Carolyn Bartlett
From the Enneagram Field Guide: The Therapist’s Companion, your quick reference to improve therapy outcomes type by type. Don’t let the title dissuade you, it an excellent resource for all students of human nature.
Presentation in Therapy
• Five clients may be shy and guarded with a flat affect
• They may offer brief responses or intellectual verbosity
• Can act superior, over-intellectualize and avoid feelings
• Loneliness is often a motivator
• Some Fives come to therapy to understand how emotional and social systems function. They may be brought in by a spouse who wants better communication
• Fives can appear anxious, scanning, afraid of exposure or intrusion
• Some Fives seem innocent of social conventions and openly answer questions about subjects usually loaded with social secrecy: eating disorders, substance abuse, and sexual or other compulsions
• Fives can abuse substances to relieve social anxiety, using alcohol and/or drugs to numb and quiet their fear.
At their best Fives are engaged in their own life through their relationships and work. Doing what they feel passionate about, they are willing to give of their time, knowledge and emotions.
When Fives are caught in their defensive pattern, they get trapped in loneliness. They avoid having to give to or be touched by others and hoard what they have acquired. Their attention is geared toward maintaining privacy and observing the external world. They spend a lot of time gathering information, which seems to provide them safety by allowing them to know more than others.
The Five introspective style is out of sync with the aggressive, busy, forward-moving aspects of American culture. The Five’s mental acuity – while a strength – can set them apart socially and their other gifts may be overlooked and undervalued. The marketing of “Social Anxiety Disorder” by the pharmaceutical industry reflects this bias. This trend encourages clinicians to diagnose normal children who have the characteristics of Fives and give them medication to become more extroverted.
Childhood Experiences and Adult Defenses
Fives have the inherent gift of omniscience, an intuitive intelligence and wisdom that is not intellectual. They are also naturally able to be fully present without becoming attached to outcome. These essential qualities underlie the kind of presence and compassion taught by the Buddha.
As children, however, Fives can experience the world as overwhelming, intrusive or unreliable. Five children are sensitive to other people’s emotional states and often come to believe that others will not meet their needs without wanting too much in return. To protect themselves from feeling depleted, young Fives learn to tamp down their life force. This allows them to need less from others, thus minimizing their risk should nothing be available. The Five child begins to habitually guard his privacy as well as gather and hoard information, an early expression of what Enneagram books call avarice, or greed.
Some Fives remember childhoods where they felt intruded upon, perhaps because of a crowded family environment or because of needy or demanding parents. Other Fives were paid little attention and recall an atmosphere of emotional scarcity. Either experience prompts the child to hold on to what little they feel they have. Most Fives remember feeling comforted by time alone, when they often read books or played with computers to mentally escape. Social rules were also a source of confusion and loneliness, further prompting the Five child to withdraw: “As a child, I took a very detached role in the family. Doing my own thing. It’s as if I made a decision very early in life that it was safer to do without intimate relationships.”
Presentation in Therapy
• Five clients may be shy and guarded with a flat affect
• They may offer brief responses or intellectual verbosity
• Can act superior, over-intellectualize and avoid feelings
• Loneliness is often a motivator
• Some Fives come to therapy to understand how emotional and social systems function. They may be brought in by a spouse who wants better communication
• Fives can appear anxious, scanning, afraid of exposure or intrusion
• Some Fives seem innocent of social conventions and openly answer questions about subjects usually loaded with social secrecy: eating disorders, substance abuse, and sexual or other compulsions
• Fives can abuse substances to relieve social anxiety, using alcohol and/or drugs to numb and quiet their fear.
At their best Fives are engaged in their own life through their relationships and work. Doing what they feel passionate about, they are willing to give of their time, knowledge and emotions.
When Fives are caught in their defensive pattern, they get trapped in loneliness. They avoid having to give to or be touched by others and hoard what they have acquired. Their attention is geared toward maintaining privacy and observing the external world. They spend a lot of time gathering information, which seems to provide them safety by allowing them to know more than others.
The Five introspective style is out of sync with the aggressive, busy, forward-moving aspects of American culture. The Five’s mental acuity – while a strength – can set them apart socially and their other gifts may be overlooked and undervalued. The marketing of “Social Anxiety Disorder” by the pharmaceutical industry reflects this bias. This trend encourages clinicians to diagnose normal children who have the characteristics of Fives and give them medication to become more extroverted.
Childhood Experiences and Adult Defenses
Fives have the inherent gift of omniscience, an intuitive intelligence and wisdom that is not intellectual. They are also naturally able to be fully present without becoming attached to outcome. These essential qualities underlie the kind of presence and compassion taught by the Buddha.
As children, however, Fives can experience the world as overwhelming, intrusive or unreliable. Five children are sensitive to other people’s emotional states and often come to believe that others will not meet their needs without wanting too much in return. To protect themselves from feeling depleted, young Fives learn to tamp down their life force. This allows them to need less from others, thus minimizing their risk should nothing be available. The Five child begins to habitually guard his privacy as well as gather and hoard information, an early expression of what Enneagram books call avarice, or greed.
Some Fives remember childhoods where they felt intruded upon, perhaps because of a crowded family environment or because of needy or demanding parents. Other Fives were paid little attention and recall an atmosphere of emotional scarcity. Either experience prompts the child to hold on to what little they feel they have. Most Fives remember feeling comforted by time alone, when they often read books or played with computers to mentally escape. Social rules were also a source of confusion and loneliness, further prompting the Five child to withdraw: “As a child, I took a very detached role in the family. Doing my own thing. It’s as if I made a decision very early in life that it was safer to do without intimate relationships.”