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Enneagram is NOT about motivation

Elfboy

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enneagram is a lens that distorts the way that we view reality. in other words, your enneagram describes why and how you are prone to be delusional. knowledge of the enneagram and integration allow us to "lift the veil" so to speak and begin to view the world clearly.
 

Speed Gavroche

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enneagram is a lens that distorts the way that we view reality. in other words, your enneagram describes why and how you are prone to be delusional. knowledge of the enneagram and integration allow us to "lift the veil" so to speak and begin to view the world clearly.

Hell, dude, do you read in my mind or something. :shock: It's exactly what I wanted to say and exactly the title that I imagined for the thread that i procrastinated to create. :shock:

I agree with your point obviously. I hope people here will undestand that Enneagram is NOT about motivations.
 

Elfboy

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Hell, dude, do you read in my mind or something. :shock: It's exactly what I wanted to say and exactly the title that I imagined for the thread that i procrastinated to create. :shock:

I agree with your point obviously. I hope people here will undestand that Enneagram is NOT about motivations.

this is why I mistyped as an 8 for so long, if going by sheer motivation, the order of my enneagram type would be
8>7>4>6>9>1>5>3>2
but when I dug deeper, this does not sound like me AT ALL.

Naranjo, in Character and Neurosis:

Ennea-Type VIII: "Sadistic Character and Lust"
Lust is.. a kinship to indolence... an attempt to compensate for a hidden lack of aliveness.


"Anti social personality disorder"
"phallic narcissistic"
disobedient and defiant
"moral anesthesia"

... guiltlessness, incapacity of object love, impulsivity, emotional shallowness

concealed sadistic characteristics

exploitative orientation

"does not expect to receive things from others as gifts, but to take them away from others by force or cunning"

He describes the most unhealthy 8s as anti-social personalities:
hostile affectivity, assertive self-image, interpersonal vindictiveness, malevolent projection...

"the need for vindictive triumph"

"He is convinced that everyone at the bottom is malevolent and crooked, that friendly gestures are hypocritical... regard everyone with distrust"

He quotes Horney on a "lusty person" (8):

"He is openly arrogant, often rude and offensive, although sometime this is covered with a thin veneer of civil politeness. In subtle and gross ways with or without realizing it, he humiliates others and exploits them. He may use women for the satisfaction of his sexual needs with utter disregard for their feelings....uses people as a means to an end......maintains contacts exclusively on the basis of their serving his needs for triumph....as stepping stones in his career....utter disregard of others' needs...

contemptuous disregard for others...intimidating others into a subdued appeasement...

"This absence of sympathy has many causes, lying in his hostility towards others and in his lacking sympathy for himself. But what contributes most to his callousness toward others is the envy of them. It is a bitter envy --not for this for that particular asset, but pervasive--and stems from his feeling excluded from life in general....
lust may be seen as repressed envy


Now in Naranjo's own description of type 8:

The revenge which is present in ennea-type VIII is a long term one... in response to the pain, humiliation and impotence felt in early childhood.

"a manifestation of vindictive punitiveness"

"power seeking", "putting others down", "disdain and scorn for others"

Their seductiveness, bragging, and arrogant claims are consciously manipulative; they are geared to gaining influence and elevation in the power and dominance hierarchy.

...to compensate for feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness evoked by his disregard of others the individual has engaged in a process of guilt denial...

... ennea-type VIII character fails to constitute full humanness..

...lust, in its impetuous grasping of the tangible, entails an impoverishment of tender qualities and subtlety which results in a loss of wholeness...this reaching, substituted for being, leaves him forever dissatisfied, craving intensity.
 

Speed Gavroche

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this is why I mistyped as an 8 for so long, if going by sheer motivation, the order of my enneagram type would be
8>7>4>6>9>1>5>3>2
but when I dug deeper, this does not sound like me AT ALL.

Well, actually, I could easily believe that I'am a 8 reading that description. Of course, when I dug even deeper, I realize that I'm not one.
 

Savage Idealist

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I think there needs to be an official consensus that differentiates between the two types of the enneagram; the one that measures the human psyche by means of motivation and fear, and the one that measures the human psyche by means of subjective perception of reality. Because all in all, both are measuring different aspects of the human mind, and to trying and equate the two as synonymous just ends up leading to confusing and arguing.

Also, it would seem that some practitioners have written certain aspects of the enneagram in a different way, so that certain types seem to be different according to other systems. But this is to be exepcted of a theoretical framework that seeks to describe general characteristics of human psychology; one group of people slowly developed aspects of the system so that is operates better, and over time create a system that could be considered entirely different to the original, although similar in construction. The Enneagram seems to be victim to this in the same method as JCF and Socionics.

So overall, there really needs to be a seperate title for such conceptual frameworks so that people can acknowledge the different theories without confusing one with the other simply because they share the title of 'enneagram'.
 

Magic Poriferan

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I'm pretty sure I've already reduced the Enneagram to about the most functional terms it can be reduced to. Unfortunately, the required doing away with some of the fruity prescriptive stuff that a lot of Enneagram students cling to.
 

VagrantFarce

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Yes, the enneagram styles are meant to describe unconscious patterns of experience - the automatic feelings, decisions, actions that we take for granted without realising it.

What I find frustrating is how people focus too much on surface traits, saying silly shit like "he can't be a sexual type, he's not sexy" or "I'm not a Five because I'm not very smart" or "I feel sorry for myself, therefore I'm a 4".
 
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Richardsen

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Yeah...
motivations: 4/7.... Distorded by a 6
 

skylights

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i understand "motivation" in the sense of "fear motivation". but it's like an outlier in your larger group of motivations, pushing everything askew. distorting, because you have to put off and/or modify your primary motivations to sate your fear motivation. the mistake is to think it is your only motivation... the answer is to realize it's the only motivation that doesn't align with your other motivations.
 

yenom

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Actually, it is about motivation. I don't see there is anything else to it.
 

Elfboy

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Actually, it is about motivation. I don't see there is anything else to it.

no, that's like saying MBTI is about 4 letter dichotomies (in which case, I would be an INTP and an 8w7)
 

yenom

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The problem is I don't see anything else other than motivation. Motivation decides your personality, it influences what choices you make and where you want to go in life. It has everything to do with motivation.
 

Elfboy

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The problem is I don't see anything else other than motivation. Motivation decides your personality, it influences what choices you make and where you want to go in life. It has everything to do with motivation.

enneagram is not about personality either
 

Speed Gavroche

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I mean, it's called the Enneagram of Personality.

Although, I personally agree more with your OP than with descriptions of Enneagram as a set of inborn personality traits. First and foremost, it's a flippin' lens that distorts how we see reality, yes.

The enneatype is a structure of inner patterns which regulate our outter behavior on a type of personality or a style of personality. So, yes it's about your personality, but the point of the enneagram is that it's simply the
aquired personality and that the real self is behind that.
 

OrangeAppled

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This seems an issue of how people are using this phrasing. I always saw emotional motivations to mean a "veil", as something that prevents us from being our true selves because our mindset is preoccupied with maintaining an ego to deal with false beliefs about the world & ourselves. To be freed of the restrictions of the ego, we have to let go of the false belief, which enneagram helps us identify, partly by using personality patterns in how these manifest in people So I never saw enneagram as conscious motivations that drive our literal actions.

Jungian theory seems to deal with the cognitive aspect of the ego & enneagram deals with the emotional part of the ego. Since emotions & cognition are not clearly divided in the mind, then there's obvious overlap with these theories.
 

highlander

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enneagram is a lens that distorts the way that we view reality. in other words, your enneagram describes why and how you are prone to be delusional. knowledge of the enneagram and integration allow us to "lift the veil" so to speak and begin to view the world clearly.

Yes that's right. However, this distortion causes you to act in certain ways. Motivation is:

Noun:
1. The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
2. The general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

If we're talking about #1 then, it absolutely has a great deal to do with motivation. It's not your only motivation to be sure but it is motivation nonetheless.

I agree with your point obviously. I hope people here will undestand that Enneagram is NOT about motivations.

So, it isn't the foundation for our motivations. It does however had a good deal to do with how we behave in certain circumstances - which very much can be said to be what "motivates" us do do something.
 

Nales

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It's true that the enneagram types are about how we distort reality, but with this also comes a specific personality and specific motivations. These are not your "true motivations" - we've created them to cope with the issue that comes with our type.
Fives, for instance, distort reality by seeing the outside world as too harsh and danger-filled for them (distortion); they then detach and observe (personality), hoping they'll be able to learn how to deal with it from a safe distance (distorted motivation).

I believe instinctual variants, on the other hand, represent our true motivations. That's why we often see variants that seem at odds with the type, such as sexual Fives or Nines, or social Fours.
 

Thalassa

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Yes, I agree. When I thought it was motivation, I thought I was a 4. I'm motivated to be unique, interesting, artistic, etc.

But I'm not deluded that I'm all that unique. What I'm deluded about is that THINGS MUST BE THIS WAY SO I CAN BE SECURE. I MUST HAVE THE SUPPORT OF THESE PEOPLE TO BE SECURE. IF I DO NOT HAVE THESE PEOPLE, I MUST FIERCELY CLING TO THESE VALUES/GROUPS/ORGANIZATIONS. My straight up neurosis is anxiety, and when I was having panic attacks, one of the best ways to get me to be "sane" was for someone very close to me (like my boyfriend or my sister) to hug me very tightly. I am safe as long as I have the support of another. I am a 6.

Integration requires inner centeredness at 9.
 

Elfboy

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Yes, I agree. When I thought it was motivation, I thought I was a 4. I'm motivated to be unique, interesting, artistic, etc.

But I'm not deluded that I'm all that unique. What I'm deluded about is that THINGS MUST BE THIS WAY SO I CAN BE SECURE. I MUST HAVE THE SUPPORT OF THESE PEOPLE TO BE SECURE. IF I DO NOT HAVE THESE PEOPLE, I MUST FIERCELY CLING TO THESE VALUES/GROUPS/ORGANIZATIONS. My straight up neurosis is anxiety, and when I was having panic attacks, one of the best ways to get me to be "sane" was for someone very close to me (like my boyfriend or my sister) to hug me very tightly. I am safe as long as I have the support of another. I am a 6.

Integration requires inner centeredness at 9.

I made the same mistake with independence, making me think I was core 8, but 8 is about so much more than that. I am clearly much more 7 than 8.
 
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