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Point Five: The Observer
The preoccupations of Point Five include:
- Privacy.
- Maintaining noninvolvement; withdraw and tighten the belt as a first
line of defense.
- Fear point. Afraid to feel.
- Overvaluing of self-control. Detaching attention from feelings.
"Drama
is for lesser beings."
- Delayed emotions. Feelings withheld while others are present. Emotion
comes later, when safely alone.
- Compartmentalizing. Commitments in life are kept separate from one
another. One box per commitment. Time Limit for each box.
- Wanting predictability. Wanting to know what will happen ahead of time.
- An interest in special knowledge and analytic systems that can explain
the way that people work. Want a map to explain emotions. Psychoanalysis.
The Enneagram.
- A confusion between spiritual nonattachment and a premature emotional
shutdown to keep out pain. The unenlightened Buddha.
- An attentional style of focusing on life and oneself from the point
of view of an outside observer, which can lead to
- Isolation from the feelings and events of one's own life.
- The ability to maintain a point of view that is detached from emotional
bias.
Helen Palmer
The Enneagram:
Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life
Harper & Row, 1988, 392 pages
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