The Wisdom of the Enneagram

by Don Richard Riso

In other words, the Harmonic Groups tell us how we cope with conflict and difficulty: how we respond when we do not get what we want.

The Positive Outlook Group is composed of types Nine, Two, and Seven. All three respond to conflict and difficulty by adopting, as much as possible, a “positive attitude,” reframing disappointment in some positive way. They want to emphasize the uplifting aspects of life and to look at the bright side of things. These types are morale-builders who enjoy helping other people feel good because they want to stay feeling good themselves (“I don’t have a problem).

The Competency Group is composed of types Three, One, and Five. These people have learned to deal with difficulty by putting aside their personal feelings and striving to be objective, effective, and competent. They put their subjective needs and feelings on the back burner; they try to solve problems logically and expect others to do the same.

The Reactive Group is composed of types Six, Four, and Eight. These types react emotionally to conflicts and problems and have difficulties knowing how much to trust other people: “I need you to know how I feel about this.” When problems arise, these types look for an emotional response from others that mirrors their concern. In conflicts, the reactive types want the other person to match their emotional state. “This is really bothering me! It should bother you, too!” The types in this group have strong likes and dislikes. If there is a problem, others are going to hear about it. In conflicts, they need to deal with their feelings first, and usually once they are able to do so, things can blow over fairly quickly and permanently. If they are not able to vent their feelings, however, these types can become increasingly resentful and vindictive.

The Reactive Group types also have difficulty balancing their need for independence and self-determination with their need to be nurtured and supported by others. They simultaneously trust and distrust others: to accept the support and affection of others is a deep desire for these types, but to do so feels like losing control of themselves and of their circumstances. They fear being betrayed and need feedback from people in order to know where others stand toward them. They are either looking for advice and direction (“parenting”) or defying it (rebelling). Subconsciously, Fours want to be parented, whereas Eights want to play the role of parent and provider. Sixes want it both ways, sometimes being the parent, sometimes being parented by someone else.

HARMONIC GROUPS AT A GLANCE The Positive Outlook Group: Deny that they have any problems Nine: “What problem? I don’t think there is a problem.” Two: “You have a problem. I am here to help you.” Seven: “There may be a problem, but I’m fine.” The Competency Group: Cut off feelings and solve problems logically Three: “There’s an efficient solution to this—we just need to get to work.” One: “I’m sure we can solve this like sensible, mature adults.” Five: “There are a number of hidden issues here: let me think about this.” The Reactive Group: React strongly and need response from others Six: “I feel really pressured, and I’ve got to let off some steam!” Four: “I feel really hurt, and I need to express myself.” Eight: “I’m angry about this and you’re going to hear about it!”

The Instinctual Variants are based on three primary instincts that motivate human behavior: the Self-Preservation Instinct, the Social Instinct, and the Sexual Instinct. Thus, each Enneagram type has three variations based on the three possible dominant instincts. For example, a Six could be a Self-Preservation Six, a Social Six, or a Sexual Six, and each of these Sixes would have a noticeably different set of concerns.

Most people can easily identify this Instinctual Variant. Self-Preservation types are preoccupied with getting and maintaining physical safety and comfort, which often translates into concerns about food, clothing, money, housing, and physical health. These issues are their main priority, and in pursuing them, other areas of their lives may suffer.

The Social instinct, however, is actually something much more fundamental. It is a powerful desire, found in all human beings, to be liked, approved of, and to feel safe with others.

People who have a dominant Social instinct are preoccupied with being accepted and necessary in their world. They are concerned with maintaining the sense of value they get from participating in activities with others, be they family, group, community, national, or global activities. Social types like to feel involved, and they enjoy interacting with others for common purposes.

Social types focus on interacting with people in ways that will build their personal value, their sense of accomplishment, and their security of place with others.

This is because each Level represents an increasing layer of fear and defense. It is important to remember, however, that all of these fears and defenses arose in childhood and are carried into our adult life by automatic habits and unexamined belief systems.

Therefore, perhaps the first real step we can take on our inner journey is to accurately identify not only our type, but the range of Levels we normally traverse and, importantly, where our center of gravity currently is. The Enneagram will do us no good if we delude ourselves into thinking we are healthier than we actually are.

On the other hand, having serenity and vitality and engagement with the real world—as opposed to our illusions and delusions—in the midst of difficulties are signs of spiritual growth. When we are centered and grounded, connected with ourselves and our Essential Being, we experience a quiet joy that is palpably different from being in a good mood. Thus, at their most profound, the Levels are really a measure of how connected or disconnected we are with our true nature.

“He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality.” ANWAR SADAT

Fearing that they are without support or guidance, Sixes undermine the support systems of others, trying to isolate them in some fashion.

We have discovered a feature of the types that occurs at the bottom of the average range. We call this feature the Leaden Rule, the opposite of the more famous Golden Rule. If the Golden Rule tells us, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the Leaden Rule states, “Do unto others what you most fear having done unto you.” The Leaden Rule points out that each type has its own special way of aggressively undermining others to bolster its own ego. The false belief is that “If I put someone else down a notch, it will lift me up one.” Thus, each type begins to inflict its own Basic Fear on others. For instance, if Eights fear being harmed or controlled by others, they start threatening people with harm and control. (“You better do it my way, or else I’m going to make you sorry. If I get angry, you know what’s going to happen!”) They become intimidating, belligerent, and extremely confrontational.

That their own actions have harmed their security

“Look into the depths of your own soul and learn to know yourself, then you will understand why this illness was bound to come upon you and perhaps you will thenceforth avoid falling ill.” FREUD

The second reason people move into the unhealthy range is that unhealthy patterns were established in childhood. People regress to earlier, more primitive behavior when conditions become too challenging for them. People who have been extremely abused and hurt (emotionally, mentally, sexually, or physically) as children have had to build huge defenses to protect themselves. Under these conditions, they were never able to learn healthy coping skills and are highly vulnerable to slipping back into destructive patterns.

Our transformational work can eventually produce great serenity, acceptance, nonreactiveness, compassion, and an expanded perspective about our lives.

“We have to become somebody before we can become nobody.” JACK ENGLER

To stay healthy, however, requires the intention to be healthy—and this requires the intention to be present and awake. This means that we must use the tools and practices available to us to cultivate awareness. As our awareness strengthens, we can become conscious of another “shock point” between the healthy and average ranges (between Levels 3 and 4) that can be activated by the Wake-up Call that we have already seen. Just as there is a profound shift between the unhealthy and average ranges, there is another between the average and healthy ranges. We can pass through this “shock point” in either direction, falling into the average and unhealthy ranges through crises or life circumstances, or ascending the Levels by consciously working through the issues involved.

Simply stated, liberation happens to the degree that we no longer identify with our ego. Aspects of it may well still exist, but they are no longer the center of our identity. However, the ego must be restored to its natural balance and functioning before real and lasting liberation can be achieved. At this stage, the person has let go of a particular self-image and worked through his or her Basic Fear and has expanded his or her awareness to act rightly on the Basic Desire. All of these processes take balance, wisdom, courage, fortitude, and enough psychological integrity to withstand the anxiety involved in the dissolution of the ego identity.

Everything we need for our transformation, everything we require to be complete human beings, is available to us in our Essential nature and always has been.

Dutiful Sixes suddenly become competitive and arrogant at Three.

The following principle operates in all of the types: whatever is repressed by a type is acted out under pressure in ways indicated by the type’s Direction of Disintegration.

When we are on the path of integration, we are saying to ourselves, “I want to show up in my life more fully. I want to let go of my old stories and habits. I am willing to be with the truth of whatever I learn about myself. No matter what I feel, and no matter what I find, I want to be free and really alive.”

As we learn to become more present, the positive qualities of the type in our Direction of Integration naturally begin to arise. When this happens, the limitations of the average range of our own type become painfully apparent. This gives us more incentive to stay with our practice and to recognize when we are slipping into the automatic compulsions of our type. Thus, we could say that the Direction of Integration represents the antidote to the fixated states of our type.

Fearful, pessimistic Sixes become more relaxed and optimistic, like healthy Nines.

We must always remember that the personality cannot solve the problems of the personality, and until our Essence is deeply felt and is guiding our activities, the personality can do little except to “not do” its old tricks.

The process of integration is not about what we “should” do—it is a process of consciously letting go of aspects of our type that block us. When we stop holding on to defenses, attitudes, and fears, we experience an organic unfolding and balancing as natural as the blossoming of a flower. A tree does not have to do anything to go from a bud to a flower to a fruit: it is an organic, natural process, and the soul wants to unfold in the same way.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ALBERT EINSTEIN

When we fully see, understand, and experience all the self-defeating blockages that have covered our Essential qualities, they fall away like dead leaves from a growing plant, and the fullness of our soul emerges naturally. Our soul, with all of the magnificent gifts that we see in the healthy range, is already here. Only our deeply ingrained belief in and attachment to the defenses of our personality—the resistance, self-image, and fear-based strategies of our type—prevent us from showing up and claiming our birthright.

“I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson: to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.” —MOHANDAS K. GANDHI “The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are.” —JACK KORNFIELD “We shall never have friends, if we expect to find them without fault.” —THOMAS FULLER “The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it.” —JOHN STUART MILL

Ones are actually activists who are searching for an acceptable rationale for what they feel they must do. They are people of instinct and passion who use convictions and judgments to control and direct themselves and their actions.

“Our imagination and reasoning powers facilitate anxiety; the anxious feeling is precipitated not by an absolute impending threat—such as the worry about an examination, a speech, travel—but rather by the symbolic and often unconscious representations.” —WILLARD GAYLIN “No man ever quite believes in another man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man.” —H. L. MENCKEN “A man who doesn’t trust himself can never really trust anyone else.” —CARDINAL DE RETZ “Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.” —ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH

Sixes are most likely to misidentify themselves as Fours, Eights, or Ones. Twos, Fives, and Ones are most likely to misidentify themselves as Sixes.

PERSONALITY TYPE SIX: THE LOYALIST BASIC FEAR: Of having no support and guidance, of being unable to survive on their own BASIC DESIRE: To find security and support SUPEREGO MESSAGE: “You are good or okay if you do what is expected of you.”

The reason Sixes are so loyal to others is that they do not want to be abandoned and left without support—their Basic Fear. Thus, the central issue for Type Six is a failure of self-confidence. Sixes come to believe that they do not possess the internal resources to handle life’s challenges and vagaries alone and so increasingly rely on structures, allies, beliefs, and supports outside themselves for guidance. If suitable structures do not exist, they will help create and maintain them.

As a result, they do not have confidence in their own minds and judgments. This does not mean that they do not think. On the contrary, they think—and worry—a lot! They also tend to fear making important decisions, although at the same time, they resist having anyone else make decisions for them. They want to avoid being controlled but are also afraid of taking responsibility in a way that might put them in the line of fire. (The old Japanese adage, “The blade of grass that grows too high gets chopped off,” relates to this idea.)

A good question for Sixes might therefore be: “When will I know that I have enough security?” Or to get right to the heart of it, “What is security?” Without Essential inner guidance and the deep sense of support that it brings, Sixes are constantly struggling to find firm ground.

(“If I don’t trust myself, then I have to find something in this world I can trust.”)

Until they can get in touch with their own inner guidance, Sixes are like a Ping-Pong ball that is constantly shuttling back and forth between whatever influence is hitting the hardest in any given moment. Because of this reactivity, no matter what we say about Sixes, the opposite is often also as true. They are both strong and weak, fearful and courageous, trusting and distrusting, defenders and provokers, sweet and sour, aggressive and passive, bullies and weaklings, on the defensive and on the offensive, thinkers and doers, group people and soloists, believers and doubters, cooperative and obstructionistic, tender and mean, generous and petty—and on and on. It is the contradictory picture that is the characteristic “fingerprint” of Sixes, the fact that they are a bundle of opposites.

The biggest problem for Sixes is that they try to build safety in the environment without resolving their own emotional insecurities. When they learn to face their anxieties, however, Sixes understand that although the world is always changing and is by nature uncertain, they can be serene and courageous in any circumstance. And they can attain the greatest gift of all, a sense of peace with themselves despite the uncertainties of life.

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.

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.

THE SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT IN THE SIX Responsibility. In the average range, Self-Preservation Sixes attempt to allay their survival anxieties by working hard to build up security through mutual responsibility. They offer service and commitment with the expectation that it will be reciprocated by others. Although they seek secure partnerships, Self-Preservation Sixes tend to make friends slowly: they observe others over time to see if they are trustworthy and truly “on their side.” They are more domestic than the other variants and are frequently concerned with maintaining the stability of their home life. They often take care of the security needs of the household: bills, taxes, insurance, and the like. Self-Preservation Sixes do not easily disguise their anxiety and neediness. In fact, they may use it to gain allies and supporters—vulnerability can elicit help from others. They tend to fret about small things, which can lead to catastrophic thinking and worst-case scenarios. (“The rent is five days late? We’re going to be evicted for sure!”) Self-Preservation Sixes are usually frugal, and worry a great deal about financial matters. Conflicts with others over resources are common. In the unhealthy range, Self-Preservation Sixes are extremely clingy, dependent, and panicky. They stay in punishing situations—bad marriages or overly stressful jobs—because they are terrified of being without support. They may grasp at relationships with such forceful anxiety that they en...