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Enneagram Main Board Archive Triune Brain and the Enneagram articlePosted by Brian C. on October 30, 2000 at 12:22:25:
The Enneagram and the Triune Brain
This article links the Enneagram with Paul Maclean's Triune Brain theory, showing how the three centers and nine types of the Enneagram can be derived from three physical divisions of the brain. From the moment I found the Enneagram and found that it works, I knew that there must be a reason why. What is it that makes us all one of exactly nine different types? How does it work? When I read about the Triune Brain theory-that the brain divides neatly into three sections corresponding to different levels of our evolution-I thought "can this be a coincidence?" The more I read about the Triune Brain Theory, the more it seems to fit in perfectly with the Enneagram. The Enneagram is based around three centers: the instinctual center, the emotional center and the intellectual center. People are divided into nine types according to their usage of these centers. Now let us look at the physical structure of the brain. According to Maclean1 it can be divided into three parts: the striatal complex, the limbic system, and the neocortex. Let's look at these in more detail. The Striatal Complex As well as evolving earlier than the rest of the brain it can be clearly differentiated chemically from the rest. It is characterized by acetlycholinesterase and dopamine. Parts of it are high in serotonin, opiate receptors, enkephalins, GABA and iron. Maclean did extensive research into what this part of the brain did in lizards and came to the conclusion that it controls the initiation and execution of learned behavior. In more detail it controls the daily master routine and subroutines, routinizing, territoriality, challenge, signature and submissive displays, courtship, isopraxic behavior (imitation, behaving in the same way), tropistic behavior (e.g. a plant turning towards the light, imprinting in offspring, the fighting response of a male stickleback to the red belly of a dummy), perseverative behavior (repetition, re-enactment and displacement) and deceptive behavior (e.g. stalking, hiding). The Limbic System Overall the limbic system deals with emotions. Evidence for this comes from sufferers of psychomotor epilepsy. Epileptic auras can trigger the same emotions again and again. Not only that, but researchers can themselves trigger the aura by monitoring brain activity during it and electrically stimulating the site of the disturbance. The following is a list of feelings and emotions that have been activated during epileptic auras (adapted from Maclean1). Basic Affects The Enneagram Centers in the Brain The Instinctual Center Eights are good at acting on instinct. With their daily master and subroutines down pat they know how to act in any situation. The territoriality of Eights can show as possessiveness, and other types may see their challenge and signature displays as aggression. It is often a surprise to others when Eights show their submissive side but this too is part of their repertoire. Eights are very conscious of and involved in the balance of power. Like Ones, they tend to see things in black and white. The Nine comes in the middle of the instinctual center and is one of the balance points. These points are repressed in their own center, though they properly belong here because this is what defines them. Bear in mind then that the Nine character is based around instinctual functions but Nines are not very good at using their instinctual centers. Nines can get trapped in the daily routine, getting in a rut and being afraid of change. This is because they aren't very good at it. Paradoxically, Nines are known for their ability to create and follow procedures because they have had to develop this ability to deal with what comes instinctually to others. Recognizing boundaries and staking their own territory is something Nines have a great deal of difficulty with. Challenge displays are something else they have difficulty with and most Nines try very hard to avoid confrontation. Ones want their lives to be organized and controlled so that everything chugs along nicely as they follow the routine and subroutines of their instinctual center. The One has an instinctive sense of the right way of doing things-this comes from their set of master routine and subroutines. However, they are less flexible than the Eight and can get stuck on the "right" way of doing things in familiar ways and find it harder to deal with new situations and incorporate these into the One's routine. The One tends to perform ritualized behavior-they like everything as it should be. The One's instinctual center gives them an immediate reaction to any external stimulus. The Emotional Center Twos are experts in the field of emotions and naturally tune to other people's feelings and needs, using the energy from their instinctual center to work ceaselessly to fulfill those needs. As they focus their emotional energy so much outwards, they neglect their own needs and feelings. The Three, being the balance point of the emotional center, is repressed in this center. They are not very much in touch with emotions-their own or other people's. Yet they are focused in the emotional center and try to fulfill their emotional needs by striving to gain the admiration and approval of other people. Not being in touch with their emotions can cause relationship problems for Threes-they prefer undemanding relationships with friends and loved ones that are based on mutual goals. They can get into trouble by not paying attention to others' feelings. When this happens they do not like to discuss it as they feel criticism of themselves which undermines their attempts to fulfill their emotional needs by evoking admiration. Fours focus their sensitivity to needs and feelings inwards upon themselves, cherishing their deep feelings. They can also focus this sensitivity outwards, empathizing with the pain and suffering of others. They tend to concentrate on melancholy. The Intellectual Center Fives can look like archetypal intellectuals. They are at home with information: collecting it and processing it. However, they are privacy-loving folk and can be reluctant to share this information with others. They may use their information-processing skills to categorize their lives, associating different people with different places or activities and tending not to allow any crossover. This is called "compartmentalizing." They live in the world of ideas and hold back from the real world to retain objectivity about it, observing it from a distance. When faced with emotion, theirs or others, they like to use their intellectual center to mull things over and analyze them after the event. The Six is in the intellectual center but not of it. They are continually scanning for information from their environment-small clues to uncover threats and hidden agendas. Sixes always plan for the worst. The Six likes rules and regulations-defined procedures save them from having to use their intellectual center to come up with flexible solutions. However, they also rebel against these restrictions. They live in constant fear that something will come up that these procedures don't cover. They like to be part of a group so the group will make the decisions. Sevens, too, live their lives in the intellectual center. They enjoy planning things to do, whether they get around to doing them or not, and tend to lead busy lives. Sevens are instant experts and can pick up the information required for a task very quickly using their information processing skills. They like a hierarchical world that is easy to categorize. Sevens are attracted to new ideas and their ever-active intellectual centers are kept happy with many diverse interests. When faced with emotional pain they can use their intellectual centers to rationalize it away. Weak Centers The aggressive types, Three, Seven and Eight, are those repressed in the emotional center. They are not held back from action by giving thought to others' feelings. They can be accused of being unsympathetic and not listening to people. The Three and Seven can also be seen as superficial and the Eight as simplistic. The dependent types, One, Two and Six, are repressed in the intellectual center. Rather than devoting their intellectual centers to decision making, they prefer to use their instincts and emotions to take their cue from other people. They can come across as relying too much on others. The withdrawing types, Four, Five and Nine, are repressed in the instinctual center. They prefer to hold themselves back from the world to avoid having to deal with it head-on. They can seem withdrawn and aloof. Also the Five and Nine especially can lack spontaneity. Looking at the Combination of Primary and Secondary Centers Instinct needs the flexibility of intellect to back it up or decisions are too simplistic and limiting. The subjugating types, Two, Five and Eight, have the strength of a powerful combination of primary and secondary centers. This strength can work for or against them. Because their tactics work so well for them they can rely too heavily on their primary and secondary centers and avoid working on their weak one. The Two understands the world through emotions and is outward focused. Their combination of emotion backed up by instinct means that they are primarily focused on relationships with others and will use the active power of their secondary center to impose their emotional world view onto every situation they find themselves in. The Five, backed up by emotional understanding, uses the intellect to view the world and make sense of it. The Eight has all the active power of instinct and unlike the One can increase the power of instinct with the flexibility of intellect. The reducing types on the other hand, One, Four and Seven, do not have such a strong combination of primary and secondary centers. It is because of this that they reduce their scope to what is manageable by their primary center. The One is primarily instinctual. They therefore have even more active power than the Two but the focus is less on relationships with others and more on the fundamental decision making of the instinctual center. They are less flexible than the Eight as they do not have such a strong intellectual center to back up these decisions. In consequence, rather than subjugating the world with their preferred center like the Two and the Eight, they will reduce their viewpoint to encompass only the polarized categorization they can deal with using their preferred center. The Four is centered in the emotional arena and lacking the motive power of the Two, turns their emotion backed up by intellect in on themselves for self-analysis. The Seven comes from the intellectual center but unlike the Five, they do not have the emotional backup to use it to explain the whole world, so they stick to their chosen field and apply their intellect in making plans. The mediating types, Three, Six and Nine, are well balanced in their primary and secondary centers. Their flaw lies in their neglected tertiary center and they do not have a strong enough primary center to get by without it. What they do instead is mimic the functions of their tertiary center using their two stronger centers. The Three uses their combination of instinct and intellect to work out what others desire and admire and try to achieve it. Because they lack the ability to connect with others on a deeper level, they try to please them by working hard to impress them and they try to fulfill their own emotional needs with the admiration of others. To win this admiration they use their combination of flexible thinking and ability to act and make decisions quickly to achieve success in whatever field they choose. They may find that admiration and praise are a poor substitute for genuine connection with people. The intellectual center is used for going over problems and situations and coming up with more flexible and imaginative answers than the faster, simpler instinctual center can come up with. The Six will try to come up with these answers using their emotional and instinctual centers. Their emotional center will be looking at relationships and where each person enters the equation, while their instinctual center is asking "Where's the danger?" and "What do you want?" Because the Six does not have the intellectual ability to deal with situations flexibly, they keep their other centers on constant alert, scanning for people's motives and whether there is anything that requires an instinctual response, like danger. Sixes are cautious about accepting new knowledge, preferring to follow the procedures set down in the instinctual center. They use their emotional center to seek consensus and support others. It helps them to be a member of the group. The Nine is repressed in the instinctual center and so is out of touch with their own desires and basic instincts. They use their intellectual and emotional centers to study others to decide the right way to behave and intuit others' desires and goals which they take on themselves. Because they are out of touch with their own instincts, they can be slow and indecisive. They have a tendency to agree with everyone, because each person's point of view is equally valid and they don't know how they feel about the subject themselves. Stress and Security Points Security Points The Four and Five on the other hand focus the power of their centers too much inwards. They are mired in their own centers, so their path of growth is outward from their respective centers towards what they are both lacking: instinctual intelligence. The Four becomes more like the One, who is stronger emotionally than intellectually, and the Five becomes more like the Eight, who is the opposite. The One and Eight do not have the option of focusing instinct inwards as instinct is by nature outward focused. They both, like the Four and Five, need to move towards a point which excels at that which they lack. The One goes towards Seven who resembles them more closely than Five in that they are better at instinct than emotion. The Eight goes towards Two who resembles them more closely than Four in that they have more instinct than intellect. The Three, Six and Nine are already more balanced than the other types, they mainly need to become less repressed in their own centers. However, their path of growth is towards the balance point not repressed in their desired secondary center (going back to Figure 2). So Three moves towards Six to exercise their emotional center and back it up with instinct. The Six moves towards Nine to exercise their intellectual center and back it up with emotion. And the Nine moves towards Three to exercise their instinctual center and back it up with intellect. Stress Points Let's start with Four and Five, the introspective points at the bottom of the diagram. They both focus the brunt of the power of their preferred center inwards. Under stress, perhaps when the outside world intrudes, they will turn this outwards and go to the opposite wing of their respective centers which have more instinctual power. The other wing points, Eight, One, Two and Seven, all react to stress by repressing their preferred center, as it is not doing an adequate job of combating the causes of the stress, and turn to their secondary center. The One represses instinct and turns to emotion becoming more Four-like. The Two represses emotion and turns to instinct becoming more Eight-like. The Seven represses intellect and turns to instinct becoming more One-like. Finally the Eight represses instinct and turns to intellect becoming more Five-like. As we have seen, the wing points react to stress by either using their primary center in a different way or turning to their secondary center. They do try out their neglected tertiary center but only to back up their known strengths. The balance points are already balanced in their primary and secondary centers and only have their tertiary centers to turn to. However, like the wing points, they want to exercise their neglected center while relying more on known strengths. Thus, rather than moving to the point which does not repress the center which would back up their tertiary center, in stress they move to the point which does not repress the center which their tertiary center backs up. Thus, the Three moves towards Nine, using their intellectual center backed up by their emotional tertiary center. The Six moves towards Three, using their instinctual center backed up by their intellectual tertiary center. And the Nine moves towards Six, using their emotional center backed up by their tertiary instinctual center. Other Aspects of the Enneagram Wings It is obvious from Figure 1 why One and Two, Four and Five, and Seven and Eight can merge into each other: as the balance between their primary and secondary centers changes, One becomes Two, Two becomes One, and so on. So a Four with a strong secondary intellectual center would have a Five wing. The stronger the secondary center, the stronger the Five wing. The same goes for 1w2, 2w1, 5w4, 7w8 and 8w7. If these points have more balanced secondary and tertiary centers they will be more like the balance point to their other side. If a Seven does not have a strong secondary instinctual center and instead has their instinctual and emotional centers roughly balanced, they will be more like the Six, though of course with a strong intellectual center. And of course the same goes for 8w9 and 1w9 having intellect and emotion balanced, 2w3 and 4w3 having instinct and intellect balanced, and 5w6 having instinct and emotion balanced. The relationship between balance points and wings is a little less obvious, and balance points tend to have more in common with the points which share their repressed center. However, even though the balance points are repressed in their own center, they have learned to mimic it and share some of its attributes, which attributes they have in common with their wings. A balance point's two primary centers are unlikely to be exactly balanced. If a Nine's intellectual center is slightly stronger than their emotional center they will be a 9w8, with a focus on the instinctual center first (the Eight because they overuse it and the Nine because they underuse it and have to mimic it) and the next most important center being the intellectual center. Likewise if they have a stronger emotional center, they will be a 9w1. And of course the same goes for Threes and Sixes. If a Three has a slightly stronger instinctual center they will lean towards Two, if the intellectual center is stronger they will lean towards Four. And if a Six has a stronger emotional center they will lean towards Five, if their instinctual center is stronger they will lean towards Seven. Subtypes Maclean1 divides the limbic system (the emotional center) into three parts: the amygdalar division, the septal division and the thalamocingulate division. These deal with self-preservation, sexual functions and play, nursing and maternal care respectively. Again, the correlation between the divisions of the brain and the Enneagram subtypes seems obvious. Antipodes This little known aspect of the Enneagram I learned about on an Enneagram email list3. There are three sets of antipodes: One and Five sharing the secondary center of emotion; Four and Eight sharing the secondary center of intellect; and Two and Seven sharing the secondary center of instinct. The antipodes issue for Ones and Fives is focus of control. The One, with a strong instinctual center, seeks to control themselves by controlling their environment and the Five, with a weak instinctual center, seeks to control their environment by controlling themselves. The emotional center is about relating to other people: affecting them and being affected by them. The antipodes issue for Fours and Eights is focus of intensity. The Four seeks intensity of feelings and the Eight seeks the intensity of living by instinct. They can both use their secondary intellectual center as a flexible backup to increase the intensity of their primary center. The antipodes issue for Twos and Sevens is focus of connection. They both focus their primary center outwards, neglecting their inner selves and trying to make up for this in connecting with others. Their instinctual center is what focuses them outwards. Conclusions __________ References Home Page of
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