# The Arrows – What are they for?



## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

Part of a series on different interpretations of the Enneagram. The other threads in this series:
http://personalitycafe.com/enneagra...orum/665786-subtypes-instinctual-vs-wing.html
http://personalitycafe.com/enneagram-personality-theory-forum/665794-interpreting-types.html

The arrows are quite possibly the part of the enneagram where there are the greatest number of different interpretations. Depending on the author, They might be directions of integration/disintegration, where it's healthy to go in your direction of integration and unhealthy to go to the direction of disintegration; stress/security points, which can be either healthy or unhealthy in either direction; two alternative styles we can access in either healthy or unhealthy ways, in either stress or security; our "soul child"; or two types we can use to help us grow. So which interpretation, if any, is the best? Or is there an alternative? Do we even need the arrows at all? I think we probably don't; I don't think they're adding anything very useful or true to the theory, and can probably be safely ignored. I think directions of integration/disintegration is a particularly bad interpretation. But it's interesting that there are so many different ideas about what the arrows represent, but no established enneagram author disputes which types should be connected by the lines and which direction the arrows should be pointing. For whatever reason, no one wants to mess with the symbol. But I'd say, if some aspect of the symbol doesn't accurately represent what real people are like, so much the worse for the symbol.


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## charlie.elliot (Jan 22, 2014)

The arrows always mean the same thing. stress/security point is the same as disintegration/ integration. Also, its always beneficial to move along either line. Moving to the point of disintegration is never bad; rather, its a symptom of becoming unhealthier in your type. But moving to the disintegration point is actually helpful. 
All the enneagram literature I've ever read agrees on these points-- but its easy to misintepret and think that moving to your disintegration point is bad.

Your soul child is the same as your integration point, according to Maitri. You start there as a child and you return there as you integrate. You can see that integration is the same as security point because when you "awaken" or what have you (integration), you move to a place internally where you feel safe, and you will start acting the same way you might act when you feel really safe for some other reason besides that you are awakened, such as if you're around a friend who you know loves you unconditionally (security point).

I wouldn't ignore them if I were you-- you'd be missing a big part of the enneagram. Part of what makes the enneagram special and more interesting than MB is that is involves dynamism and shifts instead of being static. Everyone has all the points within them somewhere, so it makes sense you have this pattern of movement among the types. 
Also keep in mind that the outside line (the circle) is also considered a line of connection/energy flow.

If you simply don't think the lines are accurate, then that's the same as saying you don't believe the entire enneagram is accurate, so you might as well not worry about it and just not think about the enneagram lol.


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

charlie.elliot said:


> The arrows always mean the same thing. stress/security point is the same as disintegration/ integration. Also, its always beneficial to move along either line. Moving to the point of disintegration is never bad; rather, its a symptom of becoming unhealthier in your type. But moving to the disintegration point is actually helpful.
> All the enneagram literature I've ever read agrees on these points-- but its easy to misintepret and think that moving to your disintegration point is bad.
> 
> Your soul child is the same as your integration point, according to Maitri. You start there as a child and you return there as you integrate. You can see that integration is the same as security point because when you "awaken" or what have you (integration), you move to a place internally where you feel safe, and you will start acting the same way you might act when you feel really safe for some other reason besides that you are awakened, such as if you're around a friend who you know loves you unconditionally (security point).


Some of those interpretations probably can be reconciled, but not all are consistent with each other. There really is disagreement in the enneagram community about whether the stress/disintegration point is unhealthy. Here's a bit of the explanation of the arrows, from Personality Types:



Riso/Hudson said:


> The way the numbered points are connected is significant psychologically because the lines between each of the types denote the Direction of Integration (health, self-actualization) and the Direction of Disintegration (unhealth, neurosis) for each personality type. In other words, as you become more healthy or unhealthy, you can move in different "directions," as indicated by the lines of the Enneagram, from your basic type. The Direction of Disintegration for each type is indicated on the Enneagram by the sequence of numbers 1-4-2-8-5-7-1. This means that types in their average to unhealthy range of behaviors, under conditions of increased stress and anxiety, will begin to exhibit or "act out" some of the average to unhealthy behaviors of the type in their Direction of Disintegration.


So even if the DOD isn't bad as such, E.G. because it stops us from becoming even less healthy, according to this interpretation we tend to access the average to unhealthy traits of the DOD, when we're in the average to unhealthy levels of type (level 4 downwards). So manifesting the traits of the DOD is a bad sign, even if ultimately beneficial. Meanwhile, here's Tom Condon disagreeing with that interpretation:



Tom Condon said:


> A lot of writers have taken these connecting points to mean something more. In book after book, the stress point is called an unhealthy direction in general and the security point is portrayed as the general path to psychological health. The security point is called the direction of growth, integration, redemption, while the stress point is called the direction of decline, disintegration, breakdown, etc. These are presented as directions to avoid or cultivate when attempting to work on the dilemmas of your core Enneagram style.
> 
> I understand a teacher's desire to provide direction and a theorist's need to create a complete and unified theory. Unfortunately, unified theories about human behavior never hold together very long. Our personal psychology is a messy, complex process. Consequently, theorists usually have to ignore contradicting facts to keep their theories intact. It would be nice to think that within your Enneagram style there was one sure direction out, a royal road to health and well-being. It's just not what happens.


 (Source)

It's true that if you take the stress/security point interpretation, you might still expect healthy people to be more secure and unhealthy people to be more stressed, so the conditions under which you'd expect people to access those points might be somewhat similar, although not exactly the same. The difference is that, using the stress/security point interpretation, security isn't always healthy. A 9, when feeling secure, will access both the good and bad traits of the 3. Even if healthy people tend to be more secure, security isn't always healthy. Under the DOI/DOD interpretation, healthy 9 goes to healthy 3, usually without many of the negative 3 traits.



> I wouldn't ignore them if I were you-- you'd be missing a big part of the enneagram. Part of what makes the enneagram special and more interesting than MB is that is involves dynamism and shifts instead of being static. Everyone has all the points within them somewhere, so it makes sense you have this pattern of movement among the types.
> Also keep in mind that the outside line (the circle) is also considered a line of connection/energy flow.
> 
> If you simply don't think the lines are accurate, then that's the same as saying you don't believe the entire enneagram is accurate, so you might as well not worry about it and just not think about the enneagram lol.


Why do you think it's like saying the entire enneagram isn't accurate? I don't buy into all of its theoretical assumptions, but I still think it's a great source of insight into human personality. Its flaws don't negate the wisdom it offers.


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## charlie.elliot (Jan 22, 2014)

@Octavarium personally I think being that even if you're accessing the unhealthy levels of your disintegration point, its still healthier than the unhealthy levels of your own type. Just in my experience. And it just means you're going through something difficult at that point in time. 

And yeah I guess you could theoretically just pay attention to the type descriptions and avoid the internal arrows, but the thing about the enneagram is that you dont just say at your particular type, you move around. And personally it just seems to me that if you're buying into the whole type descriptions (plus wings etc), you might as well buy into the internal arrows as well because its all the same system, it really is like one dynamic organism. You dont have to pick and choose, if you believe one part, you might as well believe the rest.
BUT yeah I guess, you could also look at it in a much more general way, appreciating the insight into human behavior without necessarily bothering about the more "technical" side of it like wings, arrows, triads, etc.


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## enneathusiast (Dec 15, 2012)

The arrows are arbitrary to me. No logical reason behind the meaning assigned. You could reverse the meaning of the arrows and make just as good of a case for it (e.g., why is one direction integration and the other disintegration? what prevents you from just reversing them and finding meaning in that instead?).

I can hear it now, "law of 7." Law of 7 indicates the pattern of the arrows by dividing 7 by any number between 1 and 6.
1/6 = .142857...
2/6 = .285714...
and so on...

This just places the arrows on the lines. It doesn't describe what each movement along the lines means. It's this meaning that's arbitrary to me (this direction means this, that direction means that - they're just making it up with no justification to support it).


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

enneathusiast said:


> The arrows are arbitrary to me. No logical reason behind the meaning assigned. You could reverse the meaning of the arrows and make just as good of a case for it (e.g., why is one direction integration and the other disintegration? what prevents you from just reversing them and finding meaning in that instead?).
> 
> I can hear it now, "law of 7." Law of 7 indicates the pattern of the arrows by dividing 7 by any number between 1 and 6.
> 1/6 = .142857...
> ...


The whole "law of 7" thing is superstitious nonsense anyway. There's no reason to think the properties of numbers have anything to do with personality. There have actually been studies that tested the theory of the arrows, and found no correlation between stress and higher test scores for the stress point. So there's no reason to think it works, and there's evidence that suggests it probably doesn't.


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## enneathusiast (Dec 15, 2012)

Octavarium said:


> The whole "law of 7" thing is superstitious nonsense anyway. There's no reason to think the properties of numbers have anything to do with personality.


I think that's one example of where people get confused with the Enneagram. The law of 7 has to do with Gurdjieff's use of the Enneagram and nothing to do with the personality types, but none of authors seem to want to make that clear. Maybe they just aren't clear on that themselves or are perfectly content in letting people think the two go together because it makes the system more appealing if they do. There was a lot of noise by the Gurdjieffians about this when the personality types first starting getting popular but no one seemed to pay attention to it then either.


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