@@zamiraruth Correct. I know I experience that, though lately I have been leaning more towards sx 5. Beatrice Chestnut briefly mentioned it in a video, so I have been on the hunt for more information.
@@TheAdh80 despite being more attuned to emotions than the other subtypes, the sx 5 still is a 5, with the sin of Avarice. He has the same retentiveness and tends to be an observer of life rather than a participant. Sp 4s, despite being less outwardly expressive of their strongest feelings, still has the sin of Envy, is a heart type, has the same emotional volatility and connect to their feelings DEEPLY, while 5s will detach from their emotions and treat them as something that they need to understand. Claudio Naranjo uses a story in The Enneagram of Society that I particularly related strongly as an sx 5. "He presents a subject who explains: 'I live in a shell, which is inside a wall, which is inside a fortress, which is inside a tunnel, under the sea. I am safe and tranquil here. Safe from you. Tranquil that you are not going to disturb me.' A woman rows past in a boat above all this, and he goes on to say: 'If you really loved me, you would find me.'"
@@febrasko this is one of the best explanations I’ve received. I’ve known I am definitely a five (sx) for some time, but that Naranjo story hits a different way. Exposes me in a different way. Have you heard of The Art Of Growth podcast? If not check out the panel of sexual 5’s. Like a five I’ve listen four times to squeeze out all the info I can get. Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it.
I'm a 5w6 so/sx, but for years I thought I was sp/sx, which is how I initially stumbled upon this pattern. I think there might exist a similar tendency to mistype as sp in 1s, but I haven't done enough research to make a video about that yet.
It's been a few years, so I barely remember. But I know a big part of it was talking instincts with my friends and them asserting that I definitely don't have self-preservation first. Took me a bit of research to come to terms with that - but they were right. I realized that the majority of my fears regarding how to operate was directly related to people, as opposed to my own world (in very simplified terms). There are definitely better ways to discover your variants, but I've never been good at the better routes. If you want to look more into stacks, I recommend the link in the description. The author goes into the stacks for all enneagrams, and you can read some details about the instinctual variants there as well. Although I linked the page for 5s, there are other pages accessible via the link for the information I've mentioned here.
The 'instinctual variants' are useless to look at on their own wings even more so. The instincts refer to the subtype, that is the variant in relation to the core. R.Hudson as a source is innaccurate as source and have a shallow understanding of eneagram, such as the mistake in thinking 5s fear incompetency most of all. Focusing on behaviour is less accurate since many enneagram subtypes have the same behaviour for different reasons. This video's focus on competency about 5s 'behaviours' could just as well be about the so3 or even so1 for instance. Go straight to Naranjo or Ichazo and focus on subtype, and look into enneagram relation to personality disorders in DSM and ICD.
5s aren't afraid of being dumb, they're trying to construct their own orientation. the mental types are seeking orientation to reality, mental "maps". the mind simulates reality as much as it can so we know how to function. 6s try to take in other people's 'maps' and orientation as guides and resources, 7s are reacting against other people's "maps" as not being good/interesting enough, and 5s are seeking to build their own orientation without the influence of other perspectives. they are trying to not be influenced by outside point of views. self-pres is about physical well-being, not just "self". sexual is about sexually attracting, putting oneself ahead of sexual competition not individuals. social is about connection, both one on one and groups. it's the instinct we use to socially read people, one person or many. there are no instincts that are in "opposition" to a core type. people who don't understand how type and instinct fit together because they're working off of poor definitions or misunderstandings have come up with 'countertype' or other explanations to account for why the theory doesn't fit rather than re-examining the theory itself to reflect reality better.
first paragraph is a great point - you lost me in the second with your definition of the instincts. as for "opposing instincts" being a way to make sense of the enneagram, well.... you're just off-base. maybe I shouldn't have used the word "opposing," because they do indeed work in conjunction with the main type. It's more a question of whether the instinct causes internal friction when working together with a certain type. that all said, this video is two years old, and my understanding of the enneagram has indeed changed in the meantime. thanks for watching!
type and instinct don't have friction. to arrive at that conclusion is to not understand what the instincts are and what role they play in the personality overall. Personality itself is essentially a "management system" for instincts. Instincts are at the core of the personality because a personality becomes a necessity to get our needs met as highly social animals. we need a self-concept as well as a sense of what's going on inside other people, who they are to us, and who we are to them. when people say sexual is at "odds" with 5, it's usually because they don't actually understand what the sexual instinct is, what type 5 is, or both. Each enneagram description is an interpretation of what's going on in a certain type of person, so much of how type 5, the instincts, and more are defined across enneagram literature isn't accurate. This becomes easy to see when you you can get outside of the typical categories of "basic fear/basic desire" that are often misleading or inaccurate anyway - can a personality really be distilled into a "basic desire" when we have all sorts of competing instinctual needs for example? This article is probably the best anywhere for showing what the types are "on the inside", and from this, one can see how sloppy or just off a lot of descriptions are. www.theenneagramschool.com/blog/overview-of-the-centers-of-intelligence-and-object-relations back to "opposing instincts" - the two issues of misunderstanding instinct and misunderstanding type are at play. Like i said above, instinct is the core of the personality, so why would a personality be opposed to an instinct? In the video, you define the instincts and type 5's motivation in an extremely reductive way. In part, it's necessary for a short video, but you're not reducing them accurately. Type 5, 6, and 7 are part of the mental center. Fear is an underlying issue of that triad, but it's fear in a precise way. The relationship of fear and mental center (as in the article above) is that the mental center is about creating an accurate and useful map of reality, ie orientation, and each type is a specific strategy for doing so. 6 from drawing from external 'maps', 7 from taking in but rejecting other people's maps (frustration, not knowing exactly what they want but knowing 'this' isn't it), and 5 by rejecting outside maps and trying to make their entire outlook from their own original perceptions. The "fear of incompetence" isn't really accurate either. 5s are making their own original orientation, and there's a sense that if they allow in other people's orientation to influence their own vetting, they're exposing themselves to complete disorientation, even madness. This means that it's a deep mischaracteriation to say '5s are part of the fear triad... which means they're especially concerned with protecting themselves, and unlike 6s and 7s, they do this by hoarding resources..." You haven't described 5 at all, you've only described the Self-Pres instinct. Social is the only instinct that "cares" about others, but Sexual and Social both have others as "resources"/objects. Lastly, why is the sexual drive called the sexual drive if its only about relationships with individuals? All over the internet it's described as "one on one" or "intimacy", but its just not. Humans don't have a distinct instinctual drive for relationships with one person versus more than one person. Humans and other animals are deeply influenced by their sexual drives in extremely similar ways all across species but somehow this major driver of personality, this obvious instinctual drive is skipped over? no, sexual is a distinct drive from social. when we're one on one with a child, that's the social instinct. sexual is the drive to sexually attract, to evaluate sexual chemistry, to put oneself ahead of sexual competition. It's rooted in sex. It's how we discern who we want to have sex with and how we get them to want to have sex with us. We live in a sexual-blind culture that doesn't know how to relate to it. type 5 is about creating their own original mental orientation and insight, which does not oppose social or sexual. 5 does run into problems with being so schizoid in relation to these instincts. 5s have contradictory feelings regarding all instinctual resources, both wanting them and trying to minimize the conditions within which their needs can be met. a social 5 is someone who is motivated to share and provide that original, penetrating mental orientation and insight to others for the sake of connection and being related to others. Think Slavoj Zizek. A sexual 5 is using their outlook, symbolism, creativity, originality and "strangeness" as a "hook" to repel most people and attract a select few. Think Trent Reznor. @@zamiraruth
@@tetramegistusright and informative on all accounts except the part of what a sexual instinct means. I'm a sexual myself and as someone else put it, it's not about physical chemistry as much as it is about chasing the "flow", a person's individual intimate experience with someone/something that makes them feel shit. There's some kind of deep spiritual/primal/chemical reaction there, hence the name "sexual" as a sort of shorthand for this. Very often it comes out in intimate relationships only because other humans are easy sources of interest, as chemistry and stimulation producers. You'll find sexuals can also tend towards spirituality or fanatic interests for this reason (I'm christian myself, which is all about loving the ultimate Creator with all your heart and all your mind and all your body. No, I do not want to have sex with Him.) Not trying to assume, but I find it so interesting that your idea of the sexual instinct reads a little sx blind. Is it by any chance your blindspot? Cheers and thanks for your insight!
Most useful video I find till now for identifying my instinctual variants as 5
So happy to hear this!! Thank you for watching and I'm glad it was useful :-)
I'm a 5w4 so/sx, your video made me feel understood and helped me confirm my type once again. Thank you.
@@pillowillow333 very glad i could provide some further understanding!
Interesting approach; I enjoyed the video. I identify with the 5 so/sp description.
Excellent video. Have you noticed the confusion around sp 4’s and sx 5’s?
no, i have not, but that's a really good point. by confusion, you specifically mean mistyping, right?
@@zamiraruth Correct. I know I experience that, though lately I have been leaning more towards sx 5. Beatrice Chestnut briefly mentioned it in a video, so I have been on the hunt for more information.
@@TheAdh80 despite being more attuned to emotions than the other subtypes, the sx 5 still is a 5, with the sin of Avarice. He has the same retentiveness and tends to be an observer of life rather than a participant.
Sp 4s, despite being less outwardly expressive of their strongest feelings, still has the sin of Envy, is a heart type, has the same emotional volatility and connect to their feelings DEEPLY, while 5s will detach from their emotions and treat them as something that they need to understand.
Claudio Naranjo uses a story in The Enneagram of Society that I particularly related strongly as an sx 5.
"He presents a subject who explains: 'I live in a shell, which is inside a wall, which is inside a fortress, which is inside a tunnel, under the sea. I am safe and tranquil here. Safe from you. Tranquil that you are not going to disturb me.' A woman rows past in a boat above all this, and he goes on to say: 'If you really loved me, you would find me.'"
@@febrasko this is one of the best explanations I’ve received. I’ve known I am definitely a five (sx) for some time, but that Naranjo story hits a different way. Exposes me in a different way. Have you heard of The Art Of Growth podcast? If not check out the panel of sexual 5’s. Like a five I’ve listen four times to squeeze out all the info I can get. Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it.
@@TheAdh80 I'm glad you found this useful :). I've heard about this Art Of Growth podcast but didn't get to listen to it yet, I'll check it out.
This was a useful video. What's your type/wing/instinct?
I'm a 5w6 so/sx, but for years I thought I was sp/sx, which is how I initially stumbled upon this pattern. I think there might exist a similar tendency to mistype as sp in 1s, but I haven't done enough research to make a video about that yet.
Your IG link is not working.
I'm four months late, but it should be working now! Thanks for letting me know
How did you discover that your stack is So/Sx, rather than Sp/Sx? What gave it away?
It's been a few years, so I barely remember. But I know a big part of it was talking instincts with my friends and them asserting that I definitely don't have self-preservation first. Took me a bit of research to come to terms with that - but they were right. I realized that the majority of my fears regarding how to operate was directly related to people, as opposed to my own world (in very simplified terms). There are definitely better ways to discover your variants, but I've never been good at the better routes.
If you want to look more into stacks, I recommend the link in the description. The author goes into the stacks for all enneagrams, and you can read some details about the instinctual variants there as well. Although I linked the page for 5s, there are other pages accessible via the link for the information I've mentioned here.
How to know for sure if u r sx/so or so/sx
i did not understand but...cool
The 'instinctual variants' are useless to look at on their own wings even more so. The instincts refer to the subtype, that is the variant in relation to the core. R.Hudson as a source is innaccurate as source and have a shallow understanding of eneagram, such as the mistake in thinking 5s fear incompetency most of all. Focusing on behaviour is less accurate since many enneagram subtypes have the same behaviour for different reasons. This video's focus on competency about 5s 'behaviours' could just as well be about the so3 or even so1 for instance. Go straight to Naranjo or Ichazo and focus on subtype, and look into enneagram relation to personality disorders in DSM and ICD.
5s aren't afraid of being dumb, they're trying to construct their own orientation. the mental types are seeking orientation to reality, mental "maps". the mind simulates reality as much as it can so we know how to function. 6s try to take in other people's 'maps' and orientation as guides and resources, 7s are reacting against other people's "maps" as not being good/interesting enough, and 5s are seeking to build their own orientation without the influence of other perspectives. they are trying to not be influenced by outside point of views.
self-pres is about physical well-being, not just "self". sexual is about sexually attracting, putting oneself ahead of sexual competition not individuals. social is about connection, both one on one and groups. it's the instinct we use to socially read people, one person or many.
there are no instincts that are in "opposition" to a core type. people who don't understand how type and instinct fit together because they're working off of poor definitions or misunderstandings have come up with 'countertype' or other explanations to account for why the theory doesn't fit rather than re-examining the theory itself to reflect reality better.
first paragraph is a great point - you lost me in the second with your definition of the instincts. as for "opposing instincts" being a way to make sense of the enneagram, well.... you're just off-base. maybe I shouldn't have used the word "opposing," because they do indeed work in conjunction with the main type. It's more a question of whether the instinct causes internal friction when working together with a certain type. that all said, this video is two years old, and my understanding of the enneagram has indeed changed in the meantime. thanks for watching!
type and instinct don't have friction. to arrive at that conclusion is to not understand what the instincts are and what role they play in the personality overall. Personality itself is essentially a "management system" for instincts. Instincts are at the core of the personality because a personality becomes a necessity to get our needs met as highly social animals. we need a self-concept as well as a sense of what's going on inside other people, who they are to us, and who we are to them.
when people say sexual is at "odds" with 5, it's usually because they don't actually understand what the sexual instinct is, what type 5 is, or both. Each enneagram description is an interpretation of what's going on in a certain type of person, so much of how type 5, the instincts, and more are defined across enneagram literature isn't accurate. This becomes easy to see when you you can get outside of the typical categories of "basic fear/basic desire" that are often misleading or inaccurate anyway - can a personality really be distilled into a "basic desire" when we have all sorts of competing instinctual needs for example?
This article is probably the best anywhere for showing what the types are "on the inside", and from this, one can see how sloppy or just off a lot of descriptions are.
www.theenneagramschool.com/blog/overview-of-the-centers-of-intelligence-and-object-relations
back to "opposing instincts" - the two issues of misunderstanding instinct and misunderstanding type are at play. Like i said above, instinct is the core of the personality, so why would a personality be opposed to an instinct?
In the video, you define the instincts and type 5's motivation in an extremely reductive way. In part, it's necessary for a short video, but you're not reducing them accurately.
Type 5, 6, and 7 are part of the mental center. Fear is an underlying issue of that triad, but it's fear in a precise way. The relationship of fear and mental center (as in the article above) is that the mental center is about creating an accurate and useful map of reality, ie orientation, and each type is a specific strategy for doing so. 6 from drawing from external 'maps', 7 from taking in but rejecting other people's maps (frustration, not knowing exactly what they want but knowing 'this' isn't it), and 5 by rejecting outside maps and trying to make their entire outlook from their own original perceptions. The "fear of incompetence" isn't really accurate either. 5s are making their own original orientation, and there's a sense that if they allow in other people's orientation to influence their own vetting, they're exposing themselves to complete disorientation, even madness.
This means that it's a deep mischaracteriation to say '5s are part of the fear triad... which means they're especially concerned with protecting themselves, and unlike 6s and 7s, they do this by hoarding resources..." You haven't described 5 at all, you've only described the Self-Pres instinct.
Social is the only instinct that "cares" about others, but Sexual and Social both have others as "resources"/objects.
Lastly, why is the sexual drive called the sexual drive if its only about relationships with individuals? All over the internet it's described as "one on one" or "intimacy", but its just not. Humans don't have a distinct instinctual drive for relationships with one person versus more than one person. Humans and other animals are deeply influenced by their sexual drives in extremely similar ways all across species but somehow this major driver of personality, this obvious instinctual drive is skipped over? no, sexual is a distinct drive from social. when we're one on one with a child, that's the social instinct.
sexual is the drive to sexually attract, to evaluate sexual chemistry, to put oneself ahead of sexual competition. It's rooted in sex. It's how we discern who we want to have sex with and how we get them to want to have sex with us. We live in a sexual-blind culture that doesn't know how to relate to it.
type 5 is about creating their own original mental orientation and insight, which does not oppose social or sexual. 5 does run into problems with being so schizoid in relation to these instincts. 5s have contradictory feelings regarding all instinctual resources, both wanting them and trying to minimize the conditions within which their needs can be met.
a social 5 is someone who is motivated to share and provide that original, penetrating mental orientation and insight to others for the sake of connection and being related to others. Think Slavoj Zizek. A sexual 5 is using their outlook, symbolism, creativity, originality and "strangeness" as a "hook" to repel most people and attract a select few. Think Trent Reznor.
@@zamiraruth
@@tetramegistus Where did you learn all that?
@@tetramegistus cheers bro drink to that
@@tetramegistusright and informative on all accounts except the part of what a sexual instinct means. I'm a sexual myself and as someone else put it, it's not about physical chemistry as much as it is about chasing the "flow", a person's individual intimate experience with someone/something that makes them feel shit. There's some kind of deep spiritual/primal/chemical reaction there, hence the name "sexual" as a sort of shorthand for this.
Very often it comes out in intimate relationships only because other humans are easy sources of interest, as chemistry and stimulation producers. You'll find sexuals can also tend towards spirituality or fanatic interests for this reason (I'm christian myself, which is all about loving the ultimate Creator with all your heart and all your mind and all your body. No, I do not want to have sex with Him.)
Not trying to assume, but I find it so interesting that your idea of the sexual instinct reads a little sx blind. Is it by any chance your blindspot? Cheers and thanks for your insight!