The Biological/Emotional Psychology of Enneagram Types – 2

The instinct/motor centre

Each centre is characterized by a core emotion, which deeply affects the way of being of different enneatypes and how they relate to each other. Acquiring awareness about this and learning strategies to control this emotion is the first step in the successful practice of integrated biomedicine. Types 8, 9 and 1, the so-called ‘gut’ types, are characterized by the prevalence of the instinctive component. These enneagram types tend to act impulsively and to respond with actions to both environmental and relational stimuli. The emotion which characterizes this triad is ‘anger’ and each of the three enneatypes deals with it in a different way: by showing it (type 8), by denying it (type 1) or by remaining unaware of it (type 9).

An 8, for example, processes anger consciously, driven by the need to appear as the strongest. A 9, on the other hand, processes it unconsciously and tends to hide it because of his/her instinctive need to pacify his/her environment. 1’s react in yet another way – by internalizing anger and denying it verbally, while expressing it through their body. People belonging to this enneatype yearn to prove they are perfect, but knowing that perfection is impossible engenders anger, which they cannot afford to acknowledge, and somatisation arises as a consequence …(to be continued)