The Dynamic
Duo--Not!!!
I enjoy your website--particularly
trying to understand my counterphobic Six son. Our confrontations are not
frequent; however, they seem nearly fatal when they do occur and I hope
you can
recommend additional reading for me. I realize I can't change
how a Six behaves, but I need to understand how I can change my
reaction (as
a fellow Nine I'm sure you can
understand the toll this takes on me...it has a lingering effect I do not want)!!
In this
excerpt from Helen Palmer's Directory of Relationships (The
Enneagram in Love & Work) I've changed the wording slightly,
because she's primarily targeting a romantic couple, but the dynamics are the same:
"A typical interaction shows Nine as the
comforter, because their fears are carried and voiced by Six. These two can overlook
the depth of their feelings about each other for many years before they finally (realize
how much they love each other). They meet at
Three,
which means either can suppress emotions when moving into action. It's
important that these two learn to risk being angry rather than dimming their energy with
nonessentials. Both have trouble taking action, and
both find it easier to act in the name of another than for themselves. An all-time
low pictures Nine indecision in collusion with
Six doubt. The partners cannot move toward
goals, and each sees the other as the cause of their mutual procrastination.
Either one can break the stalemate about
action, and activity is immensely healing to both Enneagram styles, especially when each can pursue a
personal agenda without insisting that the other join in. Action breaks inertia for the Nine, and
realistic progress softens the Six's fears."
My
Nine client Jane's son is a
Six with a mixture of
phobic and counterphobic characteristics; but
parents see more of the counterphobic
because they're the authority figures to the Six. Her
son's most frustrating behavior was making promises and then
"forgetting" them. He was a good cook and liked to cook, for
example, so he offered to cook dinner when his grandmother was visiting; then returned at 8:00 PM
saying "Oh, no, I forgot!"
One unhealthy dynamic in this
duo is that Sixes are more comfortable with Nines' anger than with their placidity, and can taunt the Nine until something happens.
Sixes can't stand the anxiety of limbo,
so at some level would rather be
engaged in an argument than not know what's going to happen. Nines and Sixes are
both anti-authoritarian (don't want to be controlled); Nine parents need to
find ways to help Sixes develop their own authority (and not be threatened when they
do).
Jane's relationship with her son became much healthier
over the years, but later she saw similar dynamics playing out with his live-in
girlfriend. The main thing I'd say is that we can't really change other people, we
can only change ourselves and pray the changes will elicit something different (and
healthier) in the other person. Jane, who didn't know about the Enneagram
until her son was in his last year of college, wished she could have read
about the Six when he was growing up and been a healthier Nine. For example,
she
remembered with some embarrassment how angry she felt when her son took the garbage out
on the "wrong" night and how she laid into him in front of his girlfriend. In retrospect, she
would have recognized her own fixation of feeling ignored, and possibly have complimented him for covering the possibility they'd miss the garbage collectors if he didn't act.
She
particularly wished she'd known about her Nine's inertia when her son was in high school. Her
Eight daughter (first-born) was a brilliant student, and chose her college in her Junior year.
So Jane waited for her son (and his high school counselors) to decide
what he wanted to do, as her daughter had. Her son had street smarts but was
not an intellectual. In retrospect Jane realized he doubted his own ability to make
it in college and she could have been much more helpful if she'd
taken the initiative. Instead he got the message, "You're 18, you ought to know
what you want to do."
Where choice
and initiative are required, Nines tend to project their own blind spots onto
others. The more out of touch
they are with their own
agenda, the more critical Nines can be of someone who has difficulty making a
decision.
