SUMMARY: Enneagram Type 1 (PDP Pattern 1) Wholeness in Therapy
Motivation: Agency for Empowerment
Attendency: Inward
Primary Emotion: Anger
Emotion Regulation Mode: Down-regulate (Contain and Channel)
Enneagram Center of Intelligence and Knowing: Leads with Gut-Body/Instinctual-Moving-Sensing in Perceiving the World, Associations Based on Senses/Movement and the Environment
Anatomical Location of Initial Energy Flow (ALIEF): Gut/Body
Enneagram Type: The Perfectionist/Reformer
SUMMARY: Enneagram Type 1 (PDP Pattern 1) Core Dynamics in Therapy
The following sections use "type" rather than "pattern" as the descriptions come from David's writings.
Growth, integration, and wholeness from habitual and reactive patterns to higher human capacities as a result of:
- relaxing the pattern
- renewed aspirational intentions
- moving from reactivity to pause/deep breath growth for 1
Resentment vs “Perfection” – The Cognitive Dynamic, Growth, and Wholeness
- Resentment -- Cognitive Preoccupations and Habitual Narratives
- Inner demand for correctness. Self-critical. Self and others not right enough. Repression of wants. Over-controlled. Righteousness.
- “Perfection” -- Cognitive Higher Capacity
- Connected to all things, no division. The blend of good and bad, right and wrong, positive and negative elements at any one time is the natural process. The way the world is arranged is fine. The universe works perfectly in its evolution.
Righteous Anger vs Serenity – The Emotional Dynamic, Growth, and Wholeness
- Righteous Anger -- Emotional Drive, Tone, and Reactivity
- Tense and rigid. Often suppressed or contained. Anger reflects the violation of standards.
- Serenity -- Emotional Higher Capacity
- All the positive and negative feelings occur without resistance. Acceptance, peace, body at ease with self. Secure in capacities. Life is all right, not perturbed by differences.
Enneagram Type 1 Synopsis
Brief Description
The Type 1 believes you must be good and right to be worthy. Consequently, Type 1s are conscientious, responsible, improvement-oriented and self-controlled, but also can be critical, resentful and self-judging.
Key Interventions
Help Type 1s notice and reduce the dominance of the critical mind, appreciate error as difference, and accept and integrate desire and instinct as the path to wholeness.
Somatic Profile
Type 1s tend to be grounded and practical, good at the tasks of daily life. As body-based types they usually have abundant physical energy and a high bio-energetic charge, but they exercise "top down" control over their feelings and impulses. This intense self-control can lead to lots of physical rigidity and tension, particularly armoring in the jaw, neck, shoulders, diaphragm, the pelvic floor. Teeth grinding or TMJ are possibilities. In some Type 1s, over time the face can take on an expression of angry judgment or resentful martyrdom.
Communication Style
Precise, clear, direct, and right/wrong oriented. To others this may be perceived as overly detailed, judgmental, critical, limiting, or closed- minded.
Behavioral Profile
- Strengths: Persistent effort, correct action, honesty, responsibility, concern for improvement, accomplishment, idealism, high standards, self-reliance, dedication.
- Difficulties: Critical of self and others, never satisfied with performance, compulsive need to improve, preoccupied with “should” and “what must be done,” difficulty in accepting imperfection, will not cooperate if standards are too high.
What Triggers Reactivity in Relationships
Unfairness. Irresponsibility. Things being done the wrong way. The flagrant ignoring or disobeying of sound rules. Being unjustly criticized. Being lied to, manipulated, tricked or unjustly blamed.
Social Profile
Type 1’s range from introverted to extraverted. However, due to their "getting it right" energy attempt to balance self and others, 1's tend to fall in the middle of the I-E scale (see energy flow Harmony Triads).
In addition, their social disposition is impacted by the three instinctual sub-types. Dominance toward self-survival or self-preservation is a focus based on me first which can lead to more introversion. Dominance toward bonding survival, the one-on-one focused relationships, tend to fall in the middle of the Introversion-Extraversion (I-E) scale. Dominance toward group survival, the social focus on groups and organizations, can lead to being more extraverted.
Enneagram Type 1 Basic Proposition and Loss of Wholeness in Childhood
Holy Perfection is that undivided state of utter wholeness or oneness where everything is complete as it is in each moment. There is no division into time or space, into good or bad, into right or wrong. The universe functions perfectly, balancing out change as things move from cosmos to chaos and back to cosmos over and over. The ocean is a good metaphor. It is always changing yet never changing. No wave is more perfect than any other wave. Deep underneath the waves there is calm. We all know this. Similarly, we all accept the seasons and know that life flows through each season without judgment. Underneath the seasons is life; underneath life is essence -- permanent, unchanging, undivided. The infant, in her rudimentary state of development, does not divide the world into good or bad, right or wrong, past or future. She simply is present to the is-ness, to the undivided perfection of the moment. This holy perfection is not to be construed that there is no pain or there are no times of great distress. But in the undivided state there is no judgment, therefore no suffering piled on top of pain and distress. The body is serene in that it is at one with itself and connected to its instinctual energy.
This oneness is damaged by a world that severely judges and punishes "bad" behavior and impulse. At least the emerging perfectionist child, perhaps especially sensitive to damage of this aspect of essence, experiences this judgment as harsh and severe. So in the interest of survival, holy perfection goes into the background and the developing personality substitutes the perfectionism of good versus bad, right versus wrong. You, as a Perfectionist child, then gain worthiness and love through being good, correcting mistakes, striving to be perfect. You develop a powerful inner critic or judging mind with exacting standards that meet rigorous criteria. You replace the undivided state of holy perfection and protect it from future damage with its mimic, the divided world of perfectionism of right and wrong, of good and bad. To accomplish this your attention must get organized around noticing errors to correct, comparing what is wrong with what is right, and constantly monitoring your own behavior. You plot off and suppress desires, urges, impulses, pleasures in/and of what is good and right.
In the process, you fall into anger, first, at being knocked out of the perfect environment of essence, then at what is wrong or bad to correct. You lose the serenity of being in perfect balance with the flow of life. You suppress pleasure and impulse. Since anger too is "bad" and punishable, you also suppress it becoming tense, anxious, exacting. You resent imperfection as judged by your critical mind. You resent those who violate the standards it has set. You resent that the world isn't a better place or what your critical mind says it could be. You develop the mechanism of reaction formation against whatever is judged as wrong or bad which includes the instinctual pleasures. Ironically, you strive to regain a perfect individual world along this false path of the divided world that will never get you there. But, given this basic proposition, the Perfectionist's strategy makes perfect sense.
What Wholeness Looks Like for Enneagram Type 1
What does greater wholeness look like when those with Enneagram Type 1 make their way on the journey of self-study and growth?
- Moving from a cognitive habit that my way is the right way to cognitive awareness that true or natural perfection includes my way and other ways, both rights and wrongs, accepting differences.
- Moving from emotionally contained anger inside to serenity with others.
When Enneagram Type 1 integrates the idea of natural perfection and order, the higher capacity of being aware and in touch with one’s acceptance of differences as differences, rather than imperfections or wrongs is present and used often. There is an ability to act out of a place of unbiased action, rather than out of my individual sense of what is right and wrong and an emotional serenity is experienced.
