An Intro To Enneagram Type 9
The path to peace… is full of traps
I. Introducing type 9
Type Nine is the last type in the Enneagram of Personality Types, and part of the instinctual triad.
The core motivation of type 9 is to have inner peace. That's why they’re often called “The Peacemaker”. But as we shall see, there are great differences between how healthy and unhealthy nines approach the way to peace. And in quite a few cases, the 9s yearning for inner peace… creates more trouble than tranquility.
Nines are collective beings at their core, and highly sensitive to the wellbeing of people around them. They enjoy giving their attention fully to others, and are uncritical and accepting; allowing people to be exactly as they are. Healthy 9s are some of the most trustworthy people you can find. They’re stable and solid, and always there for you when you need them.
At their best, the 9s selflessness is their most beautiful quality. But when their less healthy, the 9s selflessness oh-so-quickly trips into… self-sacrificing.
The 9th passion is Sloth, which could be interpreted as a sense of self-forgetting. 9s tend to focus more on other than on themselves, and quickly get lost in the needs and wants of people around them. And as they fall asleep to their own agendas, needs and feelings, their contribution to others greatly diminishes.
9s are dreamers. In their healthy expression, their yearning for peace and their belief in the magical and profound, inspires them to make life a little… magical. Healthy nines have a sense of profundity about them - an intimate connection to their imagination and to the subtle parts of life. But as nines get less healthy, their fantasy life start chewing on the corners of reality – and they lose touch with the real world. Unhealthy nines can be terribly neglectful, full of denial, or even totally spaced out.
In general, 9s prefer comfort over adventure, and usually take the past of least resistance. Even 9s that come to personal work or the spiritual field, tend to approach environments that comfort rather than challenge - or they edit the teachings somewhat so they won’t be too confronting. And of course, this uneasiness about being uncomfortable, can halt 9s personal growth. Because to grow, we sometimes need to challenge ourselves.
Cues for the healthy nine: relaxed, accepting, pleasant, peaceful, easygoing, reassuring, adaptive, good mediator, friendly. Cues for the unhealthy nine: Self-forgetting, idealizing others, conformity, disassociation, complacent, neglectful.
According to Riso and Hudson (Personality types - Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. 1996), 9s corresponds to the introverted sensation-type in Jungian psychology.
This essay is written partly based on the description of type nine as it appears in the book “Personality Types” by Riso - Hudson, and partly based on my personal experiences from studying and contemplating the personality types since 2017.
II. The 9s Childhood Pattern
As children, nines feel deeply connected with all the people taking care of them: first and foremost the parents, but it could also be grandparents or older siblings. This collective identification can be challenging to manage. Because with their deep care for everyone in their family environment, conflicts or disagreement amongst their closest ones, feels to the 9… like being torn apart from within.
From early on, 9s realize that their inner peace is highly dependent on the harmony between the people AROUND them. Ideally, 9s just want everybody to be happy and in harmony with one another, so they can be with them and feel peaceful. But that’s easier said than done.
Concerned with preserving the outer peace – so they can maintain their INNER peace, young 9s do their best to support the harmony in their family environment. They do their best to keep everyone at ease with one another, and mediate in conflicts when they arise. But in their eagerness to make everybody happy, there isn’t much energy left for young 9s to explore THEIR needs in the group. And so, while developing a great sensitivity to others needs and wants – 9s often lose track of their own needs and wants in the picture.
«It’s as if Nines have been crowded out of their own selves…» (Personality types - Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. 1996, p640) Eventually, this paradox is the seeding of the 9th passion of sloth: where 9s fall asleep to their individual selves.
When young 9s experience that their efforts support the harmony in their family environment; they feel empowered. But in very conflicted family environments, 9s will likely experience that nothing they do… helps. There is no peace to be found anywhere.
Seeing no possibility to bring their surroundings into harmony, young 9s teach themselves to disassociate. By turning a deaf ear to conflicts happening around them, 9s desperatley try blocking the outside from affecting their sense of inner peace. And usually, the more conflicts there are in the 9s childhood environment - the stronger and more habitual their disassociation pattern becomes.
III. Out of touch with their instinctual nature – and the trouble that follows
9s – together with 8s and 1s - are part of the instinctual triad. In this triad, 9 is the type that’s known for being out of touch with their instincts.
In their desire for inner peace, it can be difficult for 9s to acknowledge the place of the instinctual, primal part of themselves. Their deeper feelings (their sadness, their fear, doubt, anger) obviously threaten their inner peace. And because of this, many 9s start approaching their instinctual nature and all their challenging feelings as enemies. Something that ideally shouldn’t… exist.
My instincts aren’t CIVILIZED, 9s tell themselves. They’re just a primal stupid part of me. I have to keep them at bay, or they’ll just create havoc, conflict, misery.
Rather than taking on the work to BEFRIEND their inner world – 9s usually dismiss the more challenging part of themselves, as mere obstacles to their inner peace. And as they press their instincts and challenging feelings away again and again and again, 9s eventually lose touch with their instinctual nature and deeper feeling life.
Falling asleep to their instinctual nature has great consequences for 9s personal development. One problem is that our instinctual nature carries our life force energy. When 9s turn their back on this part of themselves, they simultaneously turn their back on their greatest source of energy. Asleep to their instinctual self, many 9s feel… powerless.
But another, maybe even greater problem, is that as 9s dismiss their deeper feelings again and again, they don’t develop neither tools nor experience with handling this part of themselves.
And now, any outer situation that threatens to provoke their deeper feelings… becomes absolutely terrifying.
IV. Peace Maker or Peace Illusionist?
9s would ideally prefer life to be as friction-less as possible. But alas, life is seldom friction-less. And our inner peace of course, is always threatened by what's going on around us.
When conflicts arise in the 9s close family; at work; with friends; or even in their greater society, they present the 9s with a wave of feelings: fear, anger, anxiety, stress, desperation, sadness. And the less tools 9s have to handle these feelings, the more overwhelming conflicts around them will feel.
Without tools to stay present to the well of feelings arising from an outer conflict – 9s usually fall back on their childhood pattern of disassociation. They put their fingers in their ears and close their eyes, and just as a child… magically hope their denial will make the conflict disappear.
But of course, 9s refusal to acknowledge conflicts, doesn’t make them go away. And this strategy can be very provocative to people around the 9 who want to ADRESS the conflict, and work it through.
9s are often called “The Peacemaker”. But that badge only really applies to healthy 9s. Cause unhealthy nines really, rather than being peacemakers, are more like peace illusionists.
Unhealthy nines deal with their yearning for peace by tuning out to non-peaceful parts of both themselves and their surroundings. Basically, they choose avoidance instead of action. And of course, that approach isn’t any contribution to peaceful environments.
To be healthy, 9s need to take an active stand to conflicts. And that active stand, STARTS with building their capacity to handle their own upsetting feelings! With a bit of confidence in facing their feeling world, 9s are much better equipped in facing challenging OUTER situations, because they don’t have to be fearful of what an outer situation may provoke inside them.
Healthy nines are true peacemakers. From a basis of being at ease with themselves, they do their best to INFLUENCE their world in order to create the peaceful environment they long so much for. When conflicts inevitably arise, they do their best to address them– and stay put with them until they’ve resolved. They TRUST that peace in their surroundings is possible, but also acknowledge that true and sustainable peace… take work.
Healthy 9s develop an inner strength that supports them in staying present and working through challenges and conflicts. They know that true peace is created in an active relationship with the world AROUND them – by working together, addressing conflicts, getting into dialogue, and collectively doing whatever is necessary to retrace the harmony!
In fact, 9s that take on their inner work and develop tools for conflict management, often even start enjoy conflict a little bit. Cause conflicts brings people’s needs up to the surface, and help them getting to know one another, and to grow as a group. When 9s combine this mindset with their natural calmness, empathy, and care for all parties within greater group, they grow into beautiful mediators and peace-makers.
9s teaches us that neglection… is seldom a good strategy. Also, they show us that the more comfortable we are with our inner world: the better equipped we are for facing challenges in our OUTER world. Basically: If we can OWN challenging feelings that arises within us, we can usually handle outer challenges too! But without this inner stamina, conflicts will present us with an inner pressure that seems almost impossible to manage. And that’s often when we fall into denial.
V. The Angel complex: People pleasing, self-sacrificing and lack of communication
9s generally try to move as harmoniously with their surroundings as possible. They pay a lot of attention to the group harmony, and do their best to be as EASYGOING as possible. They pride themselves with being an always-positive contribution to the group, and with being someone who takes care of everybody around them.
Now, this collective orientation ca be a beautiful trait. But… it’s important to understand that many 9s develop quite an ego-pattern out of being pleasing to others. You could even say that type 9 has an angel-complex: 9s want to be everybody’s favorite person – someone who everybody has positive-only thoughts about.
But of course, no matter how easygoing 9s try to appear, they too have personal opinions, needs and preferences. They just don’t have a habit of communicating them! In fact, many 9s deep down tend to think that stating their needs, protecting their boundaries, expressing their feelings, or asserting themselves in any way: is egoistic and wrong. They feel taking space for themselves is a sign of pride. And that if they’d make the mistake and let their civilized guard down to express exactly what they think and feel and need… people would leave them.
Abbott Handerson Thayer: Angel (1887) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
With this backdrop, 9s tend to give little pointers to their environment about their needs and boundaries - and how they want to be treated. Instead, they just hope that others will see how the 9s adapt to THEIR needs, and return the favor by organically adapting themselves to the 9s needs too. To 9s, those adaptions seem to be a matter of mere… politeness.
But people around the 9s, are usually far less attentive to the 9s needs, than the 9 is to everybody else’s needs. They don’t catch the 9s secret wish to just be… taken care of. Rather, the 9s surroundings tend to assume that 9s just are really easygoing, and don’t mind so much about their personal space; or having it their way; or having their opinions heard etc. Because 9s send no signals of wanting anything for themselves, people often end up treating them… as pushovers.
The thing the 9 has to realize; is that lack of boundary-setting, over-adapting and not communicating their needs: doesn’t make up for a positive group contribution. In fact, the 9s habit on not communicating their needs, often becomes a PROBLEM in the group environment. Cause of course, it’s not only the 9 who want people around them to thrive – people around the 9 want to take care of the 9 too! But they need to know HOW!
Without telling their surroundings what they need to thrive, 9s set the ground for misunderstandings, confusions and annoyance. Eventually, the 9s habit of not communicating what they need comes across as a bit arrogant: it’s as they keep their own needs in the dark because don’t trust others to take care of them!
To really be that positive contribution to the group that they yearn to be, 9s need to shed the expectation that people should just understand their needs and wants, and start COMMUNICATING their needs and boundaries with people around them.
And usually, when 9s start opening up about what they need and want, they’ll discover that people… appreciate their self-assertion! Cause when 9s TELL PEOPLE what they need, people don’t have to guess – and fail.
VI. Stubborn and defiant
Because of the 9s people pleasing pattern, and their habit of compromising on themselves in order for everybody else to “be okay”, there’s a myth about 9s saying they are more than averagely easygoing people. And while nines often DO stretch themselves far to maintain harmony, it’s also important to realize that 9s might disagree with you very strongly – but without letting you know.
9s are generally uneasy about asserting themselves. But still, they’re in need of autonomy. And their most common way to have a sense of autonomy, is by finding a way to oppose you. While a 9 smile at you and say: “Yes, I can do that”– they might say loudly NO inside. And there’s no way they will do what they just said yes to.
Nines don’t feel comfortable about stating their needs. And they feel even more uncomfortable about letting you know if their boundaries are crossed and they’re angry. When 9s feel angry, they typically try swiping their anger under the carpet, and pretend like nothing’s happening. Then they hope the anger will go over by itself.
But in fact, most nines are far more aggressive than they think themselves – and when they don’t speak their anger out loud, it comes out in other ways. Their main way to express aggression, is by defiance, stubbornness, opposition and protesting.
Usually, the more frustrated or powerless 9s feel, the more stubborn and defiant they get. Sometimes, they can start fighting completely meaningless causes, just to have a sense of having something for “themselves”. If you're relating to a 9 this can be good to know. If you see them being exceptionally stubborn, it usually helps asking them about their opinions, and about what they need right now to feel seen and heard.
Cause when 9s feel they’re included, there’s much less need for being stubborn.
VII. The 9th shadow: Life in La-La-Land. Denial, numbness and self-delusion
When unhealthy nines are faced with conflicted or stressful situations over time, they can get to a point where they just aren’t able to stay present to reality anymore. It's too challenging for them. And so, they retreat to their inner fantasy worlds… leaving reality behind.
When they retreat to a fantasy world like this, 9s start pretending like everything is okay –when it clearly isn’t. Desperate to maintain their inner peace in midst of extreme outer pressure, they create a safe fantasy world for themselves, a place where all is good and well.
In this retreat, 9s not only tune out to the world, they also tune out to… themselves. They’re seeking to avoid a too-frightening-reality by actively deceiving themselves. And in the illusionary landscape they’re creating, the ground is set for self-delusion, denial and neglection – and some real trouble monsters swept under the carpet.
Lost to their imaginary world, 9s turn their back on everything that challenges them, and magically wait for it to work itself out. They don’t go to the doctor if they’re ill. They close their eyes to trouble at work. They deny psychological or physical issues in people close to them. Or they stay in situations or relationships that are clearly unhealthy, refusing to acknowledge the problem. Basically, they just tune out to the parts of life they don’t like. And then idealize both people and situations to make them look better than they are.
Henry Fuseli: The Nightmare (1781) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
9s that fall into la-la-land, leave a trail of denied trouble behind them. Cause while 9s feel “okay” in their fantasy world, in the real world… they’re not okay at all. Chances are that people around the 9s will suffer for their neglection, and will have to tidy up where the 9s turn a blind eye. Others might need to step in to rescue both the situation - and sometimes also the nine themselves.
The retreat pattern of the unhealthy 9 appear as a “a characteristic form of selfishness” (Personality types - Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. 1996, p643.). Basically, in unhealthy nines, selfishness happens by putting their needs for peace above reality, neglecting conflicts that needs to be addressed, and leaving to others to fix their troubles.
From the outside, the 9s retreat from reality becomes a form of passive aggression. These 9s simply refuse to stay present to what's actually happening around them. But the aggressiveness of their pattern usually evades the 9s themselves, who don’t see how much pressure their neglection puts on people around them. If 9s would open their eyes and see all the havoc they’re creating around themselves in this state, they’d likely experience an enormous surge of guilt and anxiety.
Usually, the 9s neglection pattern is a downward spiral. The more the 9 closes their eyes to trouble, the more trouble is created. And of course, deep down, 9s KNOW they’re deceiving themselves. As the gap between reality and their imaginary world widens, emotional stress builds up within the 9s. Eventually, this stress may cause both health issues and psychological collapses.
VIII. Idealization Patterns
To have harmonious, nurturing and loving relationships is greatly important to 9s. When nines are healthy, this inspires a great receptiveness in them to others, and they make people around them feel accepted and loved. But when nines are less healthy… they have a tendency of «editing» people around them, to make others FIT them better.
This is known as the 9s idealization pattern. To maintain harmony in their close relationships, unhealthy nines start idealizing people around them. Basically, rather than relating to others as who they are, less healthy nines relate to others as projections of who they WANT and NEED the other to be.
When nines fall prey to their idealization pattern, they sort of dim others out at the edges, making a little less of what is too much and a bit more of what’s too little - until the other looks the way the 9s need them to. And the greater the nine can make the other look in their mind, the safer the 9 feels.
But of course, when 9s start edit their closest ones like that, they’re not actually relating to the other anymore. Instead, they’re relating to an object of their own fantasy.
9s inability to see others as persons with their own agendas and feelings different from themselves, both confuse and disturb the nines relationships. One problem is that since the idealization comes with an exaggeration of the others good qualities – and a denial of the others negative sides, it can make 9s prone to entering and staying in unequal and unhealthy relationships, and falling into co-dependent patterns.
Another problem is that the idealization pattern can be both confusing and provocative to the 9s closest ones, who of course want to be met as THEMSELVES, not as idealized fantasy persons.
The key to mature from the idealization pattern begin with the 9s relationship to themselves. For the nines to see and accept OTHERS as they are, they first need to accept THEMSELVES as they are. When 9s learn to embrace THEIR OWN complexity, they’ll build their capacity for embracing it in others. Now, 9s can manage to see the others “negative” sides, without experiencing that as a threat to the relationship.
IX. The Mature Nine – accepting themselves in all their complexity
What 9s long for most of all, is to finally find someone who fully understands them, and who can see and hold them in their full complexity. Nines dream of meeting that person who will accept their inner chaos, understand their boundaries, be curious about their opinions… and love them all the way through it.
The task for a real mature nine, is to become that special one for THEMSELVES! Self-love for 9s is all about allowing themselves to own and embrace their non-peaceful feelings: their anger, fear, frustration, sadness… together with their instinctual nature and their personal needs and boundaries. When 9s mature, they learn to include all the complexity within themselves: without judgement. They stop pushing their challenging feelings away, and practice embracing those parts of themselves as OKAY and lovable.
Dervish seated under a tree (ca 1630). British Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Basically, when nines mature: they provide the same empathy for themselves - that they give to others!
When 9s sincerely take on their inner work, and start allowing themselves to just be who they are – no matter what anybody else thinks or does - their whole life and behavior changes.
And it's a funny thing with 9s, cause when they start doing their inner work: people sometimes think they get “worse” – not better. Because healthy nines stop overadapting, communicate their boundaries, and dare to put their foot down. They share their opinions, voice their needs, and most importantly: let their surroundings know it they’re angry and their boundaries has been crossed. Basically, healthy 9s start taking care about themselves – and let people feel them in the space!
9s that start exploring and expressing themselves in relation to others, will usually feel a wonderful boost of power and vitality! As they claim their individuality and become self-possessed, 9s develop a sense of personal identity, that helps them being fully present in the world – and finally building the harmonious relationships they long so much for.
This essay is a taster from my course: Shadow Work Through the Enneagram. In the course you’ll find an extended version of this essay: including the 9th type from healthy to unhealthy, an exploration of the passion of Sloth, what we all can learn from the 9, and how the 9th type moves with the arrows.
The course includes intro essays for all of the 9 types, together with videos going deeper into each type. It also goes in depth of the Enneagram system: exploring the 9 passions, the arrows, the triads and the Enneagram history. You get all this together with a monthly zoom session and a complimentary one-on-one session with Idah . Read more and sign up to get noticed when the course is ready HERE!
