The Wisdom of the Enneagram

by Don Richard Riso

Integrating Fours also understand that acceptance is the key to letting go of their past and creatively engaging with their lives in the present.

Type Four reveals to us the fundamental truth that our true self is not a thing with fixed attributes, it is an ever-transforming, ever-renewing process.

PERSONALITY TYPE FIVE: THE INVESTIGATOR BASIC FEAR: Of being helpless, useless, incapable (overwhelmed) BASIC DESIRE: To be capable and competent SUPEREGO MESSAGE: “You are good or okay if you have mastered something.” The Intense, Cerebral Type: Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated

Fives want to find out why things are the way they are.

Behind Fives’ relentless pursuit of knowledge are deep insecurities about their ability to function successfully in the world.

Their belief is that from the safety of their minds, they will eventually figure out how to do things—and one day rejoin the world.

Knowledge, understanding, and insight are thus highly valued by Fives, because their identity is built around having ideas and being someone who has something unusual and insightful to say.

Investigating unknown territory—knowing something that others do not know, or creating something that no one has ever experienced—allows Fives to have a niche for themselves that no one else occupies.

Many more Fives, however, have become lost in the byzantine complexities of their own thought processes, becoming merely eccentric and socially isolated.

the challenge to Fives is to understand that they can pursue whatever questions or problems spark their imaginations and maintain relationships, take proper care of themselves, and do all of the things that are the hallmarks of a healthy life.

While Fives’ imaginations can be a source of creativity and self-esteem, living there almost exclusively fuels their anxieties about themselves and the world.

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.

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.

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.

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.

adult Fives go through life avoiding the things they most want, repressing their longing and finding substitute pleasures in their interests, hobbies, and creativity.

THE FIVE WITH A FOUR-WING: THE ICONOCLAST

Curiosity and perceptiveness combine in this subtype with the desire to express a unique, personal vision.

They are whimsical and inventive: their tinkering with familiar forms can lead to startling innovations. Often drawn to the arts, they use the imagination more than the analytic, systematic parts of their minds.

people of this subtype struggle with intense feelings that can create difficulties in sustaining efforts and in working with others. They are more independent than the other subtype and resist having structures imposed on them.

THE FIVE WITH A SIX-WING: THE PROBLEM-SOLVER

Observation combined with organization and detail gives people of this subtype the ability to draw meaningful conclusions from miscellaneous facts and to make predictions based on those conclusions.

They can be more argumentative than the other subtype and more defensive in their views. They tend to be aggressive and to actively antagonize people who disagree with them.

Self-Preservation Fives attempt to gain independence and separation by reducing their needs. They are highly conscious of their energy expenditures, considering what activities and pursuits they will take on, and questioning whether they will have sufficient internal resources to meet them. If not, activities will be dropped.

Although they can be friendly and talkative, they are slow to engage with others and often feel drained by social interactions. They then need time in their home space to recharge their batteries. They can be extremely resentful of having expectations placed on them.

They are also the most emotionally detached variant of Type Five.

Social Fives engage with others and find a social niche for themselves through their knowledge and skill.

The most intellectual type of Five, Social Fives are often drawn to academics, science, and other forms of guruhood.

Sexual Fives like sharing secret information with their intimates.

Sexual Fives are driven to engage intensely with people, although often with anxiety and a tendency to withdraw at a moments notice.

when romantically interested in someone, they can become extremely open and merged, more like Nines. On the other, when they feel unappreciated or misunderstood, they can quickly become emotionally distant. Powerful connections with others alternate with long periods of isolation.

Whenever Fives feel overwhelmed by people or circumstances, instantly and reflexively they detach from direct engagement with their senses and emotions and retreat into their minds. In effect, they are trying to find a safe vantage point from which they can more objectively assess their situation.

When Fives move into their heads in this way, they cease connecting directly with their experience and instead become more engaged with their mental commentary on the experience.

As Fives become more insecure, they find it more and more difficult to relate to other people except through the role of being an Expert.

The Passion of the Five (their “Capital Sin”) is avarice, a particular emotional distortion resulting from their feeling that they are small and incapable of defending themselves in the world.

Fives feel that they must spend most of their time developing their ideas and interests, they do not want anyone to take too much of their time or attention.

Fives often feel crowded and overwhelmed by the expectations of others.

Average Fives often get locked into what we call preparation mode. They gather more and more information, or endlessly practice, never feeling that they are prepared enough to move into action.

Fives are not necessarily conscious of their underlying anxiety. More often they simply feel that they are not finished with their project and require more space and time to fine-tune it.

Fives are deeply anxious that their work will be rejected or invalidated by others.

Fives to get stuck for many years. They may awaken one day to realize that they have not lived a life—the...

Fives are not consciously anguished about not connecting with people.

Fives may actually have a very deep reservoir of feelings, but they are buried underground and are purposely left untapped.

Most Fives will also shun those who are trying to help them. (To be rescued is to have their helplessness and incompetence emphasized, reinforcing their Basic Fear.)

The Five’s strategy is to get through life by not asking much of it, while hoping that in return others will not ask much of them. (Unconsciously, they often feel that they do not have much to offer others.)

Fives need to get into their bodies.

Fives at this stage are also highly secretive about their activities. They might seem friendly and conversational with friends or loved ones while harboring whole areas of their lives of which their intimates are completely ignorant. By compartmentalizing their relationships, minimizing their needs, and keeping some of their activities secret, Fives hope to maintain their independence and continue their projects undisturbed.

As strange as it might sound, Fives think a lot about the things that they find the most frightening.

Fives try to control fear by focusing their thoughts on the frightening thing itself, not on their feelings about it.

Of all types, Fives are the most prone to feelings of meaninglessness, and many Fives become deeply skeptical about the existence of benevolent forces in the universe.