The Wisdom of the Enneagram

by Don Richard Riso

It is important to understand that, from a certain perspective, the movement in the Direction of Disintegration is just another survival mechanism. Nature has equipped us with a number of useful “escape hatches” for our psyches so that we cannot easily become pathological. The Direction of Disintegration is thus a way of allowing some pressure to ventilate. Acting out gives us temporary relief and slows down a potentially more devastating descent into the unhealthy range of our basic type, but of course it does not solve our problems. After we have acted out, we will have expended a great deal of energy and will still have to face the same issues. Acting out simply allows us to postpone dealing with our problems until a later time. When our personality is under stress for a long period of time, we may begin to shunt so habitually that we may appear to be the type in the Direction of Disintegration. For this reason, people who have been suffering from emotional difficulties or major crises in their lives will often misidentify themselves as the type in their Direction of Disintegration rather than their basic type.