological mother). Generally speaking, Sevens are sensitive to a very deep frustration resulting from feelings of being cut off from maternal nurturance at an early age, as if they had been taken away from the breast too soon (which may have literally been true in some cases). In response, young Sevens unconsciously “decided” to nurture themselves. (“I am not going to sit around feeling sorry for myself, waiting for somebody to take care of me. I’ll take care of myself!”) This pattern does not mean that Sevens were not close to their mothers in childhood. But on an emotional level, they unconsciously decided that they would have to take care of their own needs.

The reasons for this perception can vary widely. Perhaps another sibling came along, and the young Seven suddenly found he was displaced from his mother’s attention. Perhaps an early illness curtailed the Sevens nurturing: either she was ill and needed to be hospitalized or the mother became ill.

Devon, [a successful businesswoman], recalls:

One incident that happened when I was three years old made such an impression on me that I remember it like it was yesterday. My infant brother was having a convulsion. My mother stood screaming and literally pulling handfuls of her long, beautiful black hair out. I remember the hair landing on the rose and cream carpet. It was late at night, and the ambulance took my mother and my brother away, and my father went with them, too. I know that until I was one and a half, I was well nurtured by my mother. Then she became pregnant and was very sick until my brother was born. My brother was sick early, and so I kind of lost my mother along the way.

Sevens are also heavily influenced by the “separation phase” of ego development when they are learning to be more independent of their mothers. One way that children manage the difficult process of separation is by focusing on what psychologists call transitional objects. Having toys, games, playmates, and other distractions helps toddlers tolerate their anxiety.

Sevens seem to be still in search of transitional objects. As long as Sevens can find and move toward interesting ideas, experiences, people, and “toys,” they are able to repress their underlying feelings of frustration, fear, and hurt. But if, for whatever reasons, Sevens are unable to find any adequate transitional objects, their anxiety and emotional conflicts crowd into conscious awareness. As quickly as possible, they attempt to manage their panicky feelings by finding another distraction. Of course, the more actual deprivation and frustration the Seven child suffered, the more intensely the adult Seven will need to “occupy their mind” with a variety of distractions.

Sources of Compilation

Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View - Claudio Naranjo
27 Characters in Search of a Self: Experiences of Transformation in the Light of the Enneagram - Claudio Naranjo
From Fixation to Freedom: the Enneagram of Liberation - Eli Jaxon-Bear
The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul - Sandra Maitri
The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life - Helen Palmer
The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self Knowledge - Beatrice Chestnut
Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (Revised Edition) - Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson
The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types - Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson
https://enneagramexplained.com/wounding-messages-of-each-enneagram-type
https://psychreel.com/enneagram-childhood-wounds
https://www.psychologyjunkie.com/2020/03/10/the-childhood-wounds-of-every-enneagram-type

Gut Triad: E8, E9, E1

Enneagram Eight

Claudio Naranjo on E8

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E8

Sandra Maitri on E8

Helen Palmer on E8

Beatrice Chestnut on E8

Riso-Hudson on E8

Enneagram Nine

Claudio Naranjo on E9

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E9

Sandra Maitri on E9

Helen Palmer on E9

Beatrice Chestnut on E9

Riso-Hudson on E9

Enneagram One

Claudio Naranjo on E1

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E1

Sandra Maitri on E1

Helen Palmer on E1

Beatrice Chestnut on E1

Riso-Hudson on E1

Heart Triad: E2, E3, E4

Enneagram Two

Claudio Naranjo on E2

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E2

Sandra Maitri on E2

Helen Palmer on E2

Beatrice Chestnut on E2

Riso-Hudson on E2

Enneagram Three

Claudio Naranjo on E3

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E3

Sandra Maitri on E3

Helen Palmer on E3

Beatrice Chestnut on E3

Riso-Hudson on E3

Enneagram Four

Claudio Naranjo on E4

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E4

Sandra Maitri on E4

Helen Palmer on E4

Beatrice Chestnut on E4

Riso-Hudson on E4

Head Triad: E5, E6, E7

Enneagram Five

Claudio Naranjo on E5

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E5

Sandra Maitri on E5

Helen Palmer on E5

Beatrice Chestnut on E5

Riso-Hudson on E5

Enneagram Six

Claudio Naranjo on E6

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E6

Sandra Maitri on E6

Helen Palmer on E6

Beatrice Chestnut on E6

Riso-Hudson on E6

Enneagram Seven

Claudio Naranjo on E7

Eli Jaxon-Bear on E7

Sandra Maitri on E7

Helen Palmer on E7

Beatrice Chestnut on E7

Riso-Hudson on E7

Sources of Compilation