The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type:
Receptive, Reassuring Agreeable, and Complacent
Type Nine in Brief
Nines are accepting, trusting, and stable. They are usually creative, optimistic, and supportive, but can also be too willing to go along with others to keep the peace. They want everything to go smoothly and be without conflict, but they can also tend to be complacent, simplifying problems and minimizing anything upsetting. They typically have problems with inertia and stubbornness. At their Best: indomitable and all-embracing, they are able to bring people together and heal conflicts.
- Basic Fear: Of loss and separation
Basic Desire: To have inner stability "peace of mind"
Enneagram Nine with an Eight-Wing: "The Referee"
Enneagram Nine with a One-Wing: "The Dreamer"
Key Motivations: Want to create harmony in their environment, to avoid conflicts and tension, to preserve things as they are, to resist whatever would upset or disturb them.
The Meaning of the Arrows (in brief)
When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), complacent Nines suddenly become anxious and worried at Six. However, when moving in their Direction of Integration (growth), slothful, self-neglecting Nines become more self-developing and energetic, like healthy Threes. For more information, click here.
Examples: Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Grace, Walter Cronkite, George Lucas, Walt Disney, John Kennedy, Jr., Sophia Loren, Geena Davis, Lisa Kudrow, Kevin Costner, Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Ron Howard, Matthew Broderick, Ringo Starr, Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Nancy Kerrigan, Jim Hensen, Marc Chagall, Norman Rockwell, "Edith Bunker" (Archie Bunker), and "Marge Simpson" (The Simpsons).
Type Nine Overview
We have called personality type Nine The Peacemaker because no type is more devoted to the quest for internal and external peace for themselves and others. They are typically “spiritual seekers” who have a great yearning for connection with the cosmos, as well as with other people. They work to maintain their peace of mind just as they work to establish peace and harmony in their world. The issues encountered in the Nine are fundamental to all psychological and spiritual work—being awake versus falling asleep to our true nature; presence versus entrancement, openness versus blockage, tension versus relaxation, peace versus pain, union versus separation.
Ironically, for a type so oriented to the spiritual world, Nine is the center of the Instinctive Center, and is the type that is potentially most grounded in the physical world and in their own bodies. The contradiction is resolved when we realize that Nines are either in touch with their instinctive qualities and have tremendous elemental power and personal magnetism, or they are cut off from their instinctual strengths and can be disengaged and remote, even lightweight.
To compensate for being out of touch with their instinctual energies, Nines also retreat into their minds and their emotional fantasies. (This is why Nines can sometimes misidentify themselves as Fives and Sevens, “head types,” or as Twos and Fours, “feeling types.”) Furthermore, when their instinctive energies are out of balance, Nines use these very energies against themselves, damming up their own power so that everything in their psyches becomes static and inert. When their energy is not used, it stagnates like a spring-fed lake that becomes so full that its own weight dams up the springs that feed it. When Nines are in balance with their Instinctive Center and its energy, however, they are like a great river, carrying everything along with it effortlessly.
We have sometimes called the Nine the crown of the Enneagram because it is at the top of the symbol and because it seems to include the whole of it. Nines can have the strength of Eights, the sense of fun and adventure of Sevens, the dutifulness of Sixes, the intellectualism of Fives, the creativity of Fours, the attractiveness of Threes, the generosity of Twos, and the idealism of Ones. However, what they generally do not have is a sense of really inhabiting themselves—a strong sense of their own identity.
Ironically, therefore, the only type the Nine is not like is the Nine itself. Being a separate self, an individual who must assert herself against others, is terrifying to Nines. They would rather melt into someone else or quietly follow their idyllic daydreams.
Red, a nationally known business consultant, comments on this tendency:
“I am aware of focusing on other people, wondering what they are like, how and where they live, etc. In a relationship with others, I often give up my own agenda in favor of the other person’s. I have to be on guard about giving in to other’s demands and discounting my own legitimate needs.”
Nines demonstrate the universal temptation to ignore the disturbing aspects of life and to seek some degree of peace and comfort by “numbing out.” They respond to pain and suffering by attempting to live in a state of premature peacefulness, whether it is in a state of false spiritual attainment, or in more gross denial. More than any other type, Nines demonstrate the tendency to run away from the paradoxes and tensions of life by attempting to transcend them or be seeking find simple and painless solutions to their problems.
To emphasize the pleasant in life is not a bad thing, of course—it is simply a limited and limiting approach to life. If Nines see the silver lining in every cloud as a way of protecting themselves from the cold and rain, other types have their distorting viewpoints, too. For example, Fours focus on their own woundedness and victimization, Ones on what is wrong with how things are, and so forth. By contrast, Nines tend to focus on the “bright side of life” so that their peace of mind will not be shaken. But rather than deny the dark side of life, what Nines must understand is that all of the perspectives presented by the other types are true, too. Nines must resist the urge to escape into “premature Buddhahood” or the “white light” of the Divine and away from the mundane world. They must remember that “the only way out is through.”
audio clip about 9s
Type Nine—More Depth by Level
Healthy Levels
- Level 1 (At Their Best): Become self-possessed, feeling autonomous and fulfilled: have great equanimity and contentment because they are present to themselves. Paradoxically, at one with self, and thus able to form more profound relationships. Intensely alive, fully connected to self and others.
Level 2: Deeply receptive, accepting, unselfconscious, emotionally stable and serene. Trusting of self and others, at ease with self and life, innocent and simple. Patient, unpretentious, good-natured, genuinely nice people.
Level 3: Optimistic, reassuring, supportive: have a healing and calming influence—harmonizing groups, bringing people together: a good mediator, synthesizer, and communicator.
Average Levels
- Level 4: Fear conflicts, so become self-effacing and accommodating, idealizing others and "going along" with their wishes, saying "yes" to things they do not really want to do. Fall into conventional roles and expectations. Use philosophies and stock sayings to deflect others.
Level 5: Active, but disengaged, unreflective, and inattentive. Do not want to be affected, so become unresponsive and complacent, walking away from problems, and "sweeping them under the rug." Thinking becomes hazy and ruminative, mostly comforting fantasies, as they begin to "tune out" reality, becoming oblivious. Emotionally indolent, unwillingness to exert self or to focus on problems: indifference.
Level 6: Begin to minimize problems, to appease others and to have "peace at any price." Stubborn, fatalistic, and resigned, as if nothing could be done to change anything. Into wishful thinking, and magical solutions. Others frustrated and angry by their procrastination and unresponsiveness.
Unhealthy Levels
- Level 7: Can be highly repressed, undeveloped, and ineffectual. Feel incapable of facing problems: become obstinate, dissociating self from all conflicts. Neglectful and dangerous to others.
Level 8: Wanting to block out of awareness anything that could affect, them, they dissociate so much that they eventually cannot function: numb, depersonalized.
Level 9: They finally become severely disoriented and catatonic, abandoning themselves, turning into shattered shells. Multiple personalities possible. Generally corresponds to the Schizoid and Dependent personality disorders.
Taken from here.
9
THE PEACEMAKER
Overview of Type Nine
The inner landscape of the Nine resembles someone riding a bicycle on a beautiful day, enjoying everything about the flow of the experience. The whole picture, the entire situation, is what is pleasant and identified with rather than any particular part. The inner world of Nines is this experience of effortless oneness: their sense of self comes from being at one with their experience. Naturally, they would like to preserve the quality of oneness with the environment as much as possible.
Their receptive orientation to life gives Nines so much deep satisfaction that they see no reason to question it or to want to change anything essential about it. Because Nines develop psychologically this way, we should not fault them if their view of life is open and optimistic. But we may fault Nines when they refuse to see that life, while being sweet, also has difficulties which must be dealt with. Their refusal to fix the tire when it goes flat, so to speak, is symbolic of their problem. They would rather ignore whatever is wrong so that the tranquillity of their ride will not be disturbed.
In this personality type, we will see the personal cost of the philosophy of peace at any price. Refusing to deal with problems does not make them go away. Moreover, the peace Nines purchase is inevitably at the expense of others, and ultimately, at the expense of their ability to relate to reality. With all the good will in the world, Nines still may do terrible harm to others while coasting along, turning a blind eye on what they do not want to deal with.
In The Instinctive Center
The Nine is the primary personality type in the Instinctive Center—the type most out of touch with their instinctual drives and ability to relate to the environment. This occurs because Nines do not want to be affected by the environment. They have established within themselves a kind of equilibrium, a feeling of peace and contentment, and they do not want their interactions with the world or with others to affect them. Similarly, they do not want to become unsettled by powerful feelings that their instincts would stir in them. Nines have dissociated from the intensity of their passions, their drives, and their anger, sufficiently to allow them to remain tranquil and even-tempered.
Thus, when they are healthier, they work to create a peaceful harmonious environment around them. They may do this directly by soothing others and healing conflicts and hurts, or indirectly through creativity and communication which appeals to the idealistic side of human nature, to innocence and gentleness. In this way, Nines contribute to their world, but also influence it so that it will support their inner peacefulness. When Nines are less healthy, they maintain peace for themselves by ignoring those aspects of the environment which they find disturbing or upsetting. Eventually, this can lead to a highly dissociated approach to life in which Nines do not relate to others or the environment as they really are, but instead relate to an inner, idealized image of others which is more pleasant and less threatening. At the same time, if they are "tuning out" many aspects of the world around them, they also end up "tuning out" many aspects of themselves. As a result, unless they are very healthy, Nines do not develop an awareness of themselves as individuals or even a well-defined awareness of the world around them.
Basically, Nines are in search of autonomy and independence, just like the other two types of this Center, the Eight and the One. They want the freedom and space to pursue their own objectives and to be the way that they want to be. Unlike Eights and Ones, however, Nines are blocked to some degree in their ability to assert themselves and their need for independence. They are afraid that such demands would ruin the harmony and equilibrium they have in their relationships with others. So they repress their desires for independence and space and attempt to find their freedom by dissociating—by leaving contact with the other and "inhabiting" the safety of their imaginations and their dreams. They relate to the idealized impression of others rather than to the actual people, and similarly keep their own self-image in "soft focus." They put themselves and their own real development in the background so they can maintain the sense of harmony and stability they feel. This approach can give them a temporary sense of ease and freedom from the difficulties and challenges around them, but if it becomes ingrained as a way of life, Nines risk never becoming independent, fully functioning human beings with clear identities of their own.
As long as Nines are idealizing other people, they will also tend to devalue themselves. It is as though they project all of the qualities that they feel they cannot have onto the idealized other. Strength, self-assertion, poise, self-confidence, and many other positive qualities are perceived as present in the other and lacking in the self. Of course, the specific qualities will vary from Nine to Nine, but all will seek to identify with people who have or express the mental, emotional, or physical qualities which Nines either feel they lack. Most Nines will not be aware of this dynamic, but they will be aware of their strong identifications with certain strong figures in their lives and their repetitive attraction to person’s with certain specific characteristics. Subconsciously, they desire to merge with someone else in order to incorporate through that person the qualities in themselves that they have repressed or rejected. Thus, their problem with instinct is twofold: by identifying with someone else, their sense of self eventually becomes ill defined and incomplete, so they do not relate the to world as individuals. Second, by identifying with someone else, Nines do not develop their potentials. Preserving their inner peace becomes their all-important motivation.
Only the healthiest Nines achieve an awareness of themselves as distinct persons who can actively choose what they need and want. Healthy Nines know how to take direct positive actions for themselves. By contrast, average Nines have a relatively passive orientation to life. They still have substantial vitality and willpower, but their willpower is used to deflect others, to resist, to fend off reality. Average Nines use most of their energy to maintain and defend two boundaries against the environment. One is against the outer environment: Nines do not want their inner stability to be affected or influenced by other people. The second is against aspects of their inner environment: this can include feelings, memories, thoughts or sensations which would be jarring or upsetting, thus ruining their balance and harmony. These boundaries do protect the Nine’s inner world, but they do so at a high price. What they do not see is that they cannot really contribute to others, or even love them, if they do not develop themselves as persons, and that real development requires risking discomfort, questioning or even releasing one’s inner "balance," and sometimes facing truths which are unpleasant and uncomfortable. But this does not matter to them since, for average Nines, personal growth, individuality, and self-determination are not values whereas "stability," peace, and comfort are.
Problems with Repression and Aggression
Nines, like Eights and Ones, have a problem with the repression of some part of their psyches. All three of these personality types overcompensate in one area for an underdevelopment in another. The problem Nines have with instinct is that they have repressed the ability to assert the self so they can be more receptive to the other. Eventually, their sense of self can become so repressed that they are barely functional as individuals, so totally do they discount themselves and live through someone else, or just as bad, so completely do they live in a world of hazy illusions. By repressing themselves, their awareness of themselves, other people, and the world gradually becomes leveled out so that nothing can bother them. They become disengaged—at peace, but unrelated to the world.
While there is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to be at peace, the problem is that average to unhealthy Nines tend to go too far to avoid all exertion and conflict. They do not see that it is sometimes necessary to assert themselves, since Nines equate self-assertion with aggression, as if asserting themselves automatically threatens their relationship with others. In truth, they also are afraid of asserting themselves because to do so allows powerful feelings to surge through them, and powerful feelings are not helpful in maintaining a state of numb peacefulness. The result is that Nines repress their aggressive impulses so thoroughly that eventually, they are not aware of having them. However, just because they are not aware of their aggressions does not mean that these feelings do not exist or that these impulses do not affect their behavior.
Nines typically "solve" the problem of having aggressions by ignoring them out of existence. When Nines inadvertently act aggressively, they simply deny that they have done so. To a certain degree, the peace of average to unhealthy Nines is therefore something of an illusion, a form of willful blindness, a kind of self-deception. They do not realize that to maintain their peace, they have dissociated themselves from themselves—and from reality. However, the irony is that their passivity and denials, their inattention to others, and their increasing disengagement from the environment are all negative forms of aggression—passive resistance—an aggressive withholding of themselves from reality. Nines are far more aggressive than they think they are, and the effects of their denied and repressed aggressions can be devastating on themselves and others.
Parental Orientation
Nines are connected with both parents, in the sense that they have powerfully identified with and incorporated into their psyches, the agendas and issues of both their nurturing-figure and their protective-figure. Much of their mental and emotional energy must then be used to deal with the keeping all of these identifications in some kind of inner harmony. Thus their inner world is largely a balancing act as they attempt to accommodate their identifications with their nurturing-figure, their identifications with their protective-figure, and hopefully, a few of their own needs as well.
Healthy Nines are extraordinarily sensitive and open to their environment, and as children, they absorbed a great deal from the people around them, primarily their parents. If they came from a peaceful, harmonious household, the messages and feelings they incorporated are relatively easy to manage, and Nines have sufficient attention available to deal effectively with their world. If their early childhood was torn by strife and dysfunction, holding all of the painful and conflicted feelings and messages inside them is almost intolerable, so average to unhealthy Nines learn to dissociate—to remove themselves from the immediacy of their feelings and thoughts so that the inner turmoil they have absorbed does not overwhelm them.
At the same time, they learn to tune out the conflicts and pain of the external environment, a strategy familiar to many children. This is like the young person who blocks out the sound of their parents fighting in another room by singing a song to themselves or remembering happier times.
Connecting with both parents gives at least healthy to average Nines a sense of support and identity because their identity is more or less "given." However, in the process of psychological and spiritual development, Nines may come to see that the identity they have assumed is not who they really are (like Threes) and that they are often dependent on something outside themselves for support (like Sixes.) Furthermore, if their psyches are accommodating the issues of both parents, where is there space left for the Nine. It is as if Nines are crowded out of the space of their own self by the agendas first of their parents, and later of the significant people in their lives.
Trying to find some little space for themselves, claiming some part of their lives for themselves alone, becomes very important. What Nines choose to do as their own may seem trivial to others, but Nines will defend these little activities fiercely. Once they understand the nature of their inner accommodations, Nines are able to let go of some of these habits or rituals because they feel safe to claim their own needs in more central areas of their lives.
Finally, we can see that this orientation compels Nines to maintain harmonious relationships with the people in their lives. Not only that, but also between the others in their lives. As children who had developed their sense of self by bonding and identifying with both parents, the prospect of discord or separation between the parents is terrifying. For young Nines it is the same as having discord and conflict within themselves. Warfare or separation between the parents is experienced as inner warfare or a ripping apart of the self by Nines. Basically, Nines feel whole and good as long as the people they have identified are whole and good. When Nines are healthy, they use their many gifts to help maintain the wholeness and well-being of others. When they are less healthy, they imagine that others are well and whole, even if they are not. Once this occurs, Nines ironically have begun to lose the very people they want to stay connected with.
Problems with Awareness and Individuality
Whether or not they want to recognize it, Nines are individuals and they have an impact on others. They cannot ignore themselves and allow their potential to go undeveloped without paying a serious price: rather than find harmony with others, they will inevitably lose it while living in a dreamy half-awareness in which their relationships are little more than idealized illusions.
The personality type Nine corresponds to Jung's introverted sensation type. Jung describes what we would regard as average to unhealthy Nines, people who maintain their peacefulness and connection with others not as they are, but through an idealization of them. The other person may feel "devalued," as Jung says, for the following reasons:
- ...he may be conspicuous for his calmness and passivity, or for his rational self-control [especially, for example, if the Nine has a One-wing]. This peculiarity, which often leads a superficial judgment astray, is really due to his unrelatedness to objects. Normally the object is not consciously devalued in the least, but its stimulus is removed from it and immediately replaced by a subjective reaction no longer related to the reality of the object. This naturally has the same effect as devaluation. Such a type can easily make one question why one should exist at all...
Seen from the outside, it looks as though the effect of the object did not penetrate into the subject at all. This impression is correct inasmuch as a subjective content does, in fact, intervene from the unconscious and intercept the effect of the object. The intervention may be so abrupt that the individual appears to be shielding himself directly from all objective influences... If the object is a person, he feels completely devalued, while the subject has an illusory conception of reality, which in pathological cases goes so far that he is no longer able to distinguish between the real object and the subjective perception... Such action has an illusory character unrelated to objective reality and is extremely disconcerting. It instantly reveals the reality-alienating subjectivity of this type. But when the influence of the object does not break through completely, it is met with well-intentioned neutrality, disclosing little sympathy yet constantly striving to soothe and adjust. The too low is raised a little, the too high is lowered, enthusiasm is damped down, extravagance restrained, and anything out of the ordinary reduced to the right formula—all this in order to keep the influence of the object within the necessary bounds. In this way the type becomes a menace to his environment because his total innocuousness is not altogether above suspicion. In that case he easily becomes a victim of the aggressiveness and domineeringness of others. Such men allow themselves to be abused and then take their revenge on the most unsuitable occasions with redoubled obtuseness and stubbornness. (C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, 396-397.)
At the lower end of the Continuum, Nines are a "menace to [their] environment" because, like everyone else, they have a characteristic form of selfishness, although it is more difficult to perceive in Nines than in other types because they are so apparently accommodating to others. The particular form which their selfishness takes is their willingness to sacrifice a great many values—in a sense, their willingingness to sacrifice all of reality—so they can maintain their inner serenity. Being anxious or emotionally stimulated in any way is extraordinarily threatening for average to unhealthy Nines because they are unused to being aware of their feelings. Virtually any kind of emotional reaction disrupts the fullness of their repression, whether the reaction is caused by anxiety, aggression, or something else. The result is that average Nines seek peace at any price, although the price they selfishly but unwittingly pay is that they turn an increasingly blind eye on everyone and everything.
As they cling desperately to peace by "burying their heads in the sand," they eventually become unable to deal with anything. In their haste to get problems behind them, nothing is faced squarely and problems are never solved. They become disoriented, as if they were sleepwalking through life. They exercise poor judgment, sometimes with tragic results. Moreover, the consequences of their inattention and disengagement cannot be ignored forever, at least by others. Unhealthy Nines may be forced to come to grips with what they have done, although they will try to avoid doing so at all costs. They would rather turn their backs completely on reality than face how neglectful they have been.
Healthy Nines, however, can be the most contented and pleasant people imaginable. They are extraordinarily receptive, making people feel accepted as they are. Their peace is so mature that they are able to admit conflict and separation, growth and individuality into their lives. They are their own persons, yet they delight in giving themselves away. But once they begin to seek peace of mind incorrectly, average Nines become too self-effacing, complacent, and fearful of change. They do not want to deal with reality—either the reality of themselves or of others. And unhealthy Nines totally resist anything which intrudes upon them. They live in a world of unreality, desperately clinging to illusions while their world falls apart.
Taken from here.
