# The 9 Defense Mechanisms



## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

In many pieces of pop-enneagram literature, the way each of the 9 fixations is presented tends to focus heavily on the external experience of the type - how the type looks to others, what the type tends to run to behaviorally, even how the type may describe their own actions as that type. 

What we could always talk more about is the theory accounting for the _internal _experience of the type. Although each person will experience the type they are within their own contextual storyline, there are common internal lines that can be drawn across people of the same type, because of that type - habits, attitudes, and defense mechanisms that they share, that make their type distinctive from the other 8. The spoilers below contain excerpts from a few websites, as well as Naranjo. If I can find more from Maitri, I'll post it - any other materials you can find are obviously welcome  

What do you think of these? Do you experience them consciously? How would you describe these processes in the context of your everyday life?



*Type 1: Reaction Formation*


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Ones use reaction formation to avoid anger (i.e. direct anger) and stay in control of their feelings and instincts in order to maintain a self image of being right. Reaction formation is feeling one thing and then expressing the opposite or at least something unrelated, such as feeling resentful but acting nice, feeling a need to rest but working harder. The relentless demand of the inner critic to be good and do good at all times replaces personal needs and shuts down feelings.

Expressing the opposite of your real feelings in your behavior. An example would be acting very friendly to someone you actually don’t like.

The notion of reaction formation was proposed by Freud as early as 1905 in his three essays on A Sexual Theory, where he observed that “opposing psiquic forces” arise in the service of suppressing uncomfortable sensations through the mobilization of “disgust, modesty, and morality.” As is well known, his interpretation posits that a drive toward soiling during the child’s anal sadistic stage of development is defended against through disgust and will result in an excessive concern with cleanliness. I think a consideration of obsessive personality suggests that reaction formation is not only a matter of covering up something through the opposite, but a distracting oneself from the awareness of certain impulses through opposite activities. Even when it is not exactly the case that morally approved action serves to distract the person from the awareness of sexuality and angry rebellion, we can say that it is intention —i.e., a disposition to action that serves the function of remaining unconscious of emotions.

Ones also suffer from the habit of comparing their own levels of achievement against each other. Was this meditation productive? Am I improving or am I slipping back? There is a painful need to check out progress in order to feel assured of a continuous march toward self-improvement, which can also produce the feeling of never measuring up to the mark.

Ones can begin to change the Perfectionist style of attention by noticing when the mental chalkboard goes up. Each time attention shifts into a detailed account of someone else's pluses and minuses, and the feeling that when that person is one up that the Perfectionist is one down, there is an opportunity for learning to shift attention to a neutral ground.

**As a personal aside, I experience this as my superego immediately informing "I don't do _that,_" with the silent implication being that "and because of that, I'm good/better, no need to worry." Or, "I didn't do that incorrectly, I did X" and here, "I did Y and Z too, so we're covered - and seriously, if there's an issue with that, than it's not right" or "it's good _now_, what difference does it make if there were issues before?"




*Type 2: Repression*


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Twos use repression of personal needs and feelings to avoid being needy and to maintain a self image of being helpful. Repression is putting one's "unacceptable" feelings and impulses out of awareness by converting them into a more acceptable kind of emotional energy. Self-esteem depends on winning the approval of others. This can take the form of being overly nice, flattering people, and a superficial friendliness. Or it can show up as an attitude of entitlement. Their genuine need for connection takes the form of "you need me." 

Repression is a function of the emotional center. When Twos repress their unacceptable feelings and instincts, they convert them into other forms of emotional energy. They may over-empathize with other people's feelings or they discharge their emotions through "hysterical" (meaning disconnected) tone and affect. Emotional energy is conserved (and re-directed) while contact with the body is diminished. 

Repression; repression acts to keep needs out of conscious awareness. Discussing own needs brings up anxiety because it signals a possible loss of connection.

An intensification of the feeling states associated with impulse. Just as there exists a mechanism of intellectualization, that serves to distance oneself from one’s feelings, we may say that here there is an “emotionalization” or “emotionalism,” that facilitates the process of distracting attention from the awareness of need or, more exactly, “the intellectual representation of instinct.”

But not only is there an emotional amplification in this type, there is also a characteristic impulsiveness, a pushiness in the interpersonal relation, an impatient need for satisfaction and a childlike inability to defer gratification. It is as if the experience of unconscious satisfaction failed to bring about true satisfaction; as if satisfaction without the awareness of need failed to bring the individual to a sense that the need has been met and resulted in an insatiable thirst for intensity.

For a specialist in the manipulation and seduction of others through giving, it would also be “dangerous” to acknowledge one’s own wishes, for then “givingness” would be suspected for what indeed it is in its characteristic excess: a giving to get or a giving motivated by a personal need to identify oneself with the position and role of a giver.

Because attention is outwardly focused upon what others want, there is a systematic lack of attention to personal needs. From a psychological point of view, these repressed needs get satisfied through helping others live out a life in which the Two would like to share. A Two can be helped in therapy by learning to recognize personal needs and by learning to stabilize a consistent sense of self that does not alter in order to meet others' needs.

From the point of view of attention practice, Twos can learn to intervene in their habit of sensing signs of approval from others by learning to shift attention away from others and refocus attention at a reference point within their own body. With practice, Twos can recognize the difference between staying present to their own feelings and allowing their focus of attention to go out to others.




*Type 3: Identification*


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Threes use identification to avoid failure and maintain a self image of being successful. Identification is stepping into a role so completely that Threes lose contact with who they are inside. The pressure to keep up a winning image prevents access to personal feelings and needs. Attention goes to the external environment: the tasks to be done and the expectations of other people. Threes find it very difficult to drop the role, or drop the image, since they get so much positive reinforcement in a society that values achievement and success.

The unconscious modeling of one’s self upon another person. (What does a winner look like? How does a winner act? What is a winning vocabulary.

It is most typical of the adult expression of vanity to identify, not with significant individuals of the past so much as with an updated and constructed image of what is regarded as socially desirable. Thus, in the elaboration of a personal self-image the type III individual seems to conduct an implicit marketing research to know the expectation of the generalized other. It is this “computed” image of what is valued and desired that the individual pretends to be and seeks to implement with characteristic effort.

Also the mechanism of rationalization is prominent in type III psychology (as also in type VII). But most characteristic—aside from identification—is the mechanism of negation: that by which something is declared not to be the case (in anticipation of somebody’s realization that it is).

To an observer, a Three looks like a highly focused achiever; Threes report, however, that they are only trying to keep up. If someone else is good, the Three has to be better, because a Three's self-esteem is riding on a win. Activity is a form of control, and personal value and security depend on how much you can get done. A Three habitually does several things at once, a way of paying attention that is called polyphasic thinking (aside - this may not be the same thing as the 3's defense mechanism, but still indicative of their inner process.




*Type 4: Introjection*


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Fours use introjection to avoid ordinariness and maintain a self image of being authentic. Positive introjection is an attempt to overcome the feeling of deficiency by seeking value from an idealized experience, work or relationship and internalizing this through the emotional center. This also leads to negative introjection: Fours tend blame themselves for whatever goes wrong in personal relationships. Their experience of loss or abandonment can take form inside as a self-rejecting voice (a negative introject) which leads to pervasive feelings of unworthiness. 

The introjection of the Fours relies on using the emotional center and the empathy function to internalize positive feelings from an idealized experience or relationship. This amplifies their emotional energy which can overwhelm the mind and reduce their ability to think and sort things out properly.

Internalizing idealized people, relationships and situations to overcome a feeling of deficiency.

The mechanism that Psychoanalysis calls “turning against the self” (roughly the same mechanism that Perls calls “retroflection”). While self-hating or self-rejection is implicit in the notion of an introjected “bad-object,” the idea of retroflection invites the thought that anger generated in consequence of frustration is aimed not only at the outer source of frustration (and to the original frustrator in one’s life) but also—in consequence of its introjection—at oneself.

It remains to consider aside from a dominant defense mechanism the existence of a dominant content of repression in type IV, a content to the repression of which introjections may be most specifically suitable. I think that it may be said that the most avoided attitude for type IV is that of demanding superiority which is so natural in type I. In light of this, introjection is a mechanism that makes it possible for the person to transform superiority into inferiority as he adopts the masochistic strategy in interpersonal relationships. It is as if the introject were a stone tied to the person’s feet to make sure that he sinks—at the same time maintaining a position of neediness and avoiding a superiority that might have been dysfunctional through early childhood adaptation.
Fours rarely live in the present. Their focus of attention travels away: to the past, to the future, to the absent, to the hard-to-get. There is a background preoccupation with whatever seems to be missing: the absent friend at the dinner party, the missed connections in an intimate talk.

The preoccupation with absent things is flavored by a highly selective remembrance of the positive aspects of whatever is missing. "The evening would have been complete if only John had been there." John's better aspects are remembered when he is at a distance, and a tenuous connection of yearning is set up that acts to draw a Four's attention away from what is actually going on in the present. If John were present and accounted for, his less-than-interesting aspects would begin to surface, and the Four's attention would tend to drift away to one of the other pieces that seem to be missing from life.

Romantics say that they feel an intimate connection with absent friends, that, in fact, their feelings of affection can get stronger with enforced separation. They say that in any relationship, there must be time away in order to reawaken the true feeling of connection that occurs only with distance and separation.

When a Four is forced to focus on the actual events happening in present time, there is a feeling of being let down, of seeing the negatives of the situation, perhaps for the very first time. It can feel like a blow in the face, because there are so many disappointments, and they all come at once. It's as if the light goes out of a lover's face, and all that is left is a set of mismatched features.




*Type 5: Isolation*


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Fives use isolation to avoid the experience of inner emptiness and maintain a self image of being knowledgeable. Isolation can be physical withdrawal from others, but it also means withdrawing on the inside from one's emotions and staying up in the head. Acquiring knowledge becomes a way to create safety and self worth, but an over-emphasis on the intellect prevents Fives from connecting with the life force in their bodies and the support available in relationship with others. 

Isolation of affect; emotion can be messy and uncertain, so the Five will detach from the emotion by intellectualizing it, numbing it or suppressing it.

The mechanism of ego splitting is closely related to that of isolation and just as
prominent in type V. While splitting in the psyche is a general characteristic in neurosis (and is
implicit in the separation of super-ego, ego and id), ego-splitting proper—in which
contradictory thoughts, roles, or attitudes coexist in the conscious psyche without awareness of
contradiction—is more prominent in type V than in any other, and explains not only the
simultaneity of grandiosity and inferiority but also the simultaneity of positive and negative
perceptions of others. We may say that isolation is a core of type V character in that the
characteristic detachment not only from people but more generally from the world (including
one’s own body) depends on the inactivation of feelings and also corresponds to an
avoidance of the situation in which feelings normally arise: an interruption of the life process
in the service of feeling-avoidance.

The incongruence of aloofness with the ordinary human need for contact is maintained
through a dulling of the emotional life; at other times in the more hypersensitive variety of
individual, it exists side by side with intense feelings, which appear in greater association with
the aesthetic and the abstract than with the interpersonal world. Also the avoidance of action in
type V may be seen in light of an avoidance of feeling and of the isolation mechanism, and
would deserve the name of motoric isolation better than the interruption of thoughts and the
disturbance of gestalt perception through mental blocking.

A Five's isolation does not depend solely on withdrawal into privacy, or even on putting up emotional walls. The psychic isolation of the type can be seen as the habit of disengaging from feelings in order to observe. This habit of attention can become particularly obvious in stress, intimacy, or unpredictable situations that demand a spontaneous response. In extreme cases of detachment, a Five can attempt to disappear by freezing attention at a spot located just outside of the physical body.




*Type 6: Projection*


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Sixes use projection to avoid rejection and to maintain a self image of being loyal. Projection is a way of attributing to others what one can't accept in oneself, both positive and negative. Positive feelings are projected onto a romantic relationship or an external authority figure in order to assure safety and justify loyalty. Negative feelings are projected onto others to justify internal feelings of fear and distrust. Sixes support their projections by finding and amplifying the information which fits their premise.

Sixes project their unacknowledged feelings and impulses onto other people. This is primarily a function of the mind, looking for evidence for their position, holding an idea or mental construct about someone else while avoiding their own emotions and instincts. They see things that are really there but blow them out of proportion.

Projection; projection is a way of attributing to others things about ourselves that we cannot accept both positive and negative. The Six may see someone else as angry when in fact they are angry themselves.

The close association between paranoid functioning and projection is so well established that Shapiro observes: “the mental operation or mechanism is so central to our understanding of paranoid pathology and symptoms that it has almost come to define what is called paranoid in psychiatry. ”Though “projection” is a word that has been used with a variety of meanings, that which is appropriate in this context is that of attributing to others motives, feelings, or thoughts not acknowledged in oneself. In some cases (“super-ego projection”) it is self-accusation that is disowned, through the implicit pretense that punitive ill-will comes from an outer source (as is most striking in the persecutory delusions of psychotics). 

The sense of being watched, judged, and so on that is part of type VI suspiciousness can also be interpreted in terms of externalization: the mechanism of transferring an intra-personal event to an inter-personal relationship. In other instances, (“projection of the Id”) it is the person’s unaccepted impulses that are disowned and attributed to others, so that self-condemnation becomes the accusation of another.In either case, projection may be understood as a mental operation aimed at self-exculpation or blame-avoidance, and thus something in the nature of an escape valve for excessive guilt. The generation of such guilt—which I am proposing to regard the core of type VI psychology—may be understood in relation to the defense mechanism known as “identification with the aggressor.” 

The psyche of the coward is that which best embodies the meaning of “diabolus,” the devil: the adversary, the enemy. We may say that the ennea-type VI individual once sought to placate his enemies through becoming an enemy to himself. It is as if he thought to himself that it is prudent to adopt a self-accusing attitude, since in that way he will not run into trouble with authority.

The next practice should be done facing a friend who is gracious enough to let you stare at his or her face while you practice shifting your attention. Now form an idea of something that this friend might be thinking about you that he or she has never expressed. It can be either a positive or a negative opinion, but you should believe that your friend is very likely to be holding this opinion, and you are going to look for confirming signs. Now, hold an ordinary out-loud conversation with your friend, while at the same time scanning the face for signs of the hidden point of view. All of the elements of the paranoid style are now present: an inner hypothesis (in this case fabricated), and a split of attention between the talk going on between the two of you and the need to look for confirming signs of the hidden opinion. For the true paranoid, the inner hypothesis is really a conviction. He or she knows that the painful opinion is true and is looking for corroborating evidence in the mannerisms and facial cues that the partner is bound to produce in the course of an ordinary chat. 




*Type 7: Rationalization*


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Sevens use rationalization to avoid suffering and to maintain a self image of being OK. Rationalization is a way of staying in the head, explaining away or justifying things in order to distance from painful feelings and refuse to take responsibility for their behavior. Everything can be re-framed towards the positive. Their ability to think of new options and possibilities allows Sevens to leave the present moment with its limitations and live in a seemingly unlimited future.

Rationalization; painful experiences are reframed toward the positive. “We broke up and I cried for a day or so, but hey, I learned a lot from my broken heart.” 

First of all there is self-idealization, which in the mind of the type VII person is linked with the denial of guilt and also with the narcissistic attitude and its claims. It may come across as self-propagandizing, even though the self-congratulating individual believes in his idealized version of himself. Idealization also operates importantly in relation to people, and particularly in regard to the mother and mother surrogates. (Just as type VI males tend to be father lovers or father idealizers, tender-minded type VII individuals are characteristically devoted to their mothers and rebellious in the face of authority wielding fathers. In relation to authority figures in general, type VII seems to have adopted a de-idealizing attitude, implicit in its non-hierarchic orientation.)

It is possible to say that the optimistic attitude characteristic of type VII and the joyful mood that is habitual to them would not be possible without the operation of idealization in regard to the world in general and the more signi!cant people in it. In relationship with others as in connection with oneself, optimism entails the suspension of criticality and blaming, and an assumption of lovingness as well as loveability. There is a strong bias toward the feeling expressed by the slogan “I’m OK, you’re OK.” Beyond that, there is a tendency to entertain a “cosmic optimism”—the sense that everything is all-right in the world and that there is no need to struggle.

Beyond rationalization and idealization, we may also mention a relevance of the defense mechanism of sublimination and type VII psychology, inasmuch as sublimation is defined as a turning of instinctual energy to socially desired ends, and the glutton is characteristically one whose self-interest has been relabeled as altruistic motivation. The operation of sublimation helps us to understand the orientation of gluttons towards fantasy, which involves a substitution for the real goal of their impulses by images, plans and the cathexis of their own resourcefulness (i.e., in virtue of which, furthermore, they tend to accumulate tools for doing rather than simply doing).

From an outsider's point of view, a Seven can look like a dilettante, with many scattered intersts: several projects moving at the same time, three or four half-finished books on the floor. Attention moves through experience and on to more experience, in a headlong rush to the next fascinating enterprise.

From the point of view of a Seven, all these interests appear to be related. It all seems to be leading somewhere. At some point in the future it will all come together. How wonderful to find the perfect fit! In an escapist sense, attention can move fluidly between sweet memories, fascinating thoughts, and interesting future plans......The constructive side of his attentional style could come into play if he could commit himself to facing real problems rather than prematurely throwing in a new technique. If he could take the consequences of having to face up to real difficulties and stick with his clients through their very real pain, then his lifelong habit of fitting new information into multiple option systems might lead him to insights that could help his students to grow.




*Type 8: Denial*


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Eights use denial to avoid vulnerability and to maintain a self image of being strong. Denial means to power up in the body center and forcefully re-direct energy and attention through willfulness and control. Vulnerable feelings are automatically put away and not experienced. Emotional energy is reduced, while instinctual energy is increased. Receptivity necessarily involves some vulnerability, so Eights seek to impact the world and other people rather than be receptive to them.

Eights, in contrast, bear down on their feelings of vulnerability or sadness with their angry forcefulness and "obsessive" control. Denial uses the energy of the body center to override and close down unacceptable emotions. Emotional energy is diminished. 

The Eight’s ability to deny the reality of our vulnerability allows them to leave the present moment with its painful thoughts, feelings and events.

In order to compensate for feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness evoked by his disregard of others the individual has engaged in a process of guilt denial and in a repression (in the broad sense of the term) of the super-ego rather than of the id. This rebellious turning against inhibitions in an attitude of solidarity with the intrapsychic under-dog doesn’t seem to have received a specific name in psychoanalysis, though it may be regarded as akin to denial to the extent that there is a disavowal of internalized authority and its values. Since Freud used the expression “denial” (verleugnung) mostly in connection with the disavowal of external reality, I prefer not to bring it to this discussion except metaphorically, and simply point out the need for a more specic term that denotes repression that is not of the instinctual side of conflict but of the counter-instinctual. An expression like “counter-repression” or “counter- identification” might serve the purpose—the latter particularly since rebellious traits are understandable as inverse identifications with behaviors and attitudes expected by society and the parents. The opposition of type VIII to type IV in the enneagram suggests, however, that “counter-introjection” may be even more specific for, unlike type IV, who all too regularly brings bad objects into his psyche as foreign bodies, ennea-type VIII is the opposite of one willing to swallow and is most ready to spit out what doesn’t agree with his wishes. 

Equally characteristic of the ennea-type VIII manner of repressing is the specially developed capacity to keep pain out of awareness—a condition in which the person may be unaware of a high fever or of an infection in the middle ear, for instance. At the psychological level, the insensitivity to psychological discomfort of tough-minded, sadistic individuals involves a relative insensitivity to shame and explains a seeming absence of guilt. I think this also explains the typical attraction of lusty people to anxiety (and risk) which is not avoided but “sadistically” transformed into a stimulus, a source of excitement (an act of sadism against self). This characteristic elevation of the pain threshold that may be understood as the basis of both callousness, as a giving up of the expectations of love from others, and the turning against societal standards, we may call desensitization.

Eights have several ways not to perceive threatening information. Their psychological defenses revolve around an idea of themselves as more powerful than any potential opposition, so consequently their perceptions tend to maximize their own strengths and minimize an opponent's real advantages. One exemplar described himself as "not really brave, because I rarely see anything to be afraid of. I would believe myself to be brave if I felt fear and went ahead in spite of it. As it is, when I get into an argument, people look like pushovers to me." One classical way to not perceive a threat is to bury it by shifting attention to something else. For Eights, excesses like binging and overspending easily serve to block out the surfacing of a painful insight, or an awareness that could threaten a sense of personal power. A self-aware Boss can actually use the urgent desire for immediate satisfaction as a reminder to look within and find out what real needs are being subverted by excess.

A second way in which Eights can block unwanted insight from awareness is to so forcefully deny a painful issue that for them it ceases to exist. This way is not a matter of burying something you don't want to think about by diverting your attention to pleasurable excess. This way enables you to stare straight at something and not perceive it is there. An extreme example of the attention style that supports denial was reported by a recovering alcoholic, who, at the time that she was drinking, confronted her husband from behind a mound of whiskey empties piled in their basement. She believed that she had convinced him that she did not drink, because in her mind the bottles didn't exist.

Bosses will recognize the "don't let yourself think" state of mind as a kind of controlled wall staring, which they are likely to find themselves doing when something painful needs to be buried. An Eight can wake up in the middle of having been staring at a blank wall or an empty tabletop for God knows how long and find that he or she has a hard time thinking. The Eight is perceptually blanked out. If the mental blankout had a voice, it would say, "nothing painful gets past the tabletop blockade."

One Eight described the lifting of denial as "like opening the curtain on a stage. Everything you've been fighting against is staring straight at you with the force of total truth. You're totally wrong. You're an idiot, you've made an unforgivable error, and you want to punish yourself for what you've done." The special problem with denied material is that it can emerge into awareness suddenly, and with great force, which, given the Boss's preoccupation with justice, precipitates a barrage of self-hatred and self-blame. In the case of the young athlete, he was either a hero or a killer, with no apparent middle ground between the two extremes.

Eights also report that the lifting of denial with respect to one incident can act as an interior wick that allows other examples of the incident to emerge, in a kind of chain reaction of memory. Eights say that once they perceive something bad about themselves, they also remember many other examples of that bad thing that they've done in the past.




*Type 9: Narcotization*


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Nines use narcotization to avoid conflict and to maintain a self image of being comfortable or harmonious. Narcotization is using food and drink, entertainment, or simply repetitive patterns of thinking and doing to "put oneself to sleep". Even productive activities can keep Nines narcotized if they become too habitual. Avoiding conflict with others keeps Nines from being fully present in relationships. Avoiding internal conflict leads to inertia and self-forgetting.

The Nines tendency of focusing on inessentials and environmental distractions allows them to leave the _present moment_ with its conflict and discomfort.

Deflection is a neurotic mechanism for turning aside from direct contact with another person. It’s a way of taking the heat off the actual contact. The heat is taken off by circumlocution, by excessive language, by laughing off what one says, by not looking at the person one is talking to, by being abstract rather than specific, by not getting the point, by coming up with bad examples or none at all, by politeness instead of directness, by stereotyped language instead of original language, by substituting mild emotions for intense ones, by talking about rather than talking to, and by shrugging off the importance of what one just said. All of these deflections make life watered down. Action is off-target; it is weaker and less effective. Contact can be deflected either by the person who initiates the interaction or by the respondent. The initiating deflector frequently feels that he is not getting much out of what he is doing, that his efforts don’t bring him the reward he wants. Furthermore, he doesn’t know how to account for the loss. The respondent, who deflects another person’s effect almost as if he had an invisible shield, often experiences himself as unmoved, bored, confused, blank, cynical, unloved, unimportant and out-of-place. When deflected energy can be brought back on target, the sense of contact is greatly heightened.”

While Polster’s description makes reference to a watering down of interpersonal contact, however, I think that the defense mechanism involved in type IX’s psychology is one in which a similar process takes place in regard to self-contact or contact in the broadest sense of the term. (Thus, for instance, I recall somebody who may be called a “TV addict” who listened to the news during mealtimes. I mostly thought of it as distracting from the personal situation around the table, but occasionally my attention would be roused by some particularly important piece of international news. Yet I soon observed that every time that something truly important was discussed, it was impossible to listen since he began to talk or, sometimes, switched channels to football). The mechanism of attending to the peripheral rather than the truly important may be seen as the basis of a generalized “defensive extroversion” in the “autotruly important may be seen as the basis of a generalized “defensive extroversion” in the “autointraceptive” type IX. I propose that it be simply called “self-distraction.”

When Nines "go on automatic," they can complete complicated tasks without paying conscious attention to what their hands and bodies are doing. We all have the ability to learn skills and to perform them mechanically. For example, there is the common experience of "waking up" upon arriving home, with no recollection of having made the drive. There is also the example of speed typists, who report that they can fantasize or think about a problem, while turning out reams of accurate copy at 90 wpm.

The trick for the typists is to type without reading the material. They section off just enough attention to get the mechanics of the job done, while simultaneously ruminating about other things. This style of attention can be called co-processing, a way of doing more than one mental operation at the same time.

Nines report that they dip in and out of conversations. A sector of their attention is mechanically focused on what is being said, but they can simultaneously co-process another train of thought or feel themselves merging into what they suppose other people are feeling. Most Nines describe co-processing as sliding from one object of attention to another. For example, a word in a conversation may trigger a memory, trigger an inner monologue about the memory, trigger feelings about how the present conversation is similar to the past.

These interior diversions go on while the Nine is still aware of how the conversation is developing. Like the motorist who arrived at home without a memory of having driven there, Nines can wake up to hear themselves give a passable reply, having forgotten the topic of conversation. Nines say that they tune their mental radio to two or three stations, slipping between classical, country, and rock 'n' roll.




[HR][/HR]Sources:

Enneagram Types - Leslie Hershberger
EnneagramWork - Defense Systems
http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/content.php/70-How-Enneagram-Types-Pay-Attention
Naranjo exerpts on-forum


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## meridannight (Nov 23, 2012)

denial stems from _feeling_ weakness, physically, and not from any individual perceptions of what might constitute a weakness. i am not under some absolutist impression about having feelings. i.e. i don't have any preconceptions of what is a weakness and what isn't. weakness is circumstantial, predominantly it's feeling weak physically in your body. that's what i deny/suppress if it emerges. but feelings on their own, in their raw form, don't necessarily trigger denial in my case, even if they are on more vulnerable side. because they don't make me feel weak on their own, in their raw state. 

for example, while i agree that love is a vulnerable feeling, i don't ever deny being in love, because it doesn't ever make me feel weak. but, to admit to loving someone is a different matter altogether; that can make me feel weak, and in those cases i do deny/suppress the thing. also, someone exhibiting love towards me can make me feel weak, and i can deny/suppress that as well. it's not loving someone that makes me feel weak. it's when another person loves you and when they need love back, that the physical sensation of weakness emerges. and that's what is denied/suppressed/turned away from.

so it's not as simple as identifying an emotion that is vulnerable in character and saying 8s deny that. i don't feel that any of my feelings make me weak, no matter how vulnerable they are. it's always in relation with the external world and the people in my life. and it's through those relations whether the vulnerability is experienced as weak or not. without that relation with the external world my feelings are confined to me. and in relation with myself they are not weak anything. 

quips à la ''vulnerable feelings are automatically put away and not experienced'' are nonsensical to me. it's not _vulnerable feelings_ that are refrained from experiencing, it's _feeling vulnerable_ that is done so. huge difference.


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

meridannight said:


> quips à la ''vulnerable feelings are automatically put away and not experienced'' are nonsensical to me. it's not _vulnerable feelings_ that are refrained from experiencing, it's _feeling vulnerable_ that is done so. huge difference.


That's fair. Would you say that this happens frequently and reflexively for you? As bodily active as 8's are quipped to be, it would seem like this reaction would have to be very much in-set, even if it's described in a shoddy way in the sources. 

The 8's I know probably wouldn't tell you that they're "denying weakness," though whatever they say they are doing are are visibly doing is essentially a version of just that. They aren't having an inner monologue about it as much as they are doing more, becoming more active, becoming more entrenched in whatever they say or do, in so not being open to "sensitivity." Their mechanism seems much more physically-oriented than most of the others.


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## meridannight (Nov 23, 2012)

Figure said:


> That's fair. Would you say that this happens frequently and reflexively for you? As bodily active as 8's are quipped to be, it would seem like this reaction would have to be very much in-set, even if it's described in a shoddy way in the sources.


there are very few things in this life that actually make me feel vulnerable. 

i consciously don't put myself into circumstances i know compromise me that way on the outside (unless the outcome is worth it). so it doesn't happen almost at all.

it's a predefined automatic response. it doesn't even reach my consciousness that i'm doing it and therefore i can rarely control it (say i wanted to).

but i don't deny it from myself. like i said, very few things elicit vulnerability in me, so when it does happen it's always something big, something important, and depending on exactly how important the thing is for me, my response to vulnerability is according. i am comfortable expressing it under certain circumstances. 

one thing i can think of that has made me feel vulnerable is when i'm in love. in that case i've been okay with it, and i've been okay expressing it. because the person means something to me, and he is the one that produces it in me, so that's okay.

i can't think of anything else.



> The 8's I know probably wouldn't tell you that they're "denying weakness,"


uh, but there is a difference between vulnerability and weakness in my book. they are not one and the same thing. i don't ever feel weak. people do approximate the two, and in the texts on 8s the two are treated nearly interchangeably, but that is not correct.

weakness is being actually weak. vulnerability is just a less strong point in a person. i am strong enough to protect my vulnerable points. and i don't see myself having any weak spots. this sounds closest to how it is. 



> in so not being open to "sensitivity." Their mechanism seems much more physically-oriented than most of the others.


it is physically oriented.

but i also have to add that i was a lot more queasy about vulnerability when i was younger, especially in high school and my first college. i denied and pushed it all out. now i'm thirty, and i've gotten a lot more comfortable with it. i've realized it's all human nature and i can say i've adapted to it, in my own case and in others (i.e. vulnerability in others).


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## Father of Dragons (May 7, 2012)

It's interesting to me how the common strengths of people of the different types seem to stem from their underlying defense mechanisms. Nines are in general considered to be good mediators, and I would agree with that. It's ironic that it stems from the constant games we play to ignore confrontation. This would of course be because real confrontation is so deeply disturbing to us. 



> The heat is taken off by circumlocution, by excessive language, by laughing off what one says, by not looking at the person one is talking to, by being abstract rather than specific, by not getting the point, by coming up with bad examples or none at all, by politeness instead of directness, by stereotyped language instead of original language, by substituting mild emotions for intense ones, by talking about rather than talking to, and by shrugging off the importance of what one just said. All of these deflections make life watered down. Action is off-target; it is weaker and less effective. Contact can be deflected either by the person who initiates the interaction or by the respondent.




At work today I can specifically identify a scenario where I did just this with a volunteer. He was getting kind of ornery, confrontational. As opposed to directly confronting him I danced around the issue and brought up some abstract concepts about what he was bugging me about. Bang. Awkward tension solved, aggression deflected. We just ended up talking about something else entirely for awhile after. It worked how I intended it to, but I didn't even have to think about it at the time. It's weird, it's just so ingrained in how I am I suppose.

I find it's a real eye-opener to see how others deal with similar situations when they don't have the same defense mechanisms as I do. Earlier in the day my cp 6 co-worker just confronted the kid directly, told him not to do what he was doing. The kid seemed to think he was a jerk, but he sure didn't mess around with him at all later on.


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