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Fine Distinctions: Sixes
Subtypes
Self Preservation Sixes
• Self-preservation Sixes can be warm and ingratiating; have a graceful, diplomatic sociability.
• Try to bring out the best in others and speak well of most people.
• Good communication skills; can tell people hard truths in a skillful or funny way.
• Generally more phobic than counter-phobic.
• Sensitive to using power fairly and constructively – not at someone else’s expense.
• Could be tough in negotiations but basically have a win-win attitude. Consider everyone an equal.
• Their home environment is especially important, home could feel
like a feathered nest sheltering the Six from the world’s dangers and
drubbings.
• Good at practical tasks and managing the material details of living.
• Often habit-bound and want the elements in their world to be known and predictable.
• When less healthy, the Self-preservation Sixes’ personal warmth
is more like a tactic, a kind of charm offensive meant to de-fang the
imagined hostility of others.
• May actively worry about their ability to materially survive; catastrophic fantasies about material loss.
• If they sense aggression or disapproval in the environment, they
counterphobically zero in on it. Then they use humor, charm,
self-depreciation to make friends out of possible enemies.
• Might act ingratiating and vulnerable in a way that invites rescue.
• More nervously dependent than other Six subtypes.
• Less in touch with their own hostility, since that is the
opposite of the weak, warm person they present themselves to be.
Victimizing victim.
• Can take a “one down” position in relationships, non-verbally
placating and beseeching, casting you into the role of an adult, making
you the responsible, powerful one.
Intimate Sixes
• Lead disciplined lives that bring them strength – physical, emotional or spiritual. Being strong calms their fears.
• Creative; need to transform a harsh world into a beautiful one; often confused with Self preservation Fours.
• This subtype brings an artist’s eye and an aesthetic
perspective, an acute awareness of beauty, a love of nature and
landscape.
• Sixes with this subtype tend to act strong or alluring when insecure.
• More likely to be counterphobic; they take risks, talk tough, worry about looking weak, having their fears show.
• When beauty is the focus they try to seem attractive to contain fear, get approval and distract others.
• Some need to create and make things, to transform what they see and feel into something tangible.
• Can be image conscious; their preoccupation with beauty can mutate into personal vanity; a stronger connection to Three.
• May hide and contain their fears behind an attractive mask; a sense of protective distance and once-removed control.
• A defiant/aggressive life stance is possible, an imitation of strength.
• Anti-authoritarian and knee-jerk rebellious.
• Intimate Sixes may project their power onto a sexual partner or sexuality itself; some report feeling addicted to sex.
• Project power onto authorities and then fight with them.
• Can be reckless, impulsive and prone to bad judgment.
• Whatever the question the answer is no; can be mistaken for Eights.
• This subtype can conflict with the Self preservation impulse in
Sixes. Being creatively daring, open and unguarded is at odds with
surviving and staying safe.
• If self preservation Sixes are addicted to security, Intimate Sixes are addicted to insecurity.
Social Sixes
• They have steadiness and stamina. Willing to work hard in a dedicated way; a sense of mission.
• Diplomatic; can say things and not say them at the same time.
• Social Sixes tend to be dutiful and especially dependent upon authority.
• They are usually more often phobic than counterphobic.
• Idealistic; want to be of service to a group or a tradition.
• Take on responsibility for the cause and, to that end, do things willingly and well.
• When acting independently they will still refer to others in their mind for safety and agreement.
• Imagine that they can’t live without the group’s support.
• May think of themselves as a soldier in someone else’s army; a mentality of dutifulness that is akin to being a slave.
• Might romanticize the boss and then later tear him/her down.
• Passive/aggressive. The connection to Nine is stronger with this subtype.
• May become joiners, hiding within a group norm, concealing their
sense of deviance by attacking those outside the group who are
different.
• Their natural diplomacy devolves into a hesitant cowardice about
stating their own position and taking independent stands.
• Catastrophic fantasy is of being banished from the group and being unable to survive.
Six with a Five Wing
• Generally introverted.
• Can have many interests and a surprising range of competencies and skills.
• May be bookish; some are interested in history or feel rooted in the past or related to a long tradition.
• Can test potential friends for a long time but once you’re in, you‘re in – a friend for life.
• May use the strength of their minds to contain, distance or
understand their fears. Afraid of the intensity of their emotions.
• They are often kinesthetic and auditory, especially auditory
tonal – aware of and sensitive to tones of voice and the implications
they carry.
• Intellectually curious and make take to psychotherapy and self-knowledge because it is interesting.
• They can be difficult to read and have a “tip of the iceberg”
quality – revealing little but hinting at hidden dimensions and inner
intensity.
• May feel torn between needing to be seen and wanting to withdraw for protection.
• Can have a wary standoffish quality and project a willed
remoteness. When afraid they can act arrogant, cryptic or cynical and
aloof.
• Some are argumentative and litigious, even tending towards violence.
• Can be thin-skinned, sensitive to insults and slights and petty
about keeping score: entertain conspiracy theories behind closed doors.
• May stand back and scrutinize events suspiciously. Sometimes their arrogance covers a sense of social shame.
• Can hide their affections and loyalties to be safe. Underneath they are romantic and idealistic.
• An ongoing tension between wanting to be dependent versus being independent.
• Might spend time alone worrying or plotting against their enemies, a kind of private paranoia.
• May also like secretive behind-the-scenes group activity. The realm of spies and espionage.
• Sneaky vengeance, passive/aggressive toward others, self-attacking and self-destructive at home.
• Can be passive aggressive as well as depressive, dour and humorless.
Six with a Seven Wing
• Generally outgoing, with a nervous quality.
• can be charming, sociable, ingratiating.
• Have a cheerful, forward-looking drive are curious about life and can be idealistic.
• Comedic gifts and a good sense of humor.
• Usually are more visual and talk faster than Sixes with a Five wing.
• Have an optimistic sunny outlook and focus on the positive.
• Some struggle with appetite and addiction.
• Can be self-contradicting, either simultaneously – by seeming to
want two things at once – or sequentially – by asserting one thing and
then taking the opposite position a moment later.
• When threatened, one defensive tactic is to become obviously unhappy but impossible to please.
• Counterphobic Sixes with this wing can be noticeably accusative or argumentative.
• Can become insecure, irritable, curmudgeonly, petty, irrational and chaotic.
• Subject to mood swings, inferiority complexes and runaway fears.
• May have hair-trigger flare-ups of paranoia. Can falsely accuse others and not seem to realize it.
• Focus on positive futures as a way to avoid present anxieties.
• Can be grandiose; create big plans that they are secretly afraid of and may later sabotage.
• Overtly paranoid Sixes usually have this wing.
Six’s Connection to Nine
• Brings brings faith, patience and the capacity to trust life.
• Sixes find their place in the larger order of existence, feel
aligned with the Big Flow, part of the larger order of nature.
• Develop a friendlier safer image of the universe and feel like they belong to life.
• Can strengthen the Sixe’s sense of mission and connect her to a
feeling of destiny and to the personal power necessary to fulfill it.
• The Six finds her courage as well as values worth being courageous for.
• Healthy Nineish Sixes experience faith, not as a concept but as a body feeling.
• When Sixes are in touch with this connection they may experience
a more mystical sense of spirituality rather than the authority
structure of an organized religion.
• They may also respond more strongly to nature and a sense of place or land.
• They search for their own true feelings instead of relying on outside authorities to tell them what to do.
• More likely to live in the present.
• Can become numb, spaced-out and lazy.
• Fractured, chaotic thinking. Go in circles; a Nine does this to
avoid focused action while a Six is avoiding independent action that may
provoke attack.
• Merge dependently with their environment, more passive towards
authority, may be noncommittal or ambivalent in relationships
• Nine-like Sixes can get habit-bound, rut-prone, cautious and
stuck. They take comfort in making things predictable, embracing little
rituals and habits, trying to avoid taking risks.
• Sixes can also procrastinate like Nines, going in circles,
obsessing about everything except the most obvious step to take. The
motivation is to avoid claiming their own power.
• They may procrastinate, forgetting about things that have
tangible consequence. Then they wake up and hyperactively save the day.
Six’s Connection to Three
• Brings Sixes self-confidence, productivity and skillfulness.
• The will and focus to finish what they start.
• Able to make decisions and take action, sometimes exhibiting leadership qualities.
• Brings an optimistic sense of possibility.
• This connection also supports a striking professionalism.
• Highly capable, if not always completely confident.
• Many have good organizational and administrative talents.
• They are also strong on quality control – what they do, they do well. They feel affirmed by what they produce.
• Threeish Sixes can have a con artist streak.
• They want to appear different than they are; hide their deviance with charm.
• May mock and revile success but secretly envy it in others.
• They can immerse themselves in activity as a way to manage anxiety, especially when counterphobic.
• Sixes are also prone to Three-like compensatory
hyperactivity – they go in circles and do too much, especially when
under stress.
• Can stab you in the back, while believing they are the victim.
Or present a meek front while conspiring behind the scenes.
• They are competitive and want to best others but hide such motives to appear likable.
• Can become the unfair authority whom they would ordinarily fear.
• Perform well mainly to avoid criticism, especially from authorities.
• Ambitious for what they should want – based on the
expectations and opinions of others – but out of touch with what they do
want.
• Very unhealthy Sixes have more conscience than very
unhealthy Threes, but they still can be manipulative, calculating and
vengeful.
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