The Enneagram's Nine
Personality Styles

Introduction

 The Enneagram is about people - how we are the same, how we are different, what makes us tick. It presents a system of psychology that describes nine core personality styles that human beings tend to favor. The descriptions of these styles are both profound and comprehensive, detailing the inner motivations, thought patterns and basic beliefs of each one. Newcomers to the Enneagram are often astonished to discover clear, accurate portraits of themselves, their friends, parents and intimates.

 Part of the power of the Enneagram is that it recognizes how human beings have sincerely different versions of reality. No version is presented as better than another. Each of the nine styles has its own internal logic and integrity. Each correctly perceives part of reality and has an area of "expertise." Each style has strengths, talents and advantages as well as limits, pitfalls and blind spots.

 Enneagram styles are like nationalities. While we are all unique individuals, we belong to a larger group of which we are individual examples. If you have friends from other cultures, you know that on one level you are very aware of the differences between their culture and yours. The fact may contribute much to your relationship. On other levels, you and your friends connect affectionately in a way that bypasses how your cultures make you different.

 Studying the Enneagram will reveal the differences between your psychological orientation and those of other "psychological nationalities." With this awareness you can also connect more compassionately or usefully to others who have world views distinct from your own.

 The major advantage to learning the Enneagram, of course, is to discover your own personality style. This can be a startling experience at first, but its usefulness soon emerges. Once you identify your core style, baffling aspects of your own behavior may suddenly make sense. You might see more clearly why you sometimes think and act the way you do. As you tune further into your own inner workings, you might sense deeper beliefs, plus a way of seeing the world that shades your daily actions and relationships.

 You might also become aware of the ways you are caught up in the pitfalls of your style and cause yourself suffering. There could be little psychological traps you set for yourself, limits you place on your experience or habitual ways that you react to events without choice.

 These insights can be helpful in that they provide motivation to work on one's self. Some responses that you now have may be outmoded and carried over from childhood. You may act blindly at times. To an extent, you may find that your Enneagram style amounts to something like a hypnotic trance, as though part of you sleepwalks through life, relating to an idea of the world, rather than the world itself.

 Most psychotherapists would say that just having insight into your behavior is not enough to change it. Learning about the Enneagram won't magically transform you, but it will give you a tool that is greatly clarifying and uncannily useful.

 Just as the Enneagram will show you how you are caught, it also points to your higher capacities - what you are good at, what creative resources are present when you are happiest and most awake. It will direct you toward the source of your personal power and give you a major tool for living more fully in the present-day world, basing your choices on your actual needs.

 The Enneagram is a system of psychology. It is neither inherently esoteric nor spiritual. You might, however, find that it has deep spiritual implications in that it helps diagnose how you get in your own way and block the most free and soulful expression of your being.

 On everyday levels, knowledge of the Enneagram is helpful in dozens of ways, from understanding relationships to improving communication to handling difficult people. You may discover that your friendships reflect affinities for certain Enneagram styles. You will also better pinpoint types of personalities that have been difficult for you to deal with. You may realize that the behavior of some people that you always took personally never was personal; they were just acting blindly out of the limits of their own world view.

 The Enneagram is especially useful in any professional context where communication is important. Attendees at my workshops have included psychotherapists, teachers, lawyers, counselors, business people, artists, plumbers, filmmakers. Anyone who needs to deal effectively with other people benefits greatly from studying personality styles.

Ones
People who compare reality to a set of standards. May be objective, balanced and morally heroic or repressive, critical and perfectionistic.

 At the core of Enneagram style number One is a strong unconscious tendency to compare reality with what should be.  Ones generally have a set of standards by which they evaluate themselves, the behavior of others, and the world around them.
 These ideals differ from person to person.  Some Ones are preoccupied with spiritual standards while others, like advice columnists, might be focused on good manners.  Others might be social reformers of some kind while others still might simply be intent on living an upright life or doing a good job at work.
Healthy Ones specialize in accurate moral perception and objective evaluation.  More than other Enneagram styles, Ones can be ethically discerning, dispassionate and fair.  They can make great priests and judges, for instance, or constructive social commentators.
 Awakened Ones can be selfless and morally heroic, willing to sacrifice a great deal for principle.  If they have a cause or mission, they might work hard and responsibly towards its fulfillment.  Ethics and personal integrity are put above expediency, profit or easy solutions. An awakened One might display a balanced, cheerful perfectionism that is tempered by forgiveness and compassion.

 For Ones who are more defensive or entranced, the preoccupation with principles and high ideals might degenerate into a mundane concern with the rules.  The person might still be crusading for a cause but have more ego-involvement than they realize.  Higher morality gets confused with moralism, discernment changes into judgment.
 An entranced One might still sacrifice for the rules but a level of resentment begins to emerge.  Ones can become openly critical, angry when their reforming zeal isn't shared by the world at large. They might still work hard and hold themselves to strict standards of behavior but their speech could be punctuated by sharp-tongued remarks, as anger breaks through.  Their calm, ethical perspective gives way to dualistic thinking - "either/or" propositions, right/wrong dilemmas that reduce complex situations down into black and white choices.
 A One's attempt to be good is a tense enterprise, sometimes leading to rigid behavior and a tendency to obsessive worry.  A lot of  entranced Ones fight their desires, especially the "bad" ones.  These are often sensual but, otherwise, "bad" impulses are the opposite of whatever the One considers good and virtuous behavior.
 Social problems can emerge because Ones have trouble knowing when they are angry and don't realize how scolding or repressive they can sound to others.  When insecure or feeling criticized, a One's defensive reaction is to start judging.   They simply don't accept reality as it is and don't think you should either.
 When deeply entranced, people with this style can grow obsessive, paranoid and zealous.  They may be capable of profound cruelty in the service of "goodness."  Moral vanity and hypocrisy are likely, and unhealthy Ones can also grow obsessed with the fulfillment of insane missions.
 Whatever a One disapproves of within their own behavior is what they will condemn in others.  They may not allow themselves to act out "badly" but that doesn't mean they don't want to.  Ones in this state tend to beat down or contain their desires and then project them outward.
 So a One might see an inviting place to swim on a summer's day and suddenly begin to talk about the evils of laziness and the skimpy bathing suits people wear nowadays.  The One's sensual desire to swim is "reverse projected" onto the environment and then a case is built against it.  This case-building is called "reaction formation" and it's a defense mechnism for this style.  Ones share an emotional tendency towards anger with Eights and Nines.

FAMOUS ONES
 Actress Jane Alexander, the culture of the Amish, Julie Andrews, Arthur Ashe, Hanan Ashrawi, St. Augustine, Author William Bennett, Father Phillip Berrigan, Ambrose Bierce, Psychologist John Bradshaw, Lloyd Bridges, NBC's Tom Brokaw, Sierra Club founder David Brower, Feminist author Susan Brownmiller, William F. Buckley, Dr. Helen Caldicott, John Calvin, Mona Charen, Cesar Chavez, Singapore President Ong Teng Cheong, Hillary Clinton, Confucius, Actress Jane Curtin, Michael Dukakis, Christian Scientist Mary Baker Eddy, Activist Daniel Ellsworth,

 Harrison Ford, Jodie Foster, Barry Goldwater, Author Lillian Hellman, Katharine Hepburn, Charlton Heston, St. Ignatius, Judge Lance Ito, Glenda Jackson, Peter Jennings, Author Samuel Johnson, CNNís Myron Kandel, John Kasich, U.S. Senator John Kerry, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, C. Everett Koop, Ted Koppel, NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre, Martin Luther, Nelson Mandela, Miss Manners, Thurgood Marshall, George McGovern, Michael Medved, Playright Arthur Miller, Author Jessica Mitford, Sir Thomas More, Kate Mulgrew, Ralph Nader, the cultural aura of New Zealand, Leonard Nimoy, the NRA, John Cardinal OíConnor, Pope John Paul II, Gregory Peck,

 H. Ross Perot, Sidney Poitier, Emily Post, Colin Powell, the culture of the Puritans, Marilyn Quayle, Yitzak Rabin, Tony Randall, James (The Amazing) Randi, Actress/Activist Vanessa Redgrave, Dale Evans Rogers, Actor Cliff Robertson, Satirist Mark Russell, Carl Sagan, Conservative author Phyllis Schlafly, George Bernard Shaw, CNNís Bernard Shaw, the cultural aura of Singapore, Film critic Gene Siskel, Maggie Smith, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Dr. Benjamin Spock,

 Martha Stewart, Actor Peter Strauss, Meryl Streep, the cultural aura of Switzerland, Margaret Thatcher, Fred Dalton Thompson, Emma Thompson, Harry Truman, Mark Twain, Abigail Van Buren, Greta Van Sustern, Father Terry Waite, Dragnet's Jack Webb, James Whitmore, George Will, Myrlie Evers-Williams, John Wooden, Joanne Woodward, Actress Jane Wyman, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Twos
People who see the world interpersonally and define themselves through service to others. May be selfless, loving and giving or dependent, prideful and hostile.

 In the organization of the Enneagram, Twos, Threes and Fours form an "emotional trio," in that they share some general tendencies and undercurrents.  People within this trio of styles can experience a kind of ongoing confusion about their identities, confusing who they are with the roles that they play and images of who they seem to be.
 All personality styles do this to some degree, but Twos, Threes and Fours are most deeply prone to confuse seeming with being.  They share a general tendency to lose track of how they actually feel, in favor of how they imagine they feel within the roles they are playing.  People with these styles have the most conflicts in relationships and matters of the heart.  They are least well-developed in the realm of core emotions.
 Two is the most purely interpersonal of all the Enneagram styles.  Twos are apt to conceive of life as a fundamental give and take between people, regarding all human beings as members of one vast family.  Within this point of view, giving love becomes the most important thing a Two can do.
 People with this style have a well-developed capacity to identify emotionally with the needs of others.  They have a strong unconscious habit of "sending" themselves over to other people and intuitively divining what another might be feeling or needing.  Healthy Twos practice this habit voluntarily; they willingly identify with others as an act of love and can also then return to their own point of view.  They are able to care for the needs of others and yet return to their own emotional truth and attend to their own needs.  The phrase "lend yourself to others but give yourself to yourself" describes what Twos do when healthy.
 The high side of this style is expressed through truly selfless love and exceptional ministerial skills.  The Catholic nun Mother Teresa is an example of a Two who dedicates her daily life to the relief of suffering among the poor.  Portraits of saints often describe the behavior of devoted Twos and descriptions of Jesus Christ read the same way.  Whether or not it has succeeded, the classical intention of Christianity is fundamentally Twoish.

 Living to give to others is tricky because you must be very honest about your motives and recognize that you have personal needs that may impact on your desire to give.
 When Twos are more entranced, they begin to repress their own true needs and funnel their energies towards taking care of others -- whether the others need it or not.  Something happens to the Two's strategy of identifying with outside people; they still "send" themselves over to others, but now they forget to return to their own position.  Instead, Twos form a codependent bond with another person and give in hopes of being recognized.  Twos also can begin to fear abandonment and being alone.  When overly identified with others, they lose their sense of themselves and, in a way, compulsive giving is an attempt to take care of their own lost self.  Through others, Twos try to give back to themselves.
 Flattery, manipulation and seduction are all used by Twos in the service of getting others to respond to and define them.  The Two need to give is so strong that it becomes selfish and what is "given" comes with an invisible price tag.  It's often a high price as the Two, in compensation for having lost their real self, begins to inflate and exaggerate the importance of their contributions.
 Not surprisingly, Twos can have struggles in relationships because it's important to know your own true feelings and motives in order to relate cleanly to others.  Their exaggerated self-importance is otherwise known as pride and when Twos are really unhealthy, pridefulness becomes their most striking feature.
What maddens others about unhealthy Twos is the way they package what feels like hostility as love.  When Twos are deeply entranced, they are usually quite deluded about their motives.  They replace their real feelings of selfish desperation and aggression with the image of an altruistic martyr who is owed big sums for their wonderful efforts.
 The saintly high side of this style is very high indeed while the lowest expression can be drastically destructive. The motif of stalking an objectified "loved one" goes with the unhealthy side of this style as does the metaphor of the vampire, who lives on the blood of others.

FAMOUS TWOS
 Alan Alda, Yasser Arafat, Tammy Faye Bakker, Harry Belafonte, Child psychologist T. Berry Brazelton, Filmmaker Ken Burns, Actress Ellen Burstyn, Leo Buscaglia, Barbara Bush, Jesus Christ, Glenn Close, Bill Cosby, Self-help author Barbara de Angelis, John Denver, Princess Diana, Faye Dunaway, Feminist Betty Friedan, Kathie Lee Gifford, Danny Glover, Roosevelt Grier, Melanie Griffith, U.S. Ambassador Pamela Harriman, Leona Helmsley, Psychologist Karen Horney, Whitney Houston, Arianna Huffington, Actress Anne Jackson, Author Erica Jong, Actress Sally Kellerman, Actress Sally Kirkland, Diane Ladd,
  Jerry Lewis, Actress Susan Lucci, Madonna, Alma Mahler, Imelda Marcos, Florence Nightingale, Merlin Olsen, Yoko Ono, Jack Paar, Jack Perkins, Fitness author Susan Powter, Priscilla Presley, Sally Jessy Raphael, Nancy Reagan, Mr. Rogers, Family therapist Virginia Satir, Danielle Steel, Rod Steiger, Sally Struthers, Mother Teresa, Marlo Thomas, Actor Richard Thomas, Actress Jennifer Tilly, John Travolta, Ivana Trump, Desmond Tutu, Actress Lesley Ann Warren, Brazilian singer Xuxa.

Threes
People who measure themselves by external achievement and the roles that they play. May be truthful, accomplished and excellent at what they do or conniving, competitive and false.

 Unlike Twos, people with the Three style identify less with ideals of helpfulness and instead with images of success and productivity.  Threes often expect to be loved for what they do rather than who they are.  Their image-confusion is between seeming accomplished and being true to their less-than-perfect inner self.  Entranced Threes most tend to cut off deeper feeling in favor of outer appearance.  They deny their imperfections and present a public image they hope the world finds laudable.
 Healthy Threes are often highly accomplished and practice a credo of excellence and professionalism in whatever they do.  They are extremely strong at setting and meeting goals and will usually have mastered a number of life skills.  Threes learn fast, make good leaders, and do well in high-profile, socially established occupations where performance is measured by results.  Most are organized, flexible and industrious.  When healthy, they usually make excellent role models and teachers of the skills they have mastered.
 Awakened Threes can be energetic and cheerful, with a positive eye to the future and a self-confident, open approach to challenges.  Their actions are often governed by a sense of honor; family and friendship are valued in addition to work. These priorities are sometimes arrived at after a struggle with moral expediency and through a Three's conscious search for values.
 When Threes are more entranced, the strategy of being successful and well-rounded yields to a desire to seem that way.  Corners start getting cut in the quest to maintain an image.  A Three can slip into impersonation and play a role of themselves, adopting chameleon-like poses to seem noteworthy in many different contexts.  Personal feeling begins to be denied as a Three increasingly identifies with their mask.   Most have an "Achilles Heel," a sense of inadequacy that they compensate for with achievement and role-playing.
 Intimate relationships can suffer as the Three reroutes their feelings through their image of who they should be.  They may present a persona to intimates; hiding a deep sense of flaw and instead offering a feelingful mask for others to love.  Expediency and efficiency become more important and an entranced Three may begin to enjoy the feeling of nonfeeling.  They may think of themselves as high-performance engines whose purpose is to race with speed from task to task, securing outcomes before dashing on to new finish lines.  It's not uncommon for entranced Threes to talk in sports metaphors and make themselves believe that life is only a game, a game that's played to win.
 To win, they may push themselves harder, enjoying the hyperactivity, now using their relationships mainly as springboards for professional gain.  Their once healthy flexibility might degenerate into arrogant calculation and amoral strategizing.  Entranced Threes comfortably operate in occupations where appearance and persuasion are all -- public relations, sales, advertising, etc.
 When deeply entranced, winning becomes everything and a Three's mask just eclipses their soul.  They sell out completely to seeming and make themselves into a commodity to market.  A core of malicious hostility replaces their true identity at this stage.
 Unhealthy Threes can be amoral, Machiavellian, heartless, slick, and plagiarizing.  They believe their own lies and con people without conscience.  They work hard to best or deceive others.  The aim is to maintain an illusion of superiority from which they derive a hollow, vindictive sense of triumph.  Anyone who has ever been deliberately and maliciously lied to has felt the sting of this attitude.

FAMOUS THREES
 The cultural aura of America, Politician James Baker, Joseph Biden, David Bowie, Ron Brown, Jimmy Carter, Dick Clark, Lawyer Johnnie Cochran Jr., Magician David Copperfield, Cindy Crawford, Joan Crawford, Tom Cruise, Rebecca DeMornay, Nora Ephron, Werner Erhard, (Mrs.) Debbi Fields, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Gere, Bryant Gumbel, Actor Mark Harmon, the (modern) cultural aura of Japan, Michael Jordan, Mary Kay, Henry Kissinger, Carl Lewis, Vince Lombardi, Rob Lowe, Joan Lunden, Ali MacGraw, Elle MacPherson, Reba McEntire,
 Demi Moore, Oliver North, U.S. Senator Bob Packwood, Master spy Kim Philby, Elvis Presley, Reporter/author Sally Quinn, Businessman Summer Redstone, Burt Reynolds, Author Anthony Robbins, Political strategist Ed Rollins, Diana Ross, Jessica Savitch, Diane Sawyer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, William Shatner, Cybill Shepherd, O.J. Simpson, Will Smith, Wesley Snipes, Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, Kathleen Turner, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Former Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, "Father" of America George Washington, Raquel Welch, Author Marianne Williamson, Vanessa Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Natalie Wood.

Fours
People who live principally in their imagination and feelings. May be artistic, articulate and inspiring or whiny, elitist and negative.

 Like Ones, Fours compare reality with what could be.  While a One will look for imperfection about them and maybe have a desire to correct what's wrong, Fours often turn away from reality and live in their imaginations, feelings and moods.
 Along with Twos and Threes, Fours share the tendency towards vanity and image-confusion but they can express it paradoxically.  Fours are more likely to identify with an image of defect especially as it confers on them a quality of uniqueness or exempt specialness.  A Four might, for instance, bemoan their inadequacy to succeed in the everyday world, but within this complaint there could be a subtle quality of boasting.  This is usually driven by a self-image that is romantically tragic but also elitist.  They may take pride in what is unique or defectively unusual about them.
 Because of the strength of their emotional imaginations, people with this style are often described as artists. Many of the world's most accomplished artists have been Fours and nearly all people with this style need or find creative outlets.  Otherwise, Fours work in all kinds of occupations, although they will try when possible to make their work creatively interesting.
 Awakened Fours tend to be idealistic, have good taste and are great appreciators of beauty.  They filter reality through a rich, subtle subjectivity and are very good at "metaphorical thinking," the capacity to make connections between unrelated facts and events.  The Four tendency to see things symbolically is enhanced by their emotional intensity.  This creates raw artistic material that almost has to be given form.  Self-expression and the pursuit of self-knowledge are high priorities for people with this style.
Fours value the aesthetics of beauty as much as they are attuned to the tragic nature of existence.   When healthy, people with this style work to transmute the pain of living into something more meaningful.  This can be done through creative work of all kinds.  Fours are excellent at articulating subjective experience, and can be fine teachers and psychotherapists in this regard.  They may also be empathetic friends, able to take in and understand the dilemmas of others and especially be willing to listen to a friend's pain.
 When more defensive or entranced, Fours begin to focus on what is unavailable or missing in their lives. They can become negative and critical, finding fault with what they do have, seeing mainly misery in the present.  They then turn inward and use their imaginations to romanticize other times and places.  Fours can live in the past, the future - anywhere that seems more appealing than here.  "The grass is always greener on the other side."  Entranced Fours fall into a habit of envy for whatever it is they don't have now.
 The need to be seen as someone special and unique may become more neurotically pronounced too.  Fours can seem very in touch with their feelings but their defensive tendency is to translate authentic feeling into melodrama.  They could be full of lament and nostalgia, demanding recognition yet rejecting anything good they get from friends.  They might also grow competitive and spiteful, unable to enjoy their own successes without taking away from the achievements of others.
  An entranced Four could be moody or hypersensitive while beginning to act exempt from everyday rules.  Buoyed by their sense of defective specialness, they might give themselves permission to act badly, be selfish or irresponsible. They may refuse to deal with the mundane and the ordinary, reasoning that they are different and not of this world anyway.  Entranced Fours incline towards feeling guilty, ashamed, melancholy, jealous and unworthy.
 Deeply entranced Fours can inhabit a harrowing world of torment.  They may be openly masochistic and extravagant in their self-debasement.  The lives of spectacularly self-destructive artists often reflect this kind of scenario.
 At this point, a Four could become unreachably alienated.  Stricken by a profound sense of hopelessness, they can sink into morbid self-loathing and suicidal depression.  Their 'differentness' is now seen in entirely negative terms and they banish themselves into a kind of exile.  The desire to punish themselves and others is also quite strong.
 Fours have a specific defense that comes up a lot in movies, especially love stories. It's called "introjection," and it means carrying someone around inside of you in your imagination and feelings.  A Four will introject a loved one, usually someone idealized and out of reach.  Their beloved is romanticized from afar but the Four feels the absent person to be present.  They then have a kind of relationship with their fantasy of the other person.
 

FAMOUS FOURS
 Photographer Diane Arbus, Painter Francis Bacon, John Barrymore, Charles Baudelaire, Ingmar Bergman, Poet John Berryman, Director Peter Bogdanovich, Marlon Brando, Richard Brautigan, Jackson Browne, Raymond Burr, Singer Kate Bush, Mary Chapin Carpenter, England's Prince Charles, Kurt Cobain, Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, James Dean, Robert De Niro, Director Brian De Palma, Johnny Depp, Neil Diamond, Isak Dinesen, Novelist Michael Dorris, French novelist Marguerite Duras, the music of Pink Floyd, Albert Finney, the cultural aura of France, Judy Garland, Martha Graham, Singer Nanci Griffith, Billie Holliday, Julio Iglesias,
  Michael Jackson, Janis Joplin, Naomi Judd, Harvey Keitel, Jack Kerouac, Jessica Lange, Poet Philip Larkin, Charles Laughton, T.E. Lawrence, John Malkovich, Marcello Mastroianni, Author Mary McCarthy, Carson McCullers, Rod McKuen, Thomas Merton, Author Yukio Mishima, Joni Mitchell, Actor Michael Moriarty, Jim Morrison, Singer Morrissey, Edvard Munch, Liam Neeson, Mike Nichols, Stevie Nicks, Author Anaïs Nin, Nick Nolte, Laurence Olivier, Edith Piaf, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, Novelist Anne Rice, Arthur Rimbaud,
 Winona Ryder, Françoise Sagan, Poet Anne Sexton, Percy Shelley, Simone Signoret, Playright Neil Simon, Singer Paul Simon, August Strindberg, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Singer James Taylor, Spencer Tracy, Actress Liv Ullmann, Vincent Van Gogh,  Suzanne Vega, Author Robert James Waller, Alan Watts, Orson Welles, Australian novelist Patrick White, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, Neil Young.

Fives
People who pull back from the world and live in their mind. May be wise, farsighted and knowledgeable or abstract, stingy and schizoid.

 Fives, Sixes and Sevens share a general undercurrent of fear and form another "emotional Trio."  Unlike Twos, Threes and Fours, people within this group  are not confused about who they are or how they feel.  Instead they tend to unconsciously anticipate the dangers of life and have a baseline habit of reacting fearfully.  Fives are generally thinkers, people who live more in their heads than in their bodies.  They have specific struggles around taking action and asserting their wills in the world.
 A Five's fears are specifically social - they habitually guard against being invaded or engulfed by other people.  This is the most explicitly antisocial of the Enneagram styles.  When defensive, Fives can be withdrawn and standoffish as a way to manage their hypersensitivity to others.  Generally, they fear close relationship as it can lead to feeling overwhelmed, smothered or swarmed.
 Fives tend to live in their thoughts, in contrast to Fours, who live in their emotional imaginations.  People with this style have well-developed abilities to analyze and synthesize knowledge.  They may be perceptive, wise and objective, displaying an ability to stay centered and logical when others around them are losing their heads.
 Awakened Fives usually strike some balance between interacting with the world and withdrawing from it.  This style is frequently associated with knowledgeable competence and, sometimes, genius.  When healthy, Fives express themselves in the world and actively offer the fruits of their knowledge. Teaching and writing are frequent occupations but whatever they do, healthy Fives seem to insist that their talent for knowledge count for something beyond itself.  There is an idealistic quality to this drive that makes them willing and sometimes courageous contributors. They are also sympathetic listeners, but able to view events from a distant enough perspective to avoid getting personally upset.  This contributes to a kindheartedness that wishes others well.
 More defensively, Fives can slide from nonattachment into disassociation, the inner state of being cut off from feeling.  An entranced person with this style is hyperaware of the world's demands, and then passively responds by withdrawing.  Most outsiders see a Fiveís capacity to pull back as a kind of independence.  It's a defense as well; the Five is making a strong antisocial boundary to compensate for being overly sensitive in the first place.
 Cutting themselves off then becomes a habit.  The idea is, "If I can just learn to live with less I'll avoid the influence of others."  This leads to the tendency to hoard, to keep and save what little they have in order to need less and stay withdrawn.  Fives can hoard time, money, space, land, information, or emotional availability.  It doesn't matter what is hoarded, the pattern is the same.  The person tries to protect against flooding by stacking up supplies on their dry inner island.
 Entranced Fives also stay distant from their own emotions by living in a world of information and ideas.  The more they cut themselves off, however, the more they struggle with feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and compulsive need.  It's like trying to talk yourself out of being hungry.  At this point a Five may be slow to know how they feel because they can only reach their feelings through a lengthy sequence of thought.  Entranced Fives worship gods of reason and try to look distantly down on their own emotions.  They may also act superior towards other people as an expression of the same defense.
 When Fives are deeply entranced, they may become schizoid and unpredictable, as though disassociated parts of them are taking turns talking.  They can project an absent, vaguely shocked aura or be pointedly antisocial. A Five could sit through a party at which they said nothing and later claim that they had a good time.  Or they might alienate others with nasty, sneering commentary and unpredictable aggression.
 The habit of disassociating emotions becomes so developed that they lose basic touch with reality.  They may develop weird phobias of invisible objects like germs.  Aggressive episodes are possible, followed by bursts of acute paranoia.
 

FAMOUS FIVES
    Performance artist Laurie Anderson, St. Thomas Aquinas, Playright Samuel Beckett, Author Paul Bowles, The Buddha, Director Tim Burton, David Byrne, Actor Richard Chamberlain, Agatha Christie, Van Cliburn, Montgomery Clift, Former CIA Director William Colby, Michael Crichton, Daniel Day-Lewis, René Descartes, Joan Didion, Joe DiMaggio, Aviatrix Amelia Earhart, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Author Loren Eiseley, T.S. Eliot, the cultural aura of England,
      Chess player Bobby Fischer, E. M. Forster, Greta Garbo, J. Paul Getty, cybertech novelist William Gibson, Jane Goodall, Author Graham Greene, H.R. Haldeman, Hildegarde of Bingen, Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Hopkins, Howard Hughes, Jeremy Irons, Franz Kafka, Director Philip Kaufman, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Author Dean R. Koontz, Arthur (The Amazing) Kreskin, Director Stanley Kubrick, C-SPAN's Brian Lamb, Cartoonist Gary Larson, John le Carré, Author Ursula K. LeGuin, Photographer Annie Leibowitz,
     Vladimir Lenin, George Lucas, David Lynch, Author Norman MacLean, Reporter Robert MacNeil, Movie critic Leonard Maltin, Novelist Ian McEwan, Larry McMurtry, Singer Natalie Merchant, Thelonious Monk, Actor Sam Neill, Joyce Carol Oates, Georgia OíKeefe, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Al Pacino, Italian sculptor Paladino, Michelle Pfeiffer,
     Keanu Reeves, Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Oliver Sacks, Author May Sarton, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ebenezer Scrooge, Behaviorist B. F. Skinner, Poet Gary Snyder, Philosopher Susan Sontag, Phil Spector, George Stephanopoulos, Actress Madeleine Stowe, Max Von Sydow, Jules Verne, Author Ken Wilber, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

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