The Enneagram and Emotional Maturity

After Patrick O'Leary's talk at the IEA conference, Mary Beth and I attended a session led by Edward Morler. It was called "Integrating the Enneagram of Personality with the Levels of Emotional Maturity." Here's some of Morler's bio:

"Edward E. Morler, M.B.A., Ph.D., is President of Morler International, a management training and development firm specializing in integrity based interpersonal effectiveness. His focus is the custom design and delivery of bottom-line, functional skill enhancement programs that simultaneously integrate the principles and dynamics of integrity, emotional maturity, motivation, leadership, and the Enneagram."

Here is my (admittedly sleepy) account of what he said:

According to Morler, Enneagram theory, particularly Riso and Hudson's Nine Levels of Development, describes healthy and unhealthy levels of emotional health, but does not offer much in terms of how to move from one level to the next.
Morler laid out the following ways of dealing with a problem, arranged here from best to worst:

seeing it as an opportunity
coping with it
being antagonistic toward it
being angry at it
being passive-aggressive
fearing it (Morler defined fear as "considerations of potential loss.")
being anxious about it
grieving
sinking into apathy
death

These, he correlated with the Nine Levels of Development for each type. He talked about how, once you have identified the level someone is working at, you can move them up the scale, but no farther up than where you are. Here's the method he suggested: when someone is in apathy, remind them of a reason to grieve (he gave an example of seeing his mom lying on the bed in apathetic depression and reminding her of a house they once had and lost); when someone is grieving, bring up something anxiety-provoking; and so on, until they are in a much better place than before.
Then, Morler gave us another scale of emotional health:

Leader (one who is emotionally mature; when something isn't right, they respond by doing what they can to make it better)
Doer
Coper
Opposer
Manipulator (the most dangerous of people -- a con artist who pretends to be a doer)
Victim

(You can find a lot more info on this scale here.)
According to Morler, if you're not proactively creating something, you are dropping down this scale, which he also correlated with the Nine Levels.
Here are Morler's steps to change when dealing with a problem: (1) recognition of the problem, (2) ownership of the problem ("What am I contributing to this?"), (3) forgiving oneself and acknowledging one's positive contributions, and (4) doing something different.

Here are some of my critiques:

In my opinion, the Riso/ Hudson material does offer a method of getting healthier; it's simply usually dismissed in favor of more gimmicky approaches. What it doesn't offer is a way of moving another person between levels, but Riso and Hudson would probably say that that's not the point of the Enneagram anyway.
Also, the technique Morler presented seemed like a quick fix. He admitted that his mom, for instance, stayed stuck in the anxiety state most of the time. It seems like his method could be good for talking someone out of a suicide or even just putting someone in a temporarily better mood, but without the hard work of self-observation (advocated by Riso and Hudson), that person is probably never going to become emotionally healthy.
Another thing Mary Beth and I noticed is that some of the responses to problems did not seem entirely logically arranged from best to worst. For instance, why is anger a better response than anxiety? Perhaps Morler has a good reason, but allow me to advance a theory: the arrangement plays into his type bias.
Let me explain. Morler is an 8, the overexpressor of the gut triad. That means he's got a double-dose of preferring the body center (once, because he's a gut type, and again, because he's an aggressive type.) The aggressives repress the heart center. So, as an 8, Morler's preference goes: body, head, heart. And his levels of appropriate response prioritize anger and passive aggression (body center issues) over fear and anxiety (head center issues), which are in turn, placed above grief (a heart center issue.)
Just a theory.

The Penultimate Recap: Enneagram Autobiography Class 5

We had twice as many people as the time before!
We talked about boredom, how it feels, and the need to keep the energy in a room pumped up.
We introduced the gut triad; it's all about anger (for type 8), tension (for type 1), and banana bread (for type 9).
We talked about how 8s have to have it out before they can let it go, their effect on the family dog, and their capacity for leadership.
We talked about the 9's suitability as a spouse, their forgetfulness, and their love of proverbs and aphorisms (see page 330 in The Wisdom of the Enneagram.) We visited Moronland.
We suggested the consideration of the following questions from the big book:

"Explore the various circumstances in which you have put yourself under pressure [to provide for others, to be strong for them, to never cry, show weakness, doubt, or indecision]. Who were you doing it for? Was the outcome worth the effort? What do you think would have happened if you had been a little easier on yourself?"

"Think of times in which you went along with the plans, preferences, or choices of others and submerged your own choices. What did this do to your sense of involvement?To your contact with yourself and your experience? Did you resent having to go along? How did you dispense with your own choice? What did you hope to gain by doing so?"

"Notice how many times a day you are dissappointed with yourself or others. Keep track of this for a few days. What standards are you measuring everything against? Question and examine the nature of these standards and their effect on you and the people in your life."

Next time:
Type 1 gets equal time, we learn to relax, and we write with, of all things, our hands. And, oh yeah, spiritual growth. See you then.