[Traditional Enneagram] Workshop and Subtype Panels

[Seymour]

The enneagram workshop this time around was interesting. It organized "type" panels by instinct/instictual-subtype rather than by enneagram type. This gave a very different flavor to the panels, although you could clearly see the influence of type.

The first thing that jumped out was the one-to-one/sexual panels were really intense compared to the self-pres or social panels. Since the panels were grouped by instinct, the one-to-one/sexual panels were like an emotional intensity marathon. The other panels were still meaningful and moving, but the greater intensity of the one-to-ones was really striking.

Secondly, it seemed as though the dysfunction of the type showed up most strongly in the primary instinctual area for most people. So many people struggled with their type most in the area of their strongest instinct. For example, a one-to-one four might have the most drama with their personal relationships, while a social four might have the most drama with groups. This isn't particularly surprising, but was quite pretty clear.

Thirdly, the social panels demonstrated dynamics of the social instinct much more clearly than I had understood before. The social panel participants described how they would track individual state of all the members of a group, and feel distracted when someone withdrew from the group, seemed upset, etc. In most cases social first folks felt compelled to tend to those people who didn't feel included or were upset... in other cases people just felt irritated that they couldn't ignore that information and felt burdened by it.

So it's not that social firsts have to be "social" in a typical sense, and it's definitely not that they necessarily love crowds and parties. Instead, it's a kind of involuntary awareness of the group, including awareness of the state of individuals of the group (on top of awareness of the overall emotional tone of the group). This can lead to their embracing the group or rejecting the group strongly.

This was really helpful for me, personally, since I had long been unsure whether I was self-pres last or social last. (It's pretty clear I'm one-to-one/sexual first, in my five-ish kind of way.) However, I've long described my interactions with small groups as demanding a lot of "processing power" because it's as though my brain spawns a sub-task to monitor each person in the group I'm interacting with. At some point much of my processing power is used up tracking people, and little is left for what I'm actually trying to say or do.

In my case I max out at about 10-15 people... and then people kind of recede except for those I have more one-to-one-ish connections with. The social firsts mostly seemed to think about 40-50 people was their comfortable limit (that seems like an absolutely mind-boggling number to me). So, it seems pretty clear I'm self-pres last and the my social instinct kind of gets overwhelmed and checks out at a relatively small number of people. However, it does help explain my awareness of when people in smaller groups check-out or are unhappy.

I was interested in whether social-firsts identified with that kind of state tracking of groups that the social-firsts on the panel described, or how they would describe their awareness of groups.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Interesting! It actually puts sx/so back on the table for me.

If it isn't too much of a derail:did sp folk describe what their involuntary awareness of others is like? Do they have to actually consciously decide to be aware of others?

(If it's too much of a derail, then it can go in a new thread. Which I'll gladly start with any kind of prompt.)

 

[Seymour]

Interesting! It actually puts sx/so back on the table for me.

If it isn't too much of a derail:did sp folk describe what their involuntary awareness of others is like? Do they have to actually consciously decide to be aware of others?

(If it's too much of a derail, then it can go in a new thread. Which I'll gladly start with any kind of prompt.)

Not too much of a derail at all!

The SP folks didn't really address that, as far as I recall. They did talk about being distracted by (and involuntarily aware of) aspects of "am I currently comfortable?" (is it too warm/cold? too dark/bright? etc.), "where is my next meal coming from?" and things like that. I can ask my SP partner about that, though, although others here are welcome to weigh in.

I'd speculate that whether the SP person was SX last or SO last might make a difference in how they typically became aware of others. Often once instinct #1 is dealt with (by being either met or being entirely off the table), the next strong instinct comes into play.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Also (to expound on my first post):

The social panel participants described how they would track individual state of all the members of a group, and feel distracted when someone withdrew from the group, seemed upset, etc. In most cases social first folks felt compelled to tend to those people who didn't feel included or were upset... in other cases people just felt irritated that they couldn't ignore that information and felt burdened by it.

So it's not that social firsts have to be "social" in a typical sense, and it's definitely not that they necessarily love crowds and parties. Instead, it's a kind of involuntary awareness of the group, including awareness of the state of individuals of the group (on top of awareness of the overall emotional tone of the group). This can lead to their embracing the group or rejecting the group strongly.

[...]

I was interested in whether social-firsts identified with that kind of state tracking of groups that the social-firsts on the panel described, or how they would describe their awareness of groups.

My own understanding of so instinct was that there's a need to feel like a valuable part of "the group", and that's the part I couldn't begin to relate to. I need to feel like a valuable connection to certain individuals, but I don't begin to experience a need to feel like a valuable member of any group. I do experience what you describe above though (except the part about feeling irritated or burdened by outliers, since I usually am the outlier and feel irritated when someone needs me to be something I'm not). I can't help but feel an awareness of other individuals in any group I'm regularly exposed to, whilst never really needing (as far as I can tell) to feel like an important appendage within it. I only need to feel important to individuals I connect with.

As an example of what I mean by feeling like a part of the group, this is something the Fauvres actually brought up in their hour long video about the instincts: if I show up at a party and find out when I get there it's a costume party, it actually wouldn't bother me much to be the only person not wearing a costume. Unless my costume-less presence really bothered a lot of people there, then it would start showing up on my radar. Did they discuss this need to feel like a part of the bigger whole?

 

[Seymour]

Also (to expound on my first post):


My own understanding of so instinct was that there's a need to feel like a valuable part of "the group", and that's the part I couldn't begin to relate to. I need to feel like a valuable connection to certain individuals, but I don't begin to experience a need to feel like a valuable member of any group. I do experience what you describe above though (except the part about feeling irritated or burdened by outliers, since I usually am the outlier and feel irritated when someone needs me to be something I'm not). I can't help but feel an awareness of other individuals in any group I'm regularly exposed to, whilst never really needing (as far as I can tell) to feel like an important appendage within it. I only need to feel important to individuals I connect with.

So, the panel members described it being primarily about the awareness of the group members. Secondarily, the group had personal importance to them, but not necessarily a positive or affiliative importance. One 4so talked about how it was important that she NOT be a member of the group, and how it was important to her that she was outside the group and at least partially defined by opposition to the group. (And part of her ongoing psychological work was seeing about herself, and coming to terms with how constraining those requirements were.)

Being Sx-first, I certainly identify with relating primarily to particular individuals in group settings. Certain people who will reflect back intensity (yet still come across as open/safe) stand out as interesting individuals, where as others tend to fade more into the background. And for me, I tend to be surprised if I recognize later on that I have some group role or function. That's not a particular focus of mine, so if I end up being integral to some group I usually only recognize it after the fact.

As an example of what I mean by feeling like a part of the group, this is something the Fauvres actually brought up in their hour long video about the instincts: if I show up at a party and find out when I get there it's a costume party, it actually wouldn't bother me much to be the only person not wearing a costume. Unless my costume-less presence really bothered a lot of people there, then it would start showing up on my radar. Did they discuss this need to feel like a part of the bigger whole?

I would certainly feel like I stuck out if I were the only person out of costume, but I think I could cope okay (despite a fair amount of social anxiety). And again, I think the So-firsts felt it important to have a stance regarding the group, but that stance didn't have to necessarily be one of inclusion.

 

[PeaceBaby]

I was interested in whether social-firsts identified with that kind of state tracking of groups that the social-firsts on the panel described, or how they would describe their awareness of groups.

Yes, I identify with that -- I would say it's an awareness of how everybody fits and who's not fitting and trying to ensure that the people who are not included have space where their value is recognized or tended to. I can track probably up to about 100 people, the size of a small church congregation. After that, the lines do get blurry, but only because I am one person and keeping track of everything is just not possible since I can't be in more than one place at a time. In a larger context, say when I was in high school, I knew what all the groups / sub-groups / sub-sub groups were and could hierarchically determine who fit where and generally why. When I sing in front of people, I am aware of all the individuals in the space, who's sitting with who, the smaller clusters and sub-groups, who's engaged or distracted, and generally the emotional tenor in each space. This has historically been distracting because singing is more about my space and delivering that which I feel inside myself.

I have been like this for as long as I can remember, really. It's as you mention above, it's involuntary and not something I want to be aware of all the time, although it does have utility. As an Fi first individual, some of the perplexity of groups fueled with Fe dynamics was difficult to parse, and Fe can have a rather exclusionary bent to the people who don't fit in as well, and I have been attracted to those outsiders to help them feel like they have value. That is still true today.

It's like layers and layers and layers of context.

 

[PeaceBaby]

A few extra thoughts came to me after this post. Things that I am aware of:

- when people gain or lose status (status meaning where are they positioned in the group hierarchy)
- what people are doing (actively, passively or unconsciously) that's causing them to gain or lose status
- whether a group is beneficial / healthy or detrimental / unhealthy to the larger groups they're also a part of. There's always more than one group.
- where I stand in any group - this does not mean I want to be a part of or are actively engaged in any particular group, just that I know where I stand and what I would need to do (or not) to affect my own positioning (at least roughly)
- I also notice hierarchy with groups of animals, the interactions between them, the "pecking order" as it were

Note that the awareness does not make me a master at "fitting in" or make me have some special power in a group. It doesn't make me be "social" in the sense of gregariousness. It's an awareness of hierarchy. I feel it in online interactions too, such as the here on the forum.
[MENTION=8074]Seymour[/MENTION]: what were the rough percentages of each instinct at the conference?

 

[Seymour]

A few extra thoughts came to me after this post. Things that I am aware of:

- when people gain or lose status (status meaning where are they positioned in the group hierarchy)
- what people are doing (actively, passively or unconsciously) that's causing them to gain or lose status
- whether a group is beneficial / healthy or detrimental / unhealthy to the larger groups they're also a part of. There's always more than one group.
- where I stand in any group - this does not mean I want to be a part of or are actively engaged in any particular group, just that I know where I stand and what I would need to do (or not) to affect my own positioning (at least roughly)
- I also notice hierarchy with groups of animals, the interactions between them, the "pecking order" as it were

Note that the awareness does not make me a master at "fitting in" or make me have some special power in a group. It doesn't make me be "social" in the sense of gregariousness. It's an awareness of hierarchy. I feel it in online interactions too, such as the here on the forum.

[MENTION=8074]Seymour[/MENTION]: what were the rough percentages of each instinct at the conference?

Huh... that's interesting. I was also reading up on Social 9s, which no doubt plays into some of that awareness, too. For example, a 9s awareness of the wants and needs of others (and the merging impulse) might make one's awareness of aspects of the group more acutely perceived.

I don't remember the exact percentages. The one-to-one/sexual instinct folks were the biggest group... maybe almost as large as the SPs and SOs combined? I think there were the fewest number of SOs.

That makes some some sense to me, since these workshops are self-selecting. I doubt the ratios in workshops reflect ratios in the general population.