Fear and Anxiety in Nashvegas: Enneagram Autobiography Class 3 Recap

Before session 3 of the Enneagram Autobiography class, there was a Mexican dinner in the social area of FUUN. During the dinner, we were asked to say a few words about the topic of the class. I tried to win over prospective new students by saying we would be "exploring issues of fear and anxiety." Shockingly enough, a couple of new people came to the class anyway.

As is our way, we went around the room sharing our thoughts. The two most popular homework questions turned out to be "How do I know that I am loved?" and "What does focusing on your differences with other people cost you?", so most people spoke to those.

We talked about differences and the creation of drama in relationship to type 4. The 4s in the room denied being dramatic. That is not the way they perceive it at all and they explained their behavior, rather, in terms of being sensitive.

I recommended the book Emotions and the Enneagram, by Margaret Fringes Keyes, as an insightful take on the Enneagram as a whole and type 4 in particular. It explains how 4s romanticize loss and use melancholy to stave off real depression. Mary Beth talked about connections between personality type and brain chemistry and recommended Riso and Hudson's book Personality Types, which correlates Ennegram Types with the DSM, and a website called something like "The Enneagram: A Clinical Pharmacist's View." It seems that this site has been taken down, but I was able to find the pahramcist's description of type 4 here.

Next, we segued over to the head triad -- the triad associated with fear, anxiety, and worry. I was reminded of this church sign I photographed recently:

We meditated a bit, and having acheived full Presence, were able to fully notice things like how funny-shaped the room was and that it had closets. If you would like to have such revelations at home, follow the instructions on page 217 of The Wisdom of the Enneagram.

We spoke of type 5 and their love of skulls and dead chickens. I found myself talking at length about the "effective" combination of the type 5 propensity for ignoring one's emotions combined with the type 4 habit of making a really big deal of them. It sound like a paradox, but it has played out in my life, and there were a few knowing nods in the room.

For homework, we suggested the consideration of the following questions from The Wisdom of the Enneagram:

"Record your observations about isolation. What kinds of situations cause you to detach emotionally? What are your attitudes about people at such times? About social life? About yourself? Can you recall any incidences from your childhood that you feel reinforced this tendency in you? Did you feel engulfed by others' needs or intruded upon? What would it take to be in relationship with others and not lose your own sense of purpose?"

"Record any examples of times in your life when you let significant opportunities for growth and challenge pass you by. Why did you decide to let them go? Would belief in your own abilities have changed the outcome?

Recall some times when you did fly against common sense and took a chance. What was the outcome? How did you feel at the time?Are there areas in your life now where you know that you are resisting your true desires out of fears or doubts about yourself? What can you do differently?"

Up next: More fear and anxiety, as Mary Beth leads the discussion on types 6 and 7.

To Prepare: Look over pages 235 - 286 in The Wisdom of the Enneagram.

Politics Round-Up

We did not start this blog to talk about politics nor are either of us political junkies, but I am finding this year's race much more interesting than usual. Also, the two most common search hits this blog gets are What is Obama's Enneagram (or MBTI) type? and What types are compatible?

Here is a collection of articles and observations relating politics and the enneagram that I've collected over the past week.

Here is David Brooks on How Voters Think, which is about the tail wagging the dog (in this case, that we make emotional judgments then come up with rational reasons afterwards.) The article speaks to why personality is one of the big things we are looking for when we consider the candidates.

IF you live in or near Nashville, and IF you want to see Bill Clinton, he's speaking tomorrow night (Monday, Jan. 21) at Fisk University at 6:15. Call this number: (615) 254-2200. I'd call it now because I imagine it will fill up. You have to RSVP with your name. There's a web link to sign up, also, although when I tried it wasn't working yet. Here it is: www.HillaryClinton.com/Nashville.

On the subject of Hillary Clinton, I saw a clip of her appearance on the Tyra Banks Show that highlighted her 1-ishness. Tyra (I'd say 3w2), on the subject of Hillary's role in the Lewinsky situation, asked "Were you embarassed? I would be embarassed." And Hillary said "Well, sure, all of that, but also, I was, I was praying so hard, and thinking so hard, about what was right to do." (This is one-ish because she's saying her primary reaction to the situation was a consideration of what was right.) Tyra asked her whether women who find their husbands are cheating ask H. Clinton for advice, and Hillary said, yes, all the time, and she tells them they have to do what is right for them. Which is a very healthy answer for a 1 (shows the focus on rightness without even a hint of black and white thinking or rigidity.)

In our very first blog post, Cindi predicted we'd rehash the Lewinsky scandal; it's only taken two months for the prediction to come true (ok, it's not a rehash per se.)

Which brings us to Bill Clinton. As you may know, while Riso and Hudson type him as a 3, others (Tom Condon, the Fauvres) consider him a 9. This article about his anger issues suggests 3. (The article discusses a Vesuvius of anger, and although the 9s anger is like lava underneath because it's so repressed and denied AND dissociated from, I haven't seen the 9s letting their anger out like a volcano, and I certainly have never known of a 9 who drove someone else to have to take antidepressants, which this article says happened with George Stephanopoulos as a reaction to Bill Clinton's anger.)

Mitt Romney's anger was also mentioned this week -- there is a clip of him expressing some anger towards a reporter who challenged Romney's rather legalistic (but correct) definition of whether any lobbyists "ran his campaign." There's been a lot of talking and writing about Romney's seeming fake -- he's not where most of the rest of us are on this continuum. Here's one from a guy who knows Romney personally and doesn't consider him fake; here's one speculating on what ABOUT Romney seems fake -- he suggests it might be, of all things, his hair. Nancy Giles wins the "not mincing words award" for just coming out with it and saying Romney seems like a sociopath. After calling Huckabee "freaky" (for trying to combine the Constitution and the Ten Commandments into the "Constimandments") and McCain "long in the tooth" and "frail," she is asked "Nancy, you admit that Mitt Romney looks pretty good right?" She responds "He does but I worry about him in deep ways; I almost think he's a sociopath; he flips with the wind. The only thing steady about Mitt Romney to me has been his faith; he believes in his faith but he's switched up on all his positions and staring people right in the face... I don't trust him farther than I can throw him." (I think she meant psychopath, at least in the way I usually think of it -- I think of psychopath as the very unhealthy 3, the American Psycho or Tom Ripley or Ted Bundy type, a really good faker, and the sociopath as more of the unhealthy 8, the antisocial type. These categories are confusing, not least because I don't think either of them is in the DSM-IV. Here is a discussion of the difference; good luck. I believe this is what qualifies as a "clear" discussion of the difference. That said, I don't think he's a psychopath, of course, and neither, really does Nancy Giles, I don't think. But I see what she means and I think most people do. Part of his problem is I think he's running on a message that he doesn't entirely believe. I don't think a person can be a popular governor of Massachusetts AND truly be conservative enough to win the Republican nomination. Or, maybe this year he could have, but too late, because he's already set his course.)

Still on politics but not about the candidates: Chris Matthews of Hardball. I've always loved him. He's a good example of a 6: the questioner or the devil's advocate. He loves asking questions and getting to the truth; and specifically, loves poking through any BS.

Also, and this is completely off-topic, but Ron Paul came in second in Nevada: completely unexpected, and yet it's getting no media attention that I can see.

TV Round-up

As Cindi has mentioned previously, we gather with friends each Monday night for the ongoing project of watching the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series in its entirety. We're now about halfway through season 4. One common thread that runs through a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes is metaphor made flesh; for example, a female teacher who preys sexually on teenage male students turns into a human-size praying mantis, and a mother who pushes too hard for her daughter to succeed is portrayed as literally a witch. (Thanks to our friend Rick, both for making this observation when we were way back in Season 1 and also for organizing the Buffyfest in the first place.) Our most recent episode, Superstar, reifies the narcissism of the unhealthy 3. The split between the two parts of the personality (the idealized image and the impoverished and rejected true self within) are acted out a la The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Forbidden Planet. Superstar may have been my favorite episode so far; it's certainly one of my top few. And Cindi has written about the episode in detail here.

Another show I've been watching a lot of lately is Monk, and I've seen some Enneagram styles portrayed in that. In case you're not familiar, Monk is a detective with obsessive-compulsive disorder. He was thrown off the police force for psychiatric problems, but is still a great detective, maintains a warm relationship with the force, works as a consultant for them, and hopes to be reinstated one day. He's riddled with fears: of germs, heights, glaciers, spiders, and, as is often mentioned, milk, among many others. His 1-ishness is portrayed as giving him an edge because he's able to walk into a crime scene, survey it, and see what "doesn't fit," i.e., inconsistencies. At the same time, his germophobia, hand-washing, and compulsive need for order are played for laughs. It is my impression that a real-life person with as many of the unhealthy 1 traits as Monk has would in no way be as sheerly LOVABLE as Mr. Monk is. (I have very little expertise or experience with OCD, so read the last comment with a grain of salt.) I read Monk's character more as an amalgam of 1-ish obsession with order and 5-ish avoidance than as straight 1. Judith Searle discusses The Police Story as an example of a 1 narrative in this excellent essay on Story Genres and Enneagram Types. She writes: "Related One genres are ... the police story, in which the law enforcement professional is the hero who tries to restore the moral order to society. Examples of the police story include The Silence of the Lambs, The French Connection, Serpico, and Prince of the City." There's also a Great Detective archetype who's 5-ish (Sherlock Holmes) and 6-ish (Columbo): a head-type figuring things out. (Many Monk episodes even start by showing the viewer how the crime was done, borrowing a page from the Columbo playbook.) Returning to Monk: two other characters represent clear Enneagram styles: the Captain, Leland Stottlemeyer is an average-to-healthy 8 (gruff and forthright), while another homicide detective, Randy, is a phobic 6 (self-doubting, insecure, submissive) and plays a typical 6 role, the sidekick. [In one episode, Mr. Monk Goes to the Dentist, Randy drops off the force because the Captain doesn't believe he actually witnessed a murder while under sedation in the dentist's office. Randy goes back to playing in the band (The Randy Disher Project) he formed in seventh grade and makes a music video of the song Don't Need a Badge. In the video, you can see Randy acting counterphobically, singing "I don't need a gun to make me feel strong; I don't need a captain shooting me down all day long; I don't need your mustache, don't you condescend to me; I don't need a badge, cause baby, I am free." In that same episode, the Captain tells someone on the phone that Randy is the single most annoying human being he knows... then he sees Monk walk by gargling because of his fear of the dentist, and says "except, of course, for him."] The other main character, Monk's assistant Natalie, has no apparent Enneagram type. She plays an Everywoman role.

One thing I like about this time of year is the End-of-Year Best-of Lists. In the TV category of MY End-of-Year Best-of List, one show would have crushed all competition, had there been any competition to speak of. That show is Mad Men, an AMC original series that aired for 13 episodes over the summer. It's been renewed for a second season that will start next summer (or that was the plan before the writer's strike, anyway.) It's set in 1960 in a Madison Avenue ad agency. Each episode is set in a different month of 1960. (It occurs to me that that's impossible since there are 13 episodes and 12 months but... close enough.) There are two MAJOR themes in the show: one is how different life was in 1960. Everybody smokes constantly, and they drink at work, and all the married men fool around and chase women, and sex roles are very rigid, and the sexism is extremely overt, and all black characters are in subsurvient roles. The other major theme is character, and specifically, the mysteriousness of character. Our main character (both hero and villain), Don Draper, is a 3, and not just any 3, but an imposter literally pretending to be someone he's not. Another of the main characters, Pete, is also a 3, and in fact, even the characters who aren't 3s have a 3-ish feel, partially because surface traits are very valued in this world (that they're in advertising is no accident.) I don't know the Enneatypes of the two main female characters, Peggy (Don's secretary) and Betty (Don's wife), but neither is healthy and both are very internally contradictory. (Peggy is sympathetic and the viewer roots for her, but we don't feel that we understand her. There are some seriously odd behaviors there, including a huge chunk of denial. Betty is a little less sympathetic: she's a Seven Sisters grad, a former model, a beauty, and a housewife to philandering imposter Don. Personality-wise, she's in despair: a regressed little girl inside a brittle shell. She undergoes Freudian analysis, which is doing her no good whatsoever, especially since her analyst tells her husband Don what she talks about in therapy! Both characters are poised for big change as we move more deeply into the 60s: they are about to encounter Sex and the Single Girl and The Feminine Mystique, respectively.) The big boss, Bertram Cooper, is an Ayn Rand-loving 8; Roger Sterling, the other partner in the Sterling-Cooper ad agency, is another 3; Salvatore (the closeted gay creative director) is most likely a 4; Harry (my sweet, straightforward Mad Men tv boyfriend) might be a 6 (or could be 9, or 5 -- he doesn't get a lot of screen time). It's an ensemble show: episodes focus on various characters, and minor characters are developed with specific details, and great writing and costumes and set design support the whole thing. And Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good" plays in all the ads for the show. I imagine AMC is still showing it to build an audience for season 2; yes, the website says it's still being shown Thursday nights at 10 Eastern, 9 Central. Check it out!

The archetypal 3 narrative is the social climbing and imposter narrative (for example, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Vanity Fair, Gone With the Wind). I love the 3 imposter narrative (it's no wonder we root for Don Draper in Mad Men -- don't we always root for this character when he's the protagonist?), and I also love the story of the narcissistic 3 who starts to get in touch with real feeling (Groundhog Day, Tom Cruise's role in Rain Man.) To read more about enneatypes in movies and books, see Tom Condon's The Enneagram Movie and Video Guide and Judith Searle's The Literary Enneagram: Characters from the Inside Out. I highly recommend them both.

I said Mad Men had little competition for show of the year, and you'll really see what I mean when I tell you that my second favorite show of the year was VH1's The Pick-Up Artist. Even I admit that it wasn't all that good. Didn't matter; I liked it anyway. It's an imposter-by-proxy story; instead of watching a 3 acting like something he's not for personal gain and/or kicks, you're watching a 3 (Mystery) who's broken his technique down into a set of rules in order to teach it to a bunch of head types. (They weren't literally all head types; I'm speaking archetypally.) You can watch all episodes online at VH-1's site. I would also recommend the book The Game by Neil Strauss, in which our hero Neil Strauss, aka "Style," a journalist, poses as a civilian, infiltrates the pick-up community, learns to pick up girls, moves in with Mystery and a bunch of fellow pick-up artists, observes a lot of dysfunctional behavior including more than one breakdown by Mystery, becomes disenchanted with the whole thing and quits the community, then ends the book, but the story doesn't end there --because he now teaches pick-up himself here.

I have a few more tv shows to discuss, but am going to save them for another post or posts.

Merry Disordered Christmas

My mom sent me this. It's one of those email forwards that go around.


CHRISTMAS CAROLS FOR THE DISTURBED

1. Schizophrenia --- Do You Hear What I Hear?

2. Multiple Personality Disorder --- We Three Kings Disoriented Are

3. Dementia --- I Think I'll be Home for Christmas

4. Narcissistic --- Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

5. Manic - Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and.....

6. Paranoid --- Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

7. Borderline Personality Disorder --- Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

8. Personality Disorder --- You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why

9. Attention Deficit Disorder --- Silent night, Holy oooh look at the Froggy - can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - - - Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle,Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells , Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jing le Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,