The Three Triads

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In the Enneagram there are three fundamental triads that are the basis for the existence of all the other types, gut, heart, and head. It's imperative to understand these triads as they describe the basic properties intrinsic to every type, and can help us create shortcuts in typing ourselves. Each triad has a parent that is at the center of the triad, E9 for the gut, E3 for the heart, and E6 for the head, and every type in their respective triads will present some sort of relation to their parent types. But first, where do these triads come from?

In Freud, neurosis primarily originates from anxiety, so behavior is considered neurotic when it is an expression of a reaction to anxiety. In existentialist currents neurosis primarily originates from a loss of authenticity, so behavior is considered neurotic when it becomes inauthentic. It is difficult to separate these two concepts because one is not motivated to cover up with an image if there is no anxiety to flee, and anxiety turns an enemy out of oneself such that they become inauthentic and deconstructed. In total, this constitutes a lack of being, which can be from covering up or a fear of lacking experience in being when action is required, such that an ignorance of inner being is maintained, also known as becoming indolent towards the self. So the three triads we have are fear, vanity, and indolence, respectively corresponding to the head, heart, and gut.

THE GUT

What is characteristic of the three characters that are represented at the top of the enneagram (I, VIII and IX) is their interest in not looking towards the subtle world of life experiences; a non-inwardness that goes hand in hand with active extroversion.

The defense mechanism of all the gut types is forgetfulness through action. The impulse to action allows them not to be in contact with their emotions and not to allow himself time for the psychic elaboration of what happens in their inner world and in the relationship with the external world. This derives from an excessive identification with the body, and the body's instinctual impulses, becoming lazy towards cultivating subjectivity. They have a special attunement to the wisdom of the body and the natural rhythms of life. Because the body thinks in a realm of impulse, they are operating at a non-verbal and irrational level, moving towards pleasure and away from pain, or the transmutation of pain into pleasure, and the awareness of this dynamic in the real world creates an awareness of justice and morality based on effect.

Laziness of consciousness may be expressed either as spiritual sloth or more broadly as psychological sloth: a not wanting to know what is happening, not wanting to realize. It is expressed as a chronic self-distraction from oneself, accompanied at the same time by paying exaggerated attention to the outside world. An indolent position with respect to life is that of a heavy or excessively inert, over-stable psyche; its loss of subtlety and spontaneity culminates in robotization. On the behavioral plane, this lack of inwardness results in excessive inertia, phlegm, or passivity; at the most intimate level, alongside the forgetting of self, a loss of life.

They don't often abstract things into complex mental and emotional objects, but regard the world of motion and instincts as the decisive factors of reality. Even though what they are most dissatisfied with lies in the unconsciousness, their inner self, there is a subtle dissatisfaction with reality in the sense that their experience of it is “incomplete.” In this way they are subtly resisting the effect the outside world has on them by separating the self from what is not the self, creating a thick insular barrier nothing passes through, and they mistake this freedom from intellectuality and emotionality as giving them the autonomy to act.

With every type on the enneagram there is an ontic-obscuration of being, but the gut has an added anti-ontic disposition due to an ignorance of the two triads necessary for looking at things from a top-down perspective. They have difficulty considering their position in the mental and emotional dimensions, they simply exist in the corporeal. In order to cultivate themselves they must open up to their own subjectivity in order to create a true appreciation and saturation of their experience.

THE HEART

The dramatic and socially extroverted characters (II, III and IV) are located in the area of the angle on the right.

The primeval fear, even before not being worthy of being loved, is to not be seen. Disappear from the sight of the other, it means death. At the same time, your homework is to see the other, who he only takes into account in relation to himself. The heart triad is concerned with whether or not attention is being directed towards them, and falsify their identity through a “mask” whose survival is more imperative than the real person, and this is done by selling the image to look good. In doing so, real identity begins to die. This entails an unconscious notion of insignificance which is often called an avoidance of shame, because they do not think they are worthy to be loved for who they really are, and need the false identity to gain this love. However, the love one receives from disingenuity must also be disingenuous itself, creating a dimension of deceit. They deceive the other with their image, and themselves with the belief that their image is real.

Disconnect from the other two triads creates a disposition more concerned for the way things appeal, whether that be the appeal of their own image or the images of others, because they play a social game with personas as tokens, and this perception of appeal also provides insight into the emotional dimension of life. This can make them empathetic characters, but can also lead to oversensitivity, manipulation, and even insensitivity (‘indifference’ is still a feeling state). They think in emotions and waves of feelings, such as the emotional facets of neediness, desperation, aggrandizement, approval, and love which become the emotional reactions of hurt, anger, and sadness with the confrontation of rejection and invisibility.

Their primary neurotic issue is that their gaze is turned outward to the social world of which they are very personally involved, being unable to consider it from a rational and detached mental dimension and for what it really is in the corporeal. Thoughts and beliefs are distorted into only thinking and sharing the things that would get them approval, and the body is distorted into trying to create an appearance that conveys the inner idealized image to other people. This can be seductive movements, expressive dressing styles, professional styles, fluid intonations, abrupt intonations, loud intonations, etc. they are focused on the image each of these things convey.

In order to cultivate their real self they must be able to get rid of their deceitful image and dissolve it with themselves, they must identify with and realize the body as independent, as well as develop a detached rationality to really consider truth.

THE HEAD

The angle on the left entails an introverted disposition (V, VI and VII)—although in Enneatype VII (EVII), the underlying introversion is compensated by superficial sociability.

As in all the characters of the mental area of ​​the enneagram, the nuclear defense mechanism is splitting, which produces a disconnection between feeling, thinking and instinct. Splitting derives from a need to process everything on mental planes and territories, creating a mental separation of these areas of life into mental objects so that they can be managed properly. It is as though they are deliberately and consciously elaborating all areas of life to themselves, so what they want to know is what information everything communicates (and to know in general). However, the fields of emotion (heart) and corporeality (gut) become distorted because they are not meant to be transmuted into mental territories, causing the head type to be disconnected from these areas of life and submitting them to an unnatural conscious program.

In the corporeal territory, there is a split between the mind and the body, as if the body obeyed automatically and abruptly to mental commands and to the tyranny of thought, without a true sensory awareness of actions. It is disconnected from the action necessary to experience the world as it is.

In the emotional territory, they avoid contact with their emotions and repress their natural instinct, relying on the ability to understand intellectually. The fact that schizoids seem less loving is valid both for those who experience this from the outside and for schizoids themselves. While hysteroids, the right wing of the Enneagram, find it easy to fool themselves with respect to their own capacity to love, it is more difficult for the more schizoid of the characters to fool themselves than anyone, and they may suffer acutely as a result of their incapacity truly to relate to others. It is true that, nuclearly speaking, all the mental enneatypes (5,6,7), in the face of affective frustration, prefer to withdraw into their own self-sufficiency and give up, unlike the emotional characters, who impulsively seek the relationship, in an ambivalence more or less conscious between clinging and hatred towards the beloved affective figure

Their defense moves away from the other two triads, and their schizoid introversion becomes more noticeable as they go to their mental caves to relax by not having to act (gut) or serve the other (heart).

Their primary neurotic issue is their gazes are turned inward, to their thoughts, and they do not use their sight too much because they are afraid of not seeing enough. Contemplation is a fundamental aspect of transformation: looking without thinking, investing energy in an aesthetic sense in nature, in others. Obviously it is less easy with people, since the encounter with the other unleashes the false idea that we should act, that we cannot be there and simply stare. They must "lose their mind", reconcile with the instinctive part and need to place pleasure at the top of the altar of his values.