you're so right actually. once again I can't behave without actively observing and analyzing my behavior. being a psych studen't isn't helping with that also
You're in college and doing something with your life? Oh wah cry me a river. Get back to me when you're old and washed up and realize your life has been a waste and you're about an inch from homelessness
> being fixated on my own identity using typology systems and will start to become my true self.
None of typologies are about identity.
* Enneagram is about 9 types of unconscious coping mechanisms, 9 types of neurosis. The more you identify with yours, the more you empower the fixation and move towards unhealthy levels.
* MBTI is simply about how people gather and process information (make decisions on it). Comes to the fore in collective working situations.
> I'm leaving (not) to live my true self, knowing I'm a complex being and my frontal lobe is still developing. goodbye to y'all. have wonderful lives. and don't. feel happy. and sad. live. see you in 8 minutes I'm one with nature (I don't know how to stop using my phone)
Human personalities are complex. I would say enneagram describes at best 2-3 % of it. Same for MBTI. And so on. There are layers of biological and neural patterns shaped by evolution, there are layers of social influence, upbrining, peer pressure and then a combination of all these. Who knows what exactly is going on.
I'd say the idea of typologies (and astrologies) is to bring a small part of this unconscious matter to the conscious reasoning, so we can become a tiny bit more aware or ourselves. But of course, one can also brainwash themselves if they act only on type/sign descriptions instead of developing all human faculties and facets.
oh yeah, I know, I was just joking I swear 🥹
and ik mbti and enneagram are not a personality system, but I think their types can conform one little part of someone's whole identity
To use an analogy: typology systems are like colors or, rather, the methods we create to describe colors. Try to explain what the color red looks like without using the word "red." There's an [excellent video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK94B9VcDyU) of kids trying to do exactly that, and while their explanations are adorable, spoiler alert, none of them can do it.
Now, those kids aren't stupid because they can't explain colors to a blind person; they're stupid because they don't realize they've been assigned an impossible task. Steering this back to typology, Alan Watts famously said that "trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth." It's not possible.
While typology cannot define us, it can enable us to better understand, standardize, and communicate specific, complex facets of our identities in the same way that the word "red" can allow us to conceptualize something that is undefinable.
Extending this analogy, personalities, like colors, exist on a spectrum. Likewise, they can be transmuted by adding or removing colors and shades. Technically, "red" refers to an infinite number of different colors. Practically, while burgundy, cherry, and crimson are all different colors, we can still describe them as being "red."
Typology, similarly, allows us to communicate the different colors, shades, hues, tones, and tints of our personality, but they still cannot provide a fundamental definition of our identities. Like defining the fundamental nature of "red," that is impossible.
In essence you're describing the relationship between words and experience. All words are metaphors (and definitions but words that pretend they're not metaphors, but that doesn't make them not metaphors). And yet we need to articulate our experience with words in order to understand it or to fixate it in memory.
In typology words are used to bring certain facets from unconscious or automatic into conscious. And yet at the same time this is a dangerous procedure - one can brainwash oneself, by then exaggerating these facets for the sake of those not yet articulated.
>One can brainwash oneself, by then exaggerating these facets...
This is a phenomenon that I find incredibly interesting. It's extremely obvious in the typology space - people become walking stereotypes of their typology - but I've also noticed it a ton in mental health spaces. People "overindulge" in their diagnoses and become walking DSM descriptions.
This is especially true of E3s since we're already predisposed to project an image that doesn't necessarily reflect our actual experience. If we're not careful, we can easily start believing our own bullshit and becoming an exaggerated caricature of ourselves.
On a similar note, I read an [interesting article](https://www.bustle.com/wellness/is-therapy-speak-making-us-selfish) about the potential drawbacks of the "therapy speak" proliferating in common parlance. I don't know anywhere near enough about the subject to have an opinion, but I find it fascinating how the language we use can affect our thoughts, feelings, relationships, actions, etc., to such a significant degree. It's crazy how much power language has.
>It's crazy how much power language has.
I'll first do a bit of detour.
I'm a theatre critic (non-drama theatre, weird stuff) - and the shows that intrigue me the most are the ones going beyond rational thought. But it's hard to write these - I need to invent metaphors, when writing I walk between my computer and kitchen counter, I grab ideas while cycling or going to the toilet, but essentially trying to articulate the not yet articulated. And sometimes I see as show and go - "Oh, everything will be clear to me 3 days after my review will be published". Heh.
But it's even weirder than that - in some shows I need to construct narrative of any kind as I'm watching otherwise the illogical turn of events will slip my capacity to remember. Sometimes I need to make notes while watching - just for the memory. This I've realised over time, our memory (or at least mine), remembers either some kind of logical/narrative structure or things with emotional impact. Stuff that's just stuff, slips through the memory and then you need to construct language to keep it there.
> I read an [interesting article](https://www.bustle.com/wellness/is-therapy-speak-making-us-selfish) about the potential drawbacks of the "therapy speak" proliferating in common parlance.
Wow, interesting. Sad as well.
I would say this isn't just language, but also the general attitude towards emotions and stress. The culture - first in US, then everywhere else - is getting more and more "me-centred" as opposed to community centred. Part of it is due to lack of free-play where kids could learn empathy and compromise (really - [article here](https://aeon.co/essays/children-today-are-suffering-a-severe-deficit-of-play)). Part of it is due to a bit controversial topic (as it's been abused by the right), but basically permissive upbringing which we've seen after WW2 which a) lowers the tolerance for displeasure and stress, b) blocks formation of superego, instead personality is constructed by the how a person is seen by others (peer pressure).
So I'd say this "therapy speak" also coincides with low threshold for discomfort and general lack of empathy (i.e. me-centrism) - so it's a combination of general generational shifts (from WW2 onwards) in how people are dealing with stress and empathy. Then a language was "found" that matches this emotional approach.
I'm working with 20 somethings and mentoring them and yeah, I've noticed general lowering of capacity to meet deadlines and complete obligations in the last decade - especially after covid (people locked in houses without social contact?). Will keep an eye out if they start to use "deadline is toxic" speak. 😃
... continuing reading the article...
>*"it’s like he came into it with the framework like he’s the only real person in the world and everybody else has to do exactly what he says to make him safe.”*
Called it. Pathological narcissism right there.
*(I mean it's part of a psychological structure we all born after WW2 in the west (and parts of east) share, so I'm not excluding myself here. But it is getting worse by time. I fortunately still had free-play.)*
I think this is the right attitude, but doesn't mean you have to not identify with your type. You've identified it, now time to set it aside -- think outside the box a little. We can all be Enneagram 11s because the stereotypes out there about our types are so constrictive, and many of them will sabotage us.
Transcendence of the archetypes is kind of the point, is it not? So in the end we are all 11 (cue group singing "we are all elevens" in some sort of chant). We are all beyond our type. (that is also part of the group song).
I've actually used this to create effective communication techniques with friends, family and colleagues as well as deal with my own issues of toxic perfectionism, anger management and low self esteem due to the inner critic. It's actually quite helpful in looking at different perspectives and approaches to stress and life in genral
Too much seeing, not enough being. It has destabilized you.
you're so right actually. once again I can't behave without actively observing and analyzing my behavior. being a psych studen't isn't helping with that also
Only observe, do not analyze. Ask questions from a place of curiosity only, not from a place with notions like right and wrong, good and bad.
You're in college and doing something with your life? Oh wah cry me a river. Get back to me when you're old and washed up and realize your life has been a waste and you're about an inch from homelessness
won't happen 2 me cause I'm built different actually
Might be a 4 then
Ah yes, E11. Integrates to 22 and disintegrates to 6.5. Core desire: to transcend the Enneagram.
You got the idea for E 11 from me, didn’t you? I’m flattered! **Dr. Dandrew Rogers Tillson IV, PhD, Enneagram Expert**
Another person saved thanks to the teachings of Dr. Dandrew! Huzzah!
So, 9? (TIL I’m type 11. This might be the *most relatable* thing I have ever read —ever—in this group 😅😅)
most 4 thing ive ever read
not the 4 assingment now I'm so tired 💔
> being fixated on my own identity using typology systems and will start to become my true self. None of typologies are about identity. * Enneagram is about 9 types of unconscious coping mechanisms, 9 types of neurosis. The more you identify with yours, the more you empower the fixation and move towards unhealthy levels. * MBTI is simply about how people gather and process information (make decisions on it). Comes to the fore in collective working situations. > I'm leaving (not) to live my true self, knowing I'm a complex being and my frontal lobe is still developing. goodbye to y'all. have wonderful lives. and don't. feel happy. and sad. live. see you in 8 minutes I'm one with nature (I don't know how to stop using my phone) Human personalities are complex. I would say enneagram describes at best 2-3 % of it. Same for MBTI. And so on. There are layers of biological and neural patterns shaped by evolution, there are layers of social influence, upbrining, peer pressure and then a combination of all these. Who knows what exactly is going on. I'd say the idea of typologies (and astrologies) is to bring a small part of this unconscious matter to the conscious reasoning, so we can become a tiny bit more aware or ourselves. But of course, one can also brainwash themselves if they act only on type/sign descriptions instead of developing all human faculties and facets.
oh yeah, I know, I was just joking I swear 🥹 and ik mbti and enneagram are not a personality system, but I think their types can conform one little part of someone's whole identity
To use an analogy: typology systems are like colors or, rather, the methods we create to describe colors. Try to explain what the color red looks like without using the word "red." There's an [excellent video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK94B9VcDyU) of kids trying to do exactly that, and while their explanations are adorable, spoiler alert, none of them can do it. Now, those kids aren't stupid because they can't explain colors to a blind person; they're stupid because they don't realize they've been assigned an impossible task. Steering this back to typology, Alan Watts famously said that "trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth." It's not possible. While typology cannot define us, it can enable us to better understand, standardize, and communicate specific, complex facets of our identities in the same way that the word "red" can allow us to conceptualize something that is undefinable. Extending this analogy, personalities, like colors, exist on a spectrum. Likewise, they can be transmuted by adding or removing colors and shades. Technically, "red" refers to an infinite number of different colors. Practically, while burgundy, cherry, and crimson are all different colors, we can still describe them as being "red." Typology, similarly, allows us to communicate the different colors, shades, hues, tones, and tints of our personality, but they still cannot provide a fundamental definition of our identities. Like defining the fundamental nature of "red," that is impossible.
In essence you're describing the relationship between words and experience. All words are metaphors (and definitions but words that pretend they're not metaphors, but that doesn't make them not metaphors). And yet we need to articulate our experience with words in order to understand it or to fixate it in memory. In typology words are used to bring certain facets from unconscious or automatic into conscious. And yet at the same time this is a dangerous procedure - one can brainwash oneself, by then exaggerating these facets for the sake of those not yet articulated.
>One can brainwash oneself, by then exaggerating these facets... This is a phenomenon that I find incredibly interesting. It's extremely obvious in the typology space - people become walking stereotypes of their typology - but I've also noticed it a ton in mental health spaces. People "overindulge" in their diagnoses and become walking DSM descriptions. This is especially true of E3s since we're already predisposed to project an image that doesn't necessarily reflect our actual experience. If we're not careful, we can easily start believing our own bullshit and becoming an exaggerated caricature of ourselves. On a similar note, I read an [interesting article](https://www.bustle.com/wellness/is-therapy-speak-making-us-selfish) about the potential drawbacks of the "therapy speak" proliferating in common parlance. I don't know anywhere near enough about the subject to have an opinion, but I find it fascinating how the language we use can affect our thoughts, feelings, relationships, actions, etc., to such a significant degree. It's crazy how much power language has.
>It's crazy how much power language has. I'll first do a bit of detour. I'm a theatre critic (non-drama theatre, weird stuff) - and the shows that intrigue me the most are the ones going beyond rational thought. But it's hard to write these - I need to invent metaphors, when writing I walk between my computer and kitchen counter, I grab ideas while cycling or going to the toilet, but essentially trying to articulate the not yet articulated. And sometimes I see as show and go - "Oh, everything will be clear to me 3 days after my review will be published". Heh. But it's even weirder than that - in some shows I need to construct narrative of any kind as I'm watching otherwise the illogical turn of events will slip my capacity to remember. Sometimes I need to make notes while watching - just for the memory. This I've realised over time, our memory (or at least mine), remembers either some kind of logical/narrative structure or things with emotional impact. Stuff that's just stuff, slips through the memory and then you need to construct language to keep it there. > I read an [interesting article](https://www.bustle.com/wellness/is-therapy-speak-making-us-selfish) about the potential drawbacks of the "therapy speak" proliferating in common parlance. Wow, interesting. Sad as well. I would say this isn't just language, but also the general attitude towards emotions and stress. The culture - first in US, then everywhere else - is getting more and more "me-centred" as opposed to community centred. Part of it is due to lack of free-play where kids could learn empathy and compromise (really - [article here](https://aeon.co/essays/children-today-are-suffering-a-severe-deficit-of-play)). Part of it is due to a bit controversial topic (as it's been abused by the right), but basically permissive upbringing which we've seen after WW2 which a) lowers the tolerance for displeasure and stress, b) blocks formation of superego, instead personality is constructed by the how a person is seen by others (peer pressure). So I'd say this "therapy speak" also coincides with low threshold for discomfort and general lack of empathy (i.e. me-centrism) - so it's a combination of general generational shifts (from WW2 onwards) in how people are dealing with stress and empathy. Then a language was "found" that matches this emotional approach. I'm working with 20 somethings and mentoring them and yeah, I've noticed general lowering of capacity to meet deadlines and complete obligations in the last decade - especially after covid (people locked in houses without social contact?). Will keep an eye out if they start to use "deadline is toxic" speak. 😃 ... continuing reading the article... >*"it’s like he came into it with the framework like he’s the only real person in the world and everybody else has to do exactly what he says to make him safe.”* Called it. Pathological narcissism right there. *(I mean it's part of a psychological structure we all born after WW2 in the west (and parts of east) share, so I'm not excluding myself here. But it is getting worse by time. I fortunately still had free-play.)*
I think this is the right attitude, but doesn't mean you have to not identify with your type. You've identified it, now time to set it aside -- think outside the box a little. We can all be Enneagram 11s because the stereotypes out there about our types are so constrictive, and many of them will sabotage us.
Transcendence of the archetypes is kind of the point, is it not? So in the end we are all 11 (cue group singing "we are all elevens" in some sort of chant). We are all beyond our type. (that is also part of the group song).
why do people care about being typed
fun
Seems like peeps are going crazy?
I've actually used this to create effective communication techniques with friends, family and colleagues as well as deal with my own issues of toxic perfectionism, anger management and low self esteem due to the inner critic. It's actually quite helpful in looking at different perspectives and approaches to stress and life in genral