The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

by Beatrice Chestnut

For the Sexual Seven, earthly things take effort, and can therefore feel boring or tedious, whereas the mind works so easily and without friction.

ULTIMATELY, AS SEVENS WORK ON THEMSELVES and become more self-aware, they learn to escape the trap of pursuing more superficial pleasures and avoiding the enjoyment of a deeper experience of themselves. They do this by slowing down and allowing themselves to be present, appreciating the value of their fear and their pain, and finding the joy in personal connections that comes when they connect with their own depths.

If you can’t allow for a full experience of your painful emotions, it’s very difficult to have the motivation necessary to do the work entailed in growing up. This reluctance to fully feel pain is thus part of the character of the Seven-like archetype of the “puer,” also portrayed through the depiction of Peter Pan as an “eternal child.” And it’s true that one aspect of the Seven personality is a desire to not have to “grow up.”

Ones’ natural appreciation of order, structure, and rhythm can help Sevens implement their plans and creative ideas, providing routines and processes through which they can bring their dreams into reality. While Sevens moving to One may defend against what they might perceive as the boredom or tedium entailed in the One’s focus on detail, a conscious incorporation of the higher side of the One Point can support them in learning to blend enthusiasm with practicality as a way of making things happen.

Sevens risk getting stuck in the back-and-forth between the overly optimistic, excessively enthusiastic gregariousness of the Seven and the total withdrawal of the Five.

Navigated consciously, however, a Seven can use the move to Five developmentally, establishing a healthy balance between the desire to be involved in the stimulation of the social world and the need to rest and reinvigorate through a healthy withdrawal from the social scene.

Type Seven demonstrates a desire we all have to feel good and avoid feeling bad. The search for pleasure typified by the Seven is a way for us to defend against the fear that we aren’t safe and secure enough; through following an impulse to get more and more of what we believe we need to feel good—food, sex, fun times, intellectual stimulation—we hope to feel a sense of inner satisfaction. The problem is, this satisfaction never comes.

In light of this, sobriety represents the higher attitude that answers the personality problem illustrated by Type Seven character. Through becoming sober, we rise above the addiction to pleasure and the need to escape from pain.

Self-Preservation Sevens can travel the path from gluttony to sobriety by observing and owning the way self-interest in support of the drive for security can lead you to unconsciously close yourself off to a greater realm of experience.

Social Sevens can travel the path from gluttony to sobriety by making the motives behind the things they do more conscious. If you are a Social Seven, try to be more aware of the desire to be recognized for your sacrifice or helpfulness

Sexual Sevens can travel the path from gluttony to sobriety by noticing when they are living in their imagination rather than in reality and allowing themselves to explore why they’re doing so and what’s happening inside them when they allow this.

TYPE SIX REPRESENTS THE ARCHETYPE of the person who, given the fear of impending threat, seeks to find safety through the protection of others or by taking refuge in their own strength.

The drive of this archetype is to scan for danger in a scary world and defensively manage fear and anxiety through fight, flight, or friends.

Psychologists talk about “basic trust” as an early stage of growth necessary to feeling a sense of well-being in the world.3 If we can’t achieve a certain level of faith and trust in our environment, it’s hard (or impossible) to live our lives and develop our inherent capacities.

In society, we find the theme of the Six archetype expressed in power dynamics, “us against them” attitudes, authoritarianism, and all forms of hierarchy.

Practiced in living with an underlying sense of anxiety, Sixes can be calm and effective in a crisis.

Naturally intuitive, they read people well and their specific “superpower” is their talent for seeing through false pretenses and detecting ulterior motives and hidden agendas.

while Sixes are great critical thinkers, they can get stuck in doubt, endless questioning, and overanalysis.

They excel at planning and preparation, but can focus too much on worst-case scenarios and what might go wrong, so much so that they can fail to move forward and take action.

Sixes are the “core point” of the “head-based” triad, associated with the core emotion of fear and a concern with safety.

they often find it difficult to stop worrying about their internally generated negative expectations.

some Sixes may not be consciously aware that fear drives many of their defensive habits.

Whereas Fives become detached and minimize their need for others, and Sevens focus on what is positive and exciting, Sixes try to understand threats and uncertain outcomes so that they can prevent something bad from happening.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The primary defense mechanism of Type Six is projection.

When Sixes “project,” they unconsciously disown something originating inside themselves and “project it onto,” or experience it as belonging to, someone on the outside.

Oriented to detecting threats, Sixes psychologically defend themselves from their own internal sense of fear by unconsciously projecting it out or “getting rid of it,” imagining that it originates in the outside world, often in another person.

This habit of taking the role of a devil’s advocate and noticing what might go wrong makes Sixes good troubleshooters, a role they often play in the workplace.

The Six lives in the realm of intellect, not only as a method of solving problems, but also as a way of “problem-seeking” in an attempt to feel safe.

Naranjo describes the situation of a Six in doubt when he states, “he doubts himself and he doubts his doubt; he is suspicious of others, and yet he is afraid that he may be mistaken.

Ambivalence and indecisiveness are natural outgrowths of doubt in that doubting leads to an inability to emerge from ambivalence and to clarify ambiguity.

As Naranjo points out, despite the fact that ambiguity causes anxiety in a Six, they are the most explicitly ambivalent of all the character types.

Sixes’ tendency to voice an opposing idea to whatever the dominant opinion of the moment is.

This is why the Type Six is sometimes called the “Devil’s Advocate” or the “Contrarian.”

Naranjo says that the “courage” of this Six may be the courage of “having a weapon,” not a deep sense of confidence that things will be okay.

Their habit of trying to think their way through problems by relying on logic and rationality can mean that they don’t own their emotional truth and gut (or instinctual) “wisdom.”

Self-Preservation Sixes feel a need for protection and so deal with fear by making connections with people.

Social Sixes cope with a social fear that makes them afraid of doing the wrong thing in the eyes of authorities by consulting rules and reference points.

Sexual Sixes deal with fear by denying their vulnerability and combating fear fro...

the Self-Preservation Six copes with it through a “desire to form reciprocal protection alliances,” the Social Six through the “wish to find an answer to the problems of life through reason or ideology or other authoritative standards,” and the Sexual Six “through a wish to be bigger and intimidating to others.”

Self-Preservation Sixes are warm, Social Sixes are cool, and Sexual Sixes are hot.

Self-Preservation Sixes seek friendly connections and alliances, and to do this they endeavor to be friendly, trustworthy, and supportive—as good allies are supposed to be.

Like Type Twos, these Sixes tend to lead with affection and accommodate others as a way of forging connections—but unlike Twos, their deepest motivation is to create safety, not to gain approval in support of pride.

Social Sixes deal with the passion of fear and its related anxiety by relying on abstract reason or a specific ideology as an impersonal frame of reference. They find safety by relying on authorities, or on the “authority” of reason, rules, and rational thinking.

they focus on “what their duty is.” In coping with anxiety, the Social Six consults the guidelines associated with whatever authority they adhere to.

“Instead of believing in the person who is right, they tend to believe in people who speak as if they were right, and who have the special gift of making themselves believed.”

The Social Six is someone who, in defense against the insecurity associated with not being sure, becomes too sure.