Emotions and the Enneagram
Working Through Your Shadow Life Script
Molysdatur Publications, Muir Beach, California,1992, 164 pages
| Special Gift: | Warmth and ability to help people feel comfortable |
| Self-Definition: | "I'm helpful." |
| Shadow Issue: | Parasitic pride |
| Rejected Element: | One's own needs |
| Addiction: | Service/manipulation |
| Strength Needed: | Appropriate self-value (Humility) |
| Defense Mechanism: | Repression |
| Psychological Disturbance: | Hysteria/dependent personality |
| Talk Style: | Help and advice |
| Preoccupations Include: | Gaining approval and avoiding rejection, pride in the importance of
oneself in relationships. Submission to a powerful other, then identifying with the other to avoid feeling depressed. Concern about limited personal freedom. Altering oneself to meet the needs of others. Empathy with others' feelings; adapting to their wishes as a way of assuring their love. |
| Focus: | Personal emphasis on privelege ("me first"). Couple emphasis on aggression/seduction. Community emphasis on ambition. |
| Life Task: | To move from dependence on approval to knowledge of personal strength to meet one's own needs. This usually requires personal loss. The resulting depression can lead to a more accurate self-assessment and understanding of tasks. |
| Special Gift: | The ability to get things done |
| Self-Definition: | "I'm successful." |
| Shadow Issue: | Lying |
| Rejected Element: | Failure |
| Addiction: | Efficiency |
| Strength Needed: | Truth/hope |
| Defense Mechanism: | Identification |
| Psychological Disturbance: | Workaholism; manic-depression |
| Talk Style: | Self-promotion |
| Preoccupations Include: | Identification with competitive achievement. Belief that they get love for what they produce rather than what they are. Poor access to personal feelings. Constant adjustment of image to gain approval. Self-deception to maintain a public image. Identification of self with role or job over family concerns. Submission by conforming to other's values, then avoidance of depression by achieving the other's approval. Convergent thinking: a multi-track mind focused on a single goal. |
| Focus: | Personal emphasis on security. Couple emphasis on masculinity/femininity. Community emphasis on prestige. |
| Life Task: | To stop valuing themselves in terms of their performance. Usually only a significant failure can precipitate the depression needed to sufficiently slow down and question what they are doing, and why. Hope comes with the practice of truth and in glimpsing a larger vision of lawfulness. |
| Special Gift: | The ability to create beauty |
| Self-Definition: | "I'm unique. I conform to standards of excellence." |
| Shadow Issue: | Envy |
| Rejected Element: | The "commonplace" |
| Addiction: | Superior standards with contempt for lesser standards |
| Strength Needed: | Contentment |
| Defense Mechanism: | Introjection, artistic sublimation |
| Psychological Disturbance: | Depression and manic-depression |
| Talk Style: | Sad Stories |
| Preoccupations Include: | Attraction to the distant and unavailable. Attachment to a melancholy mood, impatience with flat ordinary feelings, need to re-intensify through loss, fantasy and drama. Submission to loss and limitation by making a transformed version. Luxury and artistic good taste as bolsters to self-esteem. Push-pull attention focus on negative features of what one has and positive features of what is not available, reinforcing feelings of abandonment and loss but also fostering sensitivity to emotion and pain in others with abiltity to support them in crisis. |
| Focus: | Personal emphasis on reckless, defensive action. Couple emphasis on competition. Community emphasis on shame. |
| Life Task: | To achieve a sense of the reality of now and to attain the strength of contentment and balance in harmony with all that is. Uncovering the grief and sadness under the creative displacement allows competition. |
| Special Gift: | Knowing "what's so" |
| Self-Definition: | "I'm perceptive." |
| Shadow Issue: | Miserliness |
| Rejected Element: | Meaninglessness |
| Addiction: | Knowledge |
| Strength Needed: | Detachment |
| Defense Mechanism: | Isolation (compartmentalization) |
| Psychological Disturbance: | Avoidant personality |
| Talk Style: | Dissertations |
| Preoccupations Include: | Concern with privacy; withdrawal; social/antisocial dichotomy. Restricting and minimizing personal needs as a way of non-involvement. Need to control unpredictable feelings and reactions. Sectioning off emotionally charged experiences into predetermined time units; setting boundaries. Interest in using analytical knowledge as a substitute for emotional experience. Confusion between spiritual non-attachment and personal withdrawal from emotional pain. "Outside observer" point of view leading some to feel isolated from the events of one's own life and others to a point of view detached from the biases of personal fear or desire. |
| Focus: | Personal emphasis on "home as castle." Couple emphasis on confidence. Community emphasis on totems, identifying with "those who know." |
| Life Task: | Gaining knowledge of life by stepping into action from being an observer, taking in exactly what is needed and letting the rest go. |
| Special Gift: | Care and concern for the Group |
| Self-Definition: | "I'm loyal. I'm cautious." |
| Shadow Issue: | Cowardice or counter-phobic reckless courage |
| Rejected Element: | Originality |
| Addiction: | Security |
| Strength Needed: | Courage (Faith) |
| Defense Mechanism: | Projection |
| Psychological Disturbance: | Anxiety disorder, paranoid schizophrenia |
| Talk Style: | Group Thought |
| Preoccupations Include: | High alertness to danger. Phobic/counter-phobic authority problems; submit or rebel; push or surrender. Identity with the underdog. Procrastination; thinking replaces doing. Amnesia regarding success and pleasure. Suspicion of other's motives, fear of hositility and possible eruption of one's own negative reactions. Skepticism and doubt. Scanning the environment to look for clues that might explain inner sense of threat. |
| Focus: | Personal emphasis on warmth/affection. Couple emphasis on strength/beauty. Community emphasis on duty. |
| Life Task: | To achive faith that nothing from the outside can hurt his or her essence; to attain trust and strength of courage. |
| Special Gift: | The ability to create pleasure and make things happen |
| Self-Definition: | "I'm fun. I see the bright side of life." |
| Shadow Issue: | Gluttony |
| Rejected Element: | Pain |
| Addiction: | Easy Optimism |
| Strength Needed: | Level-headed moderation |
| Defense Mechanism: | Rationalization |
| Psychological Disturbance: | Narcissistic personality |
| Talk Style: | Anecdotes |
| Preoccupations Include: | Maintaining high levels of stimulation, many activities, many things
to do, wanting to stay "high." Replacing deep contact with pleasant talking, planning, intellectualizing. Defusing threat; maintaining a smokescreen of activity. Charm as a first line of defense against fear. Talking one's way out of trouble. Interrelating and systematizing information such that commitments necessarily include loopholes and other backup options which can lead to rationalized escape from difficult commitments, but can also lead to an ability to synthesize unusual connections and parallels between what appear to be antagonistic points of view. Superiority/inferiority dichotomy. |
| Focus: | Personal emphasis on savoring life. Couple emphasis on being with people of like-mind. Community emphasis on limits and obligations. |
| Life Task: | To work with a sense of proportion and balance anchored in the now. Pain of any kind can serve as a steadying point of focus. |
| Special Gift: | Care for the Underdog |
| Self-Definition: | "I can do. I'm powerful." |
| Shadow Issue: | Lust -- use of others as objects |
| Rejected Element: | Weakness |
| Addiction: | Arrogant justice |
| Strength Needed: | Trust |
| Defense Mechanism: | Denial |
| Psychological Disturbance: | Sociopath |
| Talk Style: | Imperatives |
| Preoccupations Include: | Aggression and impulse control. Puritan/hedonist dichotomy. Control of personal objects, space and people likely to influence the EIGHT'S life. Excessive (to others) self-presentation -- too much, too loud. Tendency to see things in extremes, people either strong or weak, fair or unfair, with no middle ground; an automatic denial of other points of view in favor of single "legitimate" opinion that supports the EIGHT'S security. Concern with justice and the protection of others. |
| Focus: | Personal emphasis on satisfactory survival. Couple emphasis on possession/surrender. Community emphasis on friendship. |
| Life Task: | Realization of truth and justice in each moment's flow of reality. Accepting one's personal weakness offers the possibility of integration. |
| Special Gift: | Peaceful awareness |
| Self-Definition: | "I'm easy-going." |
| Shadow Issue: | Laziness |
| Rejected Element: | Conflict |
| Addiction: | Indecision/Inaction |
| Strength Needed: | Action (Love) |
| Defense Mechanism: | Narcotization; "shutting off the juice" |
| Psychological Disturbance: | Obsessive/passive aggressive personality |
| Talk Style: | Epic stories |
| Preoccupations Include: | Dichotomy of belief/doubt. Dichotomy of mystical/worldly concerns. Replacing essential needs with inessential substitutes. Indecisiveness and difficulty saying "no". Containment of physical energy and anger. Control through stubbornness and passive aggression. Fluctuating attitudes, oppositional behavior and emotions -- either to adhere to the desires of others as a means of gaining security, or to be defiantly resistant and independent. Difficulty in maintaining a personal point of view, but ability to recognize and support another's position. Fight-phobic: avoiding conflict by not knowing the anger wihtin. |
| Focus: | Personal emphasis on appetite. Couple emphasis on union. Community emphasis on participation. |
| Life Task: | To experience love guided by the strength of taking actions appropriate to any given situation, including conflict. |
| Special Gift: | A vision of balance and completion |
| Self-Definition: | "I'm right. I'm hardworking." |
| Shadow Issue: | Wrath |
| Rejected Element: | Direct expression of anger |
| Addiction: | Perfection |
| Strength Needed: | Forebearance, serenity |
| Defense Mechanism: | Reaction formation |
| Psychological Disturbance: | Compulsive personality |
| Talk Style: | Preach and teach |
| Preoccupations Include: | Demanding internal standards. Difficulty acknowledging personal desires that conflict with these standards of correctness. Comparing self to others and concern about criticism. Compulsive worry about wrong decisions. Self-righteous displacement of anger towards what appear to be legitimate outside targets. Focus on error (which can develop superb powers of criticism, including humor). Conflict between rigidity and sensitivity. |
| Focus: | Personal emphasis on worry. Couple emphasis on jealousy. Community emphasis on consistency and firmness. |
| Life Task: | To achieve a sense of serenity with a body secure in its capacities. As projections are worked through and resentment has been tamed, compassion becomes possible. |
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Last modified: 02/19/96