Umm sorry...I didn't mean to put you out (???) [note to self - whatever you do, do not respond to OPs that end with a solicitation of 'thoughts.' It may no longer mean what you think it means.]
I was merely trying to account for the fact that an e6 doesn't just suddenly *become counterphobic* like you describe in the OP. <-And that's not merely 'my own understanding.' Any enneagram book with a chapter on e6 will express that same sentiment. People with 6 wings though... wings are believed to emerge in the late teens so I thought that explanation made more sense and suggested it. For example, my sister is the more explosive, 'classic' kind of e6 counterphobe being INFJ 6w5 sx/so. And while this nature didn't take its final form until her senior year in high school...(same as you say)...there were many, many, many, many, many displays of counterphobia in her youth.
Like I can remember being on an elementary school field trip with her to an aquarium where we had been asked to vote for our favorite fish by putting our name tag on the tank. And from across the room I saw that this one small, out-of-the-way tank containing the butt-ugliest fish you've ever seen had a name tag vote on it and in spite of not being able to read it... I knew exactly who that vote was from and why. And yes, she violently defended her underdog fish against the other kid's mocking causing a scene.
So, I guess if you still can't see that counterphobics are counterphobic their entire lives here, I give up.
Lol...I didn't think you were trying to put me out, I was only starting to feel uncomfortable with analyzing that high school friend so much on here (I didn't mean for this thread to turn into such deep analysis of her, but it seems to have naturally taken that direction) so I was like this is my final analysis of her and if you still disagree, I'm not taking the analysis further
Actually, it's good that you disagreed with me and explained it because now that you explained it I do notice that I have probably overlooked something.....sometimes when you disagree with me about something that I have a very strongly formed opinion of, you need to be a little pushy to make me notice and understand your point, or else I will probably just overlook it
Why do you think that phobic 6s can't go from phobic to counterphobic? I did read that in type 6 phobia/CP is like 2 sides of the same coin, but is it not possible that a person who is placed in a new environment (high school) only shows their phobic side and then, after 2-3 years when they have established friendships, starts showing CP a lot but still remains phobic on the inside?
She might have been counterphobic before I met her, who knows....I met her when she was 15, so it's possible that she was always both phobic and CP, but didn't show CP behavior in front of me and other high school friends at first, and then slowly started to show it more and more to the point when she showed it so much that CP was very obvious....when I think about it, she didn't go from phobic to CP behavior in one day, it was a process and it may have actually lasted for months, but for me it was still sudden, because I've sort of formed an opinion about her and when her behavior started changing (ultimately ending in the highs of CP spectrum), I was like wtf is this, I don't like this annoying person, I want my cute shy friend back
So it's possible that she was always CP but didn't show it in front of high school friends when she just got into high school, she was showing only the phobic side for about 2-3 years.....I'm judging on what I've seen and what I saw was her behavior changing from predominantly phobic to predominantly counterphobic, so that was why I said that she herself changed from phobic to CP because I just sort of assumed that her behavior was an image of what was actually going on inside her, but the truth is that I can't really know if she was actually always both phobic and CP, so the case becomes even more complicated now.....There she is, confusing me even now ;-;
It doesn't strike me that her level of health probably changed - in other words, just a different manifestation of the same unhealth, much like a different symptom of the same disease.
At the same time, I would be very genuinely surprised if your friend had never shown any hints of CP response prior to her shift - especially from an ENTP! Do you think it's possible that you just didn't get to see it much? I know that personally, I rarely show my bursts of CP in public - rather, they're generally reserved for the few people closest to me during argument of issues I care deeply about. Yet they are there, and they also tend to fuel some longterm behavior on my part that would perhaps be surprising otherwise - but I tend to keep it more under wraps than phobic response, perhaps in part because I grew up in a very supportive and Fe-valuing household.
The more I think about it, the more I conclude that she was probably always CP, but didn't show it when she started going to high school and was surrounded by a bunch of strangers.
When she had already established friendships, she probably started to show the CP side more and more (she was intelligent and was probably aware that her CP moments were unpleasant and if she showed them early on, she probably wouldn't have made many friends)
I guess that I'm guilty of assuming that she wasn't CP before she actually started showing it in front of me (I usually assume that other people are what they seem to be, which is not always the case), what she showed in high school environment was a strong phobic and then after some time, when CP started to show more and more, I was kind of shocked (back then I wasn't aware that this was phobia and CP, I just thought that she went from shy to crazy)
I met her when she was 15, so it's very possible that she was actually always both phobic and CP.
Also, I agree that her level of health didn't change, and that it was just a different manifestation of the same unhealth.