The Idealized Image and Stress 

(Enneagram Monthly's Editor's Choice)
 

I avoided writing about Enneagram stress responses for some time, because when I research a particular topic I always learn something difficult about myself (a Nine), and I'm as good at backpedaling as anyone I know. But Sarah Aschenbach's two-part article in the Enneagram Monthly forced me to my feet ("Relationships Made Easy: How to Get Along With All Kinds of People," May & June 1999). 

Aschenbach wrote that Nines under stress "prefer to retreat. Disengaging from the struggle gives them a stoic quality ... If their first line of defense does not work, they may become unresponsive, and then increasingly stubborn. They turn their backs on people, literally, and give others the silent treatment." Ugh. But continue putting me under stress and there I am. (In Transformation Through Insight, Claudio Naranjo suggests "no better name for the artificial peace of E9 than Gurdjieff's expression: a 'self-calming devil.'")

As you know if you've browsed the poetry section of this web site, I believe (reading or writing) poetry is a good way to tease out some unconscious material. Much to my chagrin, when I read Aschenbach's article I recalled a poem I'd written only a few months before. It started out to be about my Nine mother (You Won't Be Seen Again), but ends with the lines, "I wake up nights, remembering all the things I don't forgive." The good news? I am remembering, which triggers a continuing cycle of shock/humiliation, observation, shifting to a new reality, and integration.

It's helpful to see how our stress responses arise from our dedication to the image our particular Enneagram style dictates. As described by Karen Horney in Neurosis and Human Growth, "gradually and unconsciously we create an idealized image of ourselves, which entails self-glorification and gives us the much-needed feeling of significance and superiority over others:" 

 

Because of our fixation on a self-image it becomes not O.K. to let anything filter in that's incongruent with the image. From the perspective of our idealized self-images, according to Horney, our primary concern is not what we feel, but whether we're safe. We develop artificial, strategic ways to cope with others that override our genuine feelings, wishes, and thoughts: 

Like a bad dream, though, when we encounter stressful situations our fixation seems to invite the emergence of what a friend called "the Evil Twin," an exaggeration of our self-image that separates us from others instead of drawing us closer together (the following chart is based on material from Aschenbach's article and Riso and Hudson's Personality Types):

From one of my workshops are self-descriptions for each of the nine styles responding to stress:

• "I get really frustrated and angry when there's stress I can't manage," reported a One, "particularly when it comes out of nowhere; for example when I was driving home yesterday and somebody banged into me from behind. Whereas with stress I can manage, I'll be rather methodical: if I have 100 calls to make, for example, I'll do 10 an hour for two hours each day until they're completed." Another One described a party she'd attended recently: "I abhor going into a group of people I don't know, and I found myself making sure everything was in place on the buffet table, the trays of hors-d'oeuvres were filled, and dirty dishes were cleared and taken to the kitchen." She became so busy managing her anxiety this way, several other party-goers assumed she was the hostess! (Aschenbach: "Under stress, Ones... feel everything and everyone needs shaping up, and they are impatient and angry with others who seem too casual about doing what is right.")

• What causes me the most stress," said a Two, "is feeling overwhelmed, feeling I can't make a difference. I get positive energy when there's a course of action I can take. I tell myself, 'I'm going to fight my way through this.' When dealing with someone I can't count on, I'll write them off completely and take care of everything myself. Then anything they do I can accept as a gift, but I don't have to worry about it." Another Two realized with some pain how she'd tried to make her kids feel guilty when extended family was visiting for Memorial Day and she felt burdened with all the cooking. She saw how she'd taken responsibility for planning the menu, doing the grocery shopping, and handling everything in the kitchen. She didn't even know she would have liked help until she felt so exhausted she couldn't enjoy herself. By then she was stressed and lashed out with a version of, "after all I've done for you..." (Aschenbach: "Under stress, Twos... can become quite bossy and manipulative, though they don't want to see this about themselves. They may make others feel guilty....")

• A Three described herself as particularly stressed with "the unknown, when I can't move in any direction because it's still uncertain. Under stress I'm on overdrive, and I'm impatient when others aren't. I start pushing. Another Three had been dismayed when two members of his team resigned within three weeks of each other. Each had distinct and legitimate reasons for leaving, to satisfy their own family and career needs, but he had to cover their workload for several months until they could be replaced. Consequently, he'd not been supportive of their efforts to make the transition easier for their own teams. Instead, he'd "bad-mouthed" them for "abandoning ship." (Aschenbach: "Under stress, Threes compete harder, even with friends and family... they can also... do little things to make others look less successful.")

• From a Four: "It's stressful for me to feel I have a blueprint in mind to deal with some problem and suddenly I'm not able to develop it, because it looks to others as if it might venture out of traditional boundaries. Then I feel I was deprived of the opportunity to defend my ideas. If this takes place more often than I can tolerate, I start to tell myself I don't belong in that place or among those people because we think differently, and I start thinking about how I can leave that situation." (Aschenbach: "Under stress, Fours begin to feel no one understands or appreciates them for their unique gifts... As stress increases, they demand the right to do only what they want to do when they want to do it.")

• "When my Two wife gets emotional," acknowledged a Five, "I feel as if I'm in a boxing ring with her but I'm wearing lead gloves!" "I forget things, don't finish things" said another. "I know I'm scattered, so I decide to do something physical; for example, if I'm on the computer I'll print something out and read it to decide if it's what I want to say." (There was some laughter in the group when we realized what a Five considers to be "physical.") (Aschenbach: "Under stress, Fives slow down, putting off what needs to be done until they feel prepared to tackle it... The more they delay, the more critical their situation becomes, which makes them prickly and high- strung and even more pressed for time.")

• A Six recalled how hard she'd worked to get a "dominating" supervisor to see the team's point of view. When those attempts failed, she basically led an insurrection against the supervisor. Both of them lost their jobs! Another said, "Under stress I have a lot of undirected activity; I tell myself, 'You've got to get this under control,' but I'll still keep doing it. I become short, agitated, abrupt, very annoyed; I don't pet my dog! I want to be in motion and I don't particularly care which direction I'm going, just so I'm moving. It's got to run its course. Later I pet my dog and he forgives me." (Aschenbach: "Under stress, Sixes begin to vacillate between caving in and taking a tough stand... they may first try to make everyone happy then suddenly turn on one or both of the forces that they feel are trying to tear them apart....")

• According to a Seven, "I fragment, find it very difficult to focus. And I avoid doing the thing that's causing me the most stress. I become disorganized, discombobulated; I drop things, bump into things." Another Seven (with an Eight wing) had a different response: "I get very controlling, tell people what to do. Until I learned about the Enneagram I'd turn on the radio, or listen to spiritual tapes, or read a novel -- actually several at once! Now I know I have to figure out what I'm afraid of, find out what's holding me emotional prisoner. I turn off the radio, slow down, breathe, listen, meditate." (Aschenbach: "Under stress, Sevens try to run away from their anxiety... as they try to keep themselves 'pumped up,' and they are prone to excesses of all kinds.")

• "I believe I can handle most situations others would find stressful," announced one of the Eights, "but there's no air conditioning where I work, and right now I'm stressed by the 90-degree weather. It took me a while to become aware that it's because I have no control over it." When asked what he does when he feels out of control, he mused, "Well, normally I react like the guy in the Far Side cartoon at the 'Stress Institute,' where he throws the doctor out the window and says, 'Hey, I feel better already!'" Building on this, another Eight talked about how hurt his wife was because he'd been flirtatious with another woman: "I reared back in my chair and told her 'Your self-esteem must be in tatters If you're going to get so worked up about something this minor! I'd hate to see you when something really tough comes up in our marriage!" Both Eights agreed they sometimes turn their feelings inward, "which eventually leads to vengeance of some sort." (Aschenbach: "Under stress, Eights are even more controlling... Because they will not compromise, they are increasingly difficult to be around.")

• From a Nine: "It's a clue for me that I'm under stress when people say, 'Hi, how are you?' and I don't know!" From another: "I feel really stressed when something unpredictable happens. When I took karate I loved the forms. It was a discipline, like dancing. But when we had to do free fighting I was just awful -- I have no street sense. That's what I'm like under stress: I can take anything if I know it's coming; otherwise I feel as if somebody's just pulled the rug out from under me." (In addition to the earlier Aschenbach quote about Nines under stress, she writes: "Any disruption in the peaceful flow of life offends them, and they withdraw.")

"Self-knowledge," Dr. Horney concludes, "is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth." We can't develop our full potential unless we're truthful to ourselves, unless we're able to fully tap and manifest our own resources, and unless we relate to each other spontaneously and with mutuality; not from a defensive, stressed position. It's extremely important for our personal growth and for the growth of our significant relationships that we first be truthful to ourselves about how we behave under stress. The question then becomes, how do we liberate our own resources so we can interact in mutually developmental and fulfilling ways?

It isn't fruitful to gloss over our feelings or to pretend what's happening isn't happening. This doesn't mean we need to wallow in negativity and humiliation. The trick is to find a way to stay with our responses as they arise while at the same time creating an opening for change. Focusing is one such approach. Another is outlined in Doc Lew Childre's Freeze-Frame: Fast Action Stress Relief. Childre's methods are soundly grounded in scientific research demonstrating that feelings of frustration create excessive wear and tear on our bodies, whereas feelings of sincere appreciation increase mental clarity and boost cardiovascular and immune system health. As described by Paul Pearsall in The Heart's Code, "This HeartMath Institute-researched process involves mental recognition of a specific stressful feeling, making a mental effort to shift focus to sensations coming from the area of the heart instead of the head, recalling a very positive event of the past, and mentally asking the heart for its insights on what might be a better way of dealing with the stressful situation that could induce a state more like that of the past positive event (p. 232)." 

I can vouch for this method personally. I can't guarantee it will extend my life, but I can say it helped me shift from my stress state when I was feeling stubbornly unforgiving of a close friend and giving him the silent treatment described at the beginning of this article. It was painful for me to feel so stressed, but I didn't know how to get out of it. So I stopped, pictured being with my granddaughter (whom I love unconditionally), took three deep breaths "through" my heart, and "asked" for a better way to deal with the situation. 

After doing this exercise three times a day for only two days, my feelings about my friend began to change. Instead of focusing on how discounted I'd felt, how I could never trust him again, and how much safer I'd feel if I didn't have to be in contact with him, I began to recover my loving feelings toward him. I remembered all the values we share, how well we learn together, how much fun we've had over the course of our friendship. And this balance allowed me to approach him in a nonjudgmental way so we could work out our differences.

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