To the OP:
Sandra Maitri said:
Likewise, counterphobic Sixes come across as decisive, firm, pugnacious, and argumentative, and often find themselves opposing those in authority and debunking prevailing trends of thought. They are frequently mistaken for Eights, but lack the Eight’s self-assured indomitability, and instead appear aggressively suspicious, belligerent, and defensive in their attempt to prove that they are not afraid and don’t feel vulnerable.
Sandra Maitri said:
Regardless of the [...] style of a Six, their personality structure revolves around fear. Convinced that the world is an unsafe and hostile environment and that others are driven by selfishness, Sixes — until they have done a great deal of inner work — are fixed in their cynical perspective that goodness and supportiveness not only are unobtainable but don’t really exist. They tend to doubt the positive, not with an open attitude of finding out whether or not it exists and is reliable but with a prejudice that it does not. Not only do they doubt the positive outside of themselves but perhaps even more distressingly within themselves as well. They doubt their motivations, question their impulses, and are basically afraid of their inner reality, experiencing it as deceptive and untrustworthy. This is particularly true of that seat of preconceptual instinctual drives, the id; and so they typically have a fearful attitude toward what is arising spontaneously from within them, particularly if it is aggressive or sexual. It is their conviction of the unreliability of themselves, others, and the world that gives them a peculiar kind of certainty, but one that leaves them in an underlying state of fear and anxiety.
And while this is of course not true for every 6 in every situation, Maitri makes it pretty clear that 6s are not an overly aggressive type in the sense that they
enjoy embracing carnal desires, lust for life and spontaneously indulging in what impulses arise within them, including anger, which is a very basal kind of feeling. It arises from within the gut and body and is related to asserting boundaries and one's will. 6s may resort to anger, or perhaps more accurately, indignation, when they feel threatened and feel the need to assert themselves because they want to prove their own independence, but it's a different kind of anger from the 8. The 8 is angry over things that are wrong or untrue, when they perceive there to be a slight or some kind of injustice done to them or someone else they care for or just in the world in general, as opposed to the 6 whose anger is a reaction to the demands and expectations placed upon them and to free themselves of these expectations. It's more an attitude of rebellion.
My dad is a cp6w5 with a strong 8-fix. I feel like the guy legitimately gets angry a lot of times, it's not always fear-based. And there are 9-fixed 6s who don't relate to be angry at all but can really lay down the law when pushed. I almost feel like the anger reaction of an individual 6 will depend as much on gut-fix as on type 6 itself.
I agree and think this is true for all the non-gut types.
And as to type 6 itself, 6s can be angry due to pressure. They often report feeling pressured--by commitments, doubts, uncertainties, obligations, you name it--and that lends itself to a lot of frustration. As to the 8s, the anger comes from a vague (or not) sense of violation, frustrated will, and one's truth not being heard. So I think the important here is the background of why anger happens--of course, there are things that piss off everyone, so you have to approach it with common sense.
I think the bolded is important because the anger of the 8 is more existential. It's more just a general anger at the world for not being the way it ought to be and the 8 has to set it straight, to make it just again. All the gut types are concerned about "being", how things are, the state of things, as opposed to head types, that are concerned with the perception of things, how to understand something.
Furthermore, the core emotion for each emotional center will be true for the types as well, where 8s will be driven as anger not just in the sense of feeling angry often and easily and embracing anger as an emotion, as much as they are driven by an existential sense of anger that goes beyond being angry at anything directly tangible and something that is currently occurring in the present moment e.g. getting pissed at someone or something. It's more that immediate feelings of anger simply tap into this deeper existential anger, an anger directed at the very state of the world itself. Similarly then, 6s have a fundamental sense of existential anxiety that underlies all their thoughts and actions, a sense that one can never truly be certain of the state of the world and it creates anxiety.
Interesting. I'm starting to understand the difference and I recognise it in various people. But I wonder if it's the cp that makes your dad's anger seem less fear-based. I mean, in a sense, anger is always fear-based, it just happens that the 6's anger can be located/situated (named) vs. the vague, seemingly unknown, anger of the 8.
I've just always found the whole 6-8-anger thing confusing, so your post was very helpful. Thanks.
Why would anger always be fear-based? As an anger type, I can't say that's true at all. I personally find that anger is the first reaction to pain but inbetween pain and anger there is no fear that would give rise to that anger. I find that it is the head types that think it is fear that is the most pervasive emotion. Personally, it is simply that, anger. I can't even put that anger into words because it's so encompassing, so deep and pervasive. It is kind of proto-like in that sense, as if it is the spark that sets everything else in motion. As I wrote, I think anger is actually the most basal of the three emotions for each center of intelligence because the gut or the body is the most basic aspect of the human existence and we see this representation as well, moving from the gut to the heart to the head in this linear motion. Of course, at some point fear does connect to the gut as pure and unadultered fear, not just panic, but fear as a very raw gut reaction to danger or threat, is that, a gut reaction, but as a whole, there is a certain so to say, complication, that lies behind both the head and the heart center that I at least don't experience in relation to anger. Anger is very pure and raw, very simple in its origin and manifestation. Fear for example involves some kind of conscious thought, a conscious level of perception of a threat or danger, and similarly, behind shame there is an awareness of acceptability in the eyes of others, an awareness of one's value. Anger doesn't have that, imo. This is why some authors note that the gut types tend to be the most asleep in the spiritual sense, being the less consciously aware of themselves and their actions, thoughts and feelings. Being a gut type means in a sense to not be consciously aware. It is very much an automatic way of moving in the world. There is a lack of deliberation, of conscious pondering. You just do.
I dunno how my dad's anger is necessarily a mask for fear--he's annoyed by stuff that gets in the way, in a manner similar to 8s. I think 8s' anger is able to be named--it's existential, sure, but there's generally a cause when it gets set off. Usually some issue pertaining to boundaries (e.g., stuff that gets in the way).
I do think this is true for some 6s though, covering up their fear with anger or rather, indignation. I also think some authors conflate and exaggerate the reactive formation of cp6 a lot with 8. In some cases perhaps if the 6 has an 8 fix because duh, they will react with anger the way 8s do it because why wouldn't they?, but overall, cp6 reactivity is more rebellion and tends to come across as overly paranoid and how they try to "stand up" against people they find to be oppressive. There is a sense of consciously felt victimhood and a refusal to be control as in they are trying to say that they actually
can without you. There's a need to prove their competence. 8s don't have that. When 8s rebel against authority it's because it's unjust or unfair and they are utterly sure of their own competence. It's rare for 8s to question or doubt themselves and when they do, it tends to be more in the sense of whether they did wrong, if they hurt someone else who didn't deserve that hurt and how it validates their self-perception of being utterly bad people. 6s don't think they are bad but think they are good people in a bad world. 8s are bad people in a bad world.