Structural Enneagram

It appears that psychopaths (or sociopaths, if you prefer) are people whose mental and behavioral repertoire is restricted to Structural Enneagram perspectives Seven and Eight. Psychopaths seem not to have the flexibility to enter into and use the other four perspectives.

That is one of the impressions I took away from Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test: A Journey through the Madness Industry (Riverhead-Penguin 2011). Ronson, a journalist, is also the author of Them and The Men Who Stare at Goats.

Ronson’s book is a good, fast read and a worthwhile exploration into both the “criminal mind” and society’s stake in understanding it. Can we begin to protect ourselves from psychopaths by diagnosing them scientifically? If so, would we find that some corporate and political leaders are psychopaths and that we are all their victims? Or do we ourselves become power-mad when we slap such labels on people and ignore the degrees of difference among them?

The book offers an abundance of evidence by which psychopaths can be correlated to the Seven-Eight structure. Here are just three of the many examples provided by the men and women Ronson profiles:

• They have perspective Eight’s other-orientation and requirement for recognition. They want to be liked and, if not liked, at least respected. Being “dissed” can send them into a rage.
• They also have Eight’s need to control. If they are ingratiating, it is only to turn manipulative.
• They have the perspective-Seven ability to mirror the other. They are skillful imitators.

What psychopaths do not have are interiority and a conscience, and Structural Enneagram can explain that, too.

According to Structural Enneagram, Seven-Eights have some sort of negative relationship with perspective Two, which is the ability to empathize. Ordinary Seven-Eights are rebels whose need to achieve autonomy leads them to do the opposite of what the other wants. Psychopaths flat out can’t empathize.

Ordinary Seven-Eights aspire to Four’s perspective of self-awareness and autonomy. They become rebels in an effort to release their psyches from the other and achieve autonomy. Psychopaths can’t occupy either perspective Two or Four, so they simply have no interiority; they are empty shells.

If Ronson has the full story, true psychopaths may be the way they are because their amygdalas don’t work properly. But if Seven-Eights fall on a spectrum between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Idi Amin, then perhaps at least those in the middle could be helped to add more flexibility to their perspectives through the use of Structural Enneagram principles.

With their pleasant, easy-going exteriors, Nine-wing-Ones are frequently underestimated. Some conventional Enneagram writers describe them as lazy and indifferent; however, many are quite industrious and effective. At its highest intensity, this personality melds penetrating insight into what makes people and societies tick with soaring dreams as to what they may become.

Traditional Enneagram descriptions emphasize the “deadly sin” of sloth for Nines of either wing. At various times, you may experience Nine-wing-Ones as anything from accommodating to stubborn, industrious to indolent, judgmental to accepting. It all depends on the match between their external and internal realities, and you, of course, cannot know how those match up unless they tell you, and they may well not tell you.

When I give my own sorting test to Nine-wing-Ones, they resonate with six to eight of the conventional, single-number Enneagram types—but never with type Eight. Thus you may know them by their apparent contradictions. Whether you see it in them or not, they sense within themselves many of the characteristics of the majority of Enneagram points. Others explain this fact away by saying that Nine-wing-Ones are out of touch with themselves, but it seems to me that they are simply well-integrated.

For example, although Nine-wing-Ones generally use detached perspective Five and may seem to be “out of body”, they do get good rapport and typically make others feel comfortable. This leads me to conclude that most of them must not be shut out of perspective Seven since Seven’s ability to enter the other’s mental or energetic space is necessary for rapport.

Visual tip-offs to the Nine-wing-One: They often use slow hand gestures. They may nod their heads a lot. They are not necessarily agreeing with you; they are encouraging you to continue and saying, “I hear you.” They sometimes have a slouchy posture and lean against the back of the chair or, if standing, against a wall. They will also match others’ posture and gestures when they are in rapport, which is often.

Probable examples of personality type Nine-wing-One are Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Walt Disney, Queen Elizabeth II, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, Garrison Keillor, Princess Grace of Monaco, Rose Kennedy, George Lucas, and the Dalai Lama.

Being less influenced than most by perspective Eight’s need for interpersonal validation, Nine-wing-Ones generally don’t take things personally. This, along with their reliance on perspective Five, allows them to see all sides of an issue. Having perspective Four in their makeup, they feel separate from others. Having a perspective-One component, they feel a strong sense of purpose, even if they can’t quite articulate it.

Finally, Nine-wing-Ones’ concerns and aspirations will be found at the intersection of reality and their ideals. If there is a good enough match, they will be content and relatively inactive. If there is not a match, then their choice of goals is apparent: they must either withdraw from that particular environment or change it. If Nine-wing-Ones have adopted a view of themselves as intellectuals, then they will set out to educate an uninformed world. If they view themselves as spiritual, then they will model holiness for a materialistic society. If they have had instilled in them a sense of their obligation to lead, then they will study, plan, and act toward that end. They unpretentiously allow themselves to be used and used up on behalf of their goals.

One-wing-Nines want to express and embody their values and beliefs. This leads them to push for reforms on a local or more universal level. They want things to be done properly. Within themselves, they assure that things are done properly by setting up and identifying with a conscious director, or controller, part. Through their controller part they orchestrate the cooperation, coordination, and well-being of their own unconscious parts.

Other writers say the following are examples of personality type One-wing-Nine: Plato, Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau, Colin Powell, Michael Dukakis, William F. Buckley, Jr., Al Gore, George F. Will, George Harrison, and C. S. Lewis. I do have some doubts about Thoreau belonging in this group.

In my observation, One-wing-Nines, more than any other type, have a tendency to occupy the place of an impersonal ideal—to represent an ideal and act on its behalf without consideration of what other people think. This perspective-One ability to think from the place of an idea was illustrated by a former teacher of mine, who would muse during a
seminar, “I wonder what wants to be said on this topic.” Would another type even consider that an idea might “want” something?

One-wing-Nines are reformers, moralists, and philosophers. They can be somewhat ascetic, suppressing impulses that do not accord with their principles. And they can be intolerant of the weaknesses and hypocrisies of others. You may typically find them earnestly engaged in convincing others to live up to their own professed ideals.

Along these lines, my One-wing-Nine friend loves the poem “Let America Be America Again” by the African-American poet Langston Hughes, which you can read here.