Enneagram Type 2 thread

[silke]

I think these "helper"-focused descriptions are more pertinent to Sensing type 2s, especially Si-creatives. "Ambition" descriptions sound more applicable for intuitive types.


Twos - Working With Pride
- Tom Condon

"Speaking at Oxford University, English politician Lord Longford was asked his views on humility. Longford advised the questioner to read his new book, which, he said, “is the finest book about humility ever written”. Entranced Twos control through pride. After rejecting their true feelings and adopting a helpful role towards others, they develop an exaggerated, compensatory idea of their value and worth. Meanwhile, Twos rationalizes their selfish motives and become simultaneously blind to the true needs of others and their uncomfortable reactions. When Twos feel rejected, needy or unloved, pride can become their most striking feature.

When they first learn the Enneagram, some Twos balk at the notion that they are prideful since they don’t necessarily gloat, brag or preen. But pride can come out in subtle ways; a Two might talk of helping others while implying that he is indispensable. Or make himself the actual subject of the story. Here, for example, is a Two speaking of nursing a dying friend: “It mattered so much to her that I was with her. And she held on for me to be with her when she passed on. It was very hard on me. I’m not going to lie to you and say that it didn’t devastate me.”

Another implicit expression of pride can be seen when Twos treat other full-grown adults like children, patronizing and infantilizing them, trying to evoke childlike needs so that the Two will then be needed as a nurturer. A Two explains: “When you’re always filling somebody else’s need, when you’re jumping into them, there’s something very condescending about it. The prideful idea is that other people can’t possibly take care of themselves without me.”

Psychotherapist Ed Dunkleblau tells a related story about a woman who was one day pushing her adult son through a shopping mall in a wheelchair. She was approached by a friend who voiced his surprise, saying “I didn’t know that your son couldn’t walk.” “Of course he can walk,” she replied. “But isn’t it nice that he doesn’t have to.”

I once watched the Twoish owner of a sandwich shop take the order of an introverted Fiveish female customer. As the woman stepped up to the counter, the owner greeted her effusively. She reacted with a downturned shrug. Next the Twoish man leaned closer and asked her solicitous questions about her order. Would she like the special sauce? The French bread was especially fresh today; wouldn’t she really prefer that to whole wheat? The woman diffidently refused everything except a plain sandwich. More urgently, the shop owner began to suggest additions to the order. The customer said “no” to potato chips, French fries and other extras until the the man came to a cookie. The Fiveish woman hesitated just slightly before refusing. Sensing an opening, the Twoish man began to insist that the woman have a cookie but she again demurred. When he brought the lunch to her table it included a cookie – for free.

This was a power struggle. Beneath the shop owner’s effusive behavior you could feel an aggressive need that grew more desperate with each of the customer’s refusals. It was like the man was saying, “Let me give you something, or I won’t exist.”

I had seen the shop owner in action before. Once he swooped down on a table where two friends were splitting a cookie and loudly proclaimed, “I’m sorry but you can’t share cookies in my restaurant.” Another time someone asked the Two how late the restaurant stayed open. “I close at five o’clock,” he replied. Eventually, the sandwich shop went out of business. The rumor around town was that it was because of the owner. He was so uncomfortably helpful that no one could stand it; every customer transaction was somehow about him.

Twos can struggle with pride and develop an exaggerated, compensatory idea of their value and worth. Several exercises have proven helpful:

Pride journals. Keep a pride journal for one month. Each week describe no fewer than three incidents – small or large – in which you reacted pridefully or in a way you suspect was prideful. Describe what you heard, thought, saw and felt when you had the prideful reaction. Then try to identify what you heard, thought, saw and felt immediately before you reacted.

After a week, read back over the list. What do all the incidents have in common? What happened each time just before you had a prideful reaction? Was there a pang of insecurity? Were you feeling rejected or unloved? What does the rejected or unloved part of you look like? Is it an abstract image? A young child? What resource does this part of you need to have a different reaction in such situations? Do this exercise four times over the course of the month, each time reading through the entire list.

Invoices. This exercise explores the dual nature of Twoish giving and works well with Twos who have a sense of humor and are ready for an experience that may be starkly self-revealing. The exercise has three steps:
Step 1): Think about and then list all the important relationships in your life – present and past. Pay special attention to what you feel you have given each person.
Step 2): Go to a stationary store and buy a book of blank business invoices.
Step 3): Write out an invoice for every person on the list. Put a dollar amount on what you feel you are owed, or charge the person something more intangible. Each invoice must explicitly itemize what you have given to that particular person and what you feel that you are due in return. Don’t mail the invoices to the actual people but do reread them when you are done.
If you are a Two, this exercise will unveil any ways that you unconsciously oblige or indebt your friends and help you recognize your own self-interest. If your self-interest is coming out in disguise, you risk driving friends away and defeating your desire to stay connected.

Honesty exercise. Think of three recent times when you were helpful to someone. Write down each incident in detail remembering what you were thinking and feeling. Then write down the most flattering interpretation of your intentions and actions. Next read back over the descriptions of the situations. Now, write down the least flattering, most ruthlessly honest interpretation of your intentions and actions."



Twos – Keys to Change
- by Tom Condon

"Broadly speaking, a Two’s basic life choice is to be either honestly selfish or blindly selfish. In the former case, he takes direct responsibility for meeting his own needs and giving what is left over to others – lending himself to others but giving himself to himself.

Two’s need to be helped to develop an internal frame of reference – a stronger sense of themselves and their own needs; a better subjective sense of where they end and other people begin. This helps them maintain appropriate boundaries in intimate and significant relationships; enabling them to say “No” and comfortably pursue what they want for themselves – instead of getting it through pleasing and manipulating others.

Two also need to learn to chunk down, appreciating details rather than being solely focused on the big picture. They need to learn to think – to use their inner visual and auditory systems more actively, and to value these systems as much as they do their kinesthetic feelings. It is also helpful for them to learn to challenge their own mind reading and develop the perceptual capacity to float above circumstances and relationships and view them from a detached position.

Twos can be motivated to grow and change for a number of reasons among them: wanting to understand their relationships; to resolve interpersonal conflicts; to recover from a relationship in which they lost themselves; depression; feeling like they are fluctuating between high and low self-esteem. Some Twos begin to recognize how burdened they feel by having to give to others, especially if the others don’t want to be given to. One Two decided to enter therapy when she realized that she was modeling a pattern of doing whatever men wanted for her daughter.

Presenting problems to therapists and coaches can include: physical complaints, mystery psychosomatic symptoms, social conflicts, relationship problems, a sense of rejection, depression, unresolved sexual abuse, a desire for weight loss, and fluctuations between high and low self-esteem.

Generally good goals for change include: beginning to recognize how they reject their needs and relocate them in others; facing the shadow of their own selfishness, developing personal goals, dealing with pseudo- emotion as a signal of neglect from their inner self, discovering the body location of their true emotions and learning to be appropriately assertive. Cultivating spirituality life can also be unusually important and powerful for Twos.

Another good goal is to recognize the difference between pseudo- feeling and genuine feeling. When Twos return to their own body and emotional location, the subjective quality of their emotions change; from histrionic and overstated to small and “reasonably” proportioned. Dramatic emotions are a sign that Twos are neglecting their inner needs.

Twos truly care about helping others and the well-being of their chosen family, friends, or professional charges. The paradox is that to most effectively take care of others the Two has to learn to become appropriately selfish – otherwise his “help” is invariably contaminated by personal need.

This often means discovering which specific needs he has ruled out as unacceptable. Whatever a Two compulsively wants to give to others is precisely what he needs to first give to himself. When the need to compulsively give arises, find the nearest mirror and give it to the person you see looking back at you.

Put another way, the general goal for Twos is to be able to choose when to give. “Automatically giving to other people used to be okay – then they would like me,” a Two comments, “Now I really like to give. I don’t care if it comes back or not. That’s the real change.” Another Two echoes this: “I can now sit on the couch contentedly while others do the dishes. I’m very aware of when my helping nature gets out of hand, and I can frequently stop myself from overextending.” Another Two explains: “It’s great to be around people these days and not feel compelled to smile and manipulate them into liking me. When I want to be alone, I give that to myself. When I talk to someone, I stay in touch with my own opinions. It’s like I’ve learned where my skin ends and the air begins.”

Counselors working with Twos may have to be attentive to their professional boundaries. A Two client could try to match your image of a good client, while unconsciously blurring the relationship’s boundaries.

With some Two clients, it helps to cultivate a calm, direct manner, communicating that you care for the person but not necessarily for their dramas. Simply paying close attention to a Two is sometimes useful as it communicates your interest in the real person. Twos who habitually care for others may be especially thirsty to be treated the same way.

Other Twos, however, praise counselors who are bluntly honest almost to the point of being rude. Twos are often indefinite about their own feelings and positions and a specialist who offers the Two direct feedback gives them something concrete to react to.

Twos often have an excellent, if latent, sense of humor and they can sometimes joke about behavior that they can’t admit to directly. An unhealthy Two’s helpful self-image can be unusually at odds with reality and consciously facing that discrepancy can be difficult for them. Humor that unconsciously exposes their foibles is sometimes enjoyable and acceptable to them."