Also look out for the weakness! 6w7 is weak regarding technical theory and it makes them extremely uncomfortable and fidgity whenever there is even a slight technical or logical fault, the 6w5 is uncomfortable with social ambiguity and people saying different things in different places. In a contradictory fashion the 6w5 is more comfortable with analytical faults therefore their anxiety is from the 7 position.
interesting. my dad (6w5) and i seem to follow that pattern relatively well.
The reason that enneagram sucks is that the traits are not unique and they are circumstantial. There is no real constant that makes one any enneatype.
i was convinced the enneagram sucked for a long time, but i'm opening more to it recently. the most important thing to me, that makes it a realistic system, is that it's an explanation of defense mechanisms. how we "cope" with the world. whereas MBTI is clearer because it manifests all the time, not just under stress. i think that's got to do with what silk is saying - 6 is her flavor of INFJ and not INFJ her flavor of 6, and i think it works that way for many of us because our enneatypes do not always play into our "baseline" thought/behavior patterns. it's the same for me... ENFP is much clearer than 6.
the way i like to think about figuring out MBTI type is, if you plopped yourself as a child someone down in a wide field of flowers on a pleasant, sunny day, what do you think about, what do you do? how do you look at things, when removing as many external confounders as possible? but i don't think you'd get most people's enneatypes out of that because there are theoretically no challenges to respond to in that scenario.
given, i am not the most knowledgeable about the enneagram, but i was under the impression that what differentiates each type is the "core" fixation. morality; generosity; achievement; originality; knowledge; security; entertainment; self-reliance; peace. nothing else makes an enneatype besides that fixation. and the wing is used to bolster the main type, both in terms of augmenting it and relieving it. a 6w7 will use entertainment to feel more secure and also to escape worrying about security. a 3w4 will use originality to garner more status and also to escape the confines of the status game. a 9w8 will use self-reliance to feel more calm and also to escape the restraints imposed by tuning everything out.
(i am more thinking aloud and explaining my understanding to myself than attempting to explain to you, in case that does not come across.)
It seems like the enneagram is a little too vague in that you're probably going to identify at least a tiny bit with most of the types. I think the whole wing, tritype, etc thing adds to that too...it's sort of like you can be a bit of all of the types. But I guess that's basically what the theory is about.
I think of 6 as being my DOMINANT e-type and it's good for me to be aware of what it reveals. But like anything - including MBTI - you can take it too far, and it's better not to...
yes, definitely.
though at least personally i'm starting to see in 6 so many of my traits that ENFP just doesn't account for. i like the enneagram because it gives me avenues to stop my self-harmful circular processes. it's more useful in terms of self-development. whereas the MBTI is more useful to me in terms of interaction with others, learning to communicate across thought-process differences.
It's true, it's often used very negatively. I've seen people say they think it only exists as an unhealthy version of other types. Not true. I'm surprisingly proud to be an INFJ 6.
I'm convinced that there are more 6s out there than are willing to identify themselves as such. And interestingly, a lot of people seem more willing to identify themselves as counterphobic - I don't know if there are statistics about whether phobic or counterphobic 6 is more common. But to me it almost seems like people are more willing to openly say "I'm counterphobic, so I'm aggressive and sometimes try to provoke anger" than "I'm phobic, so I'm inclined to be timid and seek security."
yeah, i think so. and it's kind of silly because i'm guessing most of us are really both. i know i'm really counterphobic about physical things but i'm generally phobic about social relationships. and i can swing wildly if someone threatens me, or if i find a harbor of safety, and i imagine that's true for most 6s as well.
i dunno why it would be seen as more negative than any other enneatype... perhaps because we seem inconsistent to others. i like the type though, it's a pretty good description of a significant facet of how i operate and i might as well embrace it, good and bad.
if others don't want to... well, they can kiss my ass
