Am I a 1w9 or a 4w3?

Bruh.

 

Common where? In discord (where I'm mostly am..) I've only met like a few whom I think are really 1s. Can't say it's common but can't say it's rare either. But I don't know much.. a lot of online communities specially related to mbti, have more of not so healthy individuals who try to fit in wherever they could or where they feel accepted or can easily adapt to.

I followed wyote's advise on the integration and disintegration. And then went to read more and had been tested, interviewed and typed by a lot of people and it always ends up as 1w2.

 

I used to be in enneagram discord server. But I'm not sure if it's still existing. You can ask @charlatan he's the one who's helped me a whole LOT with enneagram.

 

The thing I am big on is to focus on the fact that not every formulation of the different typologies (Jungian typology, enneagram, etc) is the same. People can certainly say they are getting at the same thing and pick the one which captures the ideas best, but at least on the face of it, the systems are different -- so for the Jungian typology world, Jung, Myers-briggs and socionics are all at least in the strictest sense not the same, though one can do additional work and potentially argue there's a version of Jungian typology with most advantages.

I've found versions of both that I most prefer, though I remain open to the insights of other ways of organizing the ideas. So keep that in mind / that I do not mean the following is the only way.

My emphasis on enneagram is on what I'd call the most conceptual point of view on it I know of -- the one that makes it seem least random why the types are what they are.
And this point of view basically says how you get the types is you have the head-heart-gut centers and you can combine them in different ways, and each type is based on grappling with and balancing the conflicts of the neighbors.
E.g. 4's focus on the uniqueness of personal identity combines the estrangement of 5 from the world and the image type concerns of 3.
It is the blend of image type and head type concerns (but which leans image type). As with all age types, 4's concern is primarily to not be without worth and significance, but more so than the other image types, 4 feels doubt and anxiety about the very question. Where 2's issues tend to be more around merging one's need to have significance with meeting the needs of others, which explains the proximity to 9, the 4's issues are around how the worth ties back to one's actual identity -- if the 4 achieves something, sure the achievement has signficance, but if someone else could've done the same thing, how is this speaking to MY significance?
Whereas 1 is a gut-image type.

Generally, the way I understand it is the gut center types tend to hold both the image and head type concerns at bay with 9 the "purest" version of this strategy --- its strength being that you maintain harmony and balance, and the weakness being that this can lead to repression of one's sense of self when carried to an extreme (.which resembles its neighbor 8's repression of feelings of vulnerability).

Enneagram 1 is fittingly the "most image type-y" of the gut types, with closest proximity to the image type 2, which is why we often see them needing to maintain a feeling they are in the right (but struggling with self-criticality). Their difference from image types is I think their focus on perfection is still more impersonal -- for e.g. it isn't just about their own imperfections but simply seeing things not being as they should be everywhere and looking to change that (or looking to preserve things as they should be).
When a 1 aims to meet a standard, I don't see it as their primarily thinking this awards them significance -- after all, they think everything should meet their standards, and if anything their strategy represses the image type anxiety regarding how *their being as they should be* matters in the end.

So they really have quite different vibes. Without picking on any of them more than the other....
Gut types tend to if anything be a little too smug about what the standards should be, or via falling asleep to the issues/pretending nothing is wrong, or maintaining a sense they can't be taken down, if we were to criticize.... head types at their worst spiral into doubt and getting tangled and stuck in indecision (which can lead to resigning if there's anything worth getting too close to or investing in a-la 5.....or getting tired with things / suddenly going from excitement to boredom at 7).....and image types can get locked in shame and grief at not mattering.

 

Bestrice Chestnut describes the wings very well as well as the core types in their instinctual variants. I read her book last year and it has added some knowledge about how I can confirm the stacking for myself. I maintain that I am a 147, 1w2 being the dominant. @charlatan 's description in the last bit really vibed with me too.

It took a long time to find out which I am, 1 or 4. I had fluctuauted because I was having a trying time, because I was in some emotional turmoil and always reacted badly - with anger when I was hurt. That's what originally indicated 1 to me, not because of perfectionism, but because of the deep-seated anger that I'm never good enough and don't matter. When I'm balanced, I feel fairly little in intensity and I'm more driven to explore intellectual pursuits as well as just to have fun, with a few manic spikes. That's how I knew my sweet spot is 1, and I grow into 7 whereas I disintegrate into 4. It's difficult in its own right too because even when I'm not growing or disintegrating the two are still a part of me. Something I consider my second sin is that I am hellbent on mapping myself completely, which I consider ego-centred sometimes, but when I stopped worrying about that I found the goal was to become a better me. 1 again.

It's best to keep statistics out of it, just so there is no bias developing over rarity. I rejected 1 at first because I am probably the most lazy 1 there is. But when I read about the cerebral perfectionism that creates inaction, that's where I was truly at home.


This was mostly about me, but I hope my story can help you narrow it down. My first thought at seeing your OP and thread title was "why not both?"

 

I don't know you well enough to make any kind of call on your E type, Griffin. I took a long time to settle on my own and it was only when I picked up Don Riso's detailed descriptions of each Type/Wing combination that I was able to identify with one of them clearly. Something that I found helpful was to look at the weaknesses of each type, which often have a different flavour to the very healthy behaviours. Riso describes behaviour for each of the nine Enneagram type in terms of nine distinct health levels (ie 81 altogether). This table pulls out level 6 for each type - it's the lower end of the average health band so is spotlighting the normal weaknesses in each type. Below that and it starts to run into possible significant mental health issues which make things a lot more complicated, and I find it's less helpful in trying to type myself and others. The concept is dynamic, which means that we all move fluidly between the health levels all the time - I suspect most of us spend our time in the four levels between the lower end of healthy (level 3) through to the lower end of average as described in this table.

One thing that strikes me is that there may well be more people around who are E6 than see themselves as that type. That's consistent with Richard Rohr's view as well which is that more than half the folks in some communities are type 6.

Spoiler

 

Well, if we separate the cognitive functions and dichotomy, would you be still "INFP" (actually, Fi-dom & INFP to be more precise) on both? (actually, people use Fi-dom as INFP and Ni-dom as INFJ but in Jung typology and Socionics follows it, Ni-dom is a P and Fi-dom is a J) I highly suspect you would not... And that makes a big difference here for type 1.

Jung J vs P is a matter of having T/F function as primary (Jung J) or N/S as primary (Jung P).
MBTI on 20th century and the community uses a stack and uses former extraverted function of that of that stack to decide J/P, for their stack the former function is Ne, they nominate P.
MBTI on 21th century had mostly dropped the functions and included facets, probably due to the influence from Costa & MCRae from Big 5, so they only use the dichotomy to decide whatever you are a J vs P. Their J vs P isn't that much deep, actually, it can be resumed into these two pictures but there is the facets as well:





Here are, from PC, the descriptions of the J/P facets:

Spoiler

The reason about I am stating this is that in the popular theory INFP is always Fi-dom and INFJ is always Ni-dom, but, well, this popular theory goes against the statistics and goes against Jung as well. I can put the links to you that explain that in depth, but its a quite long read... So I have good reasons to treat Fi-dom and INFP as separate, as Fi-dom with auxiliary N can be either INFP or INFJ, and INFP can be either Ni-dom or Fi-dom. If this looks too awkward to you, you may need the links and do the long read.

But yeah, in the sense of J vs P that I did explained to you, that isn't wrong at all, a INFP can be a Ni-dom and a INFJ can be a Fi-dom as well.

For type one, what is important is the J that I explained here, the 21th century J vs P, not if Fi-dom or Ni-dom. But, also, some Ni-dom descriptions out there, different from Jung, does have J interference to make their paradigm "primary Ni=INJ" true, so, just a quick example, whereas Ni in Jung does have visions and all that stuff, their Ni is a visionary that works hard to achieve a single envisioned future, this latter does have 21th century MBTI J traits while the original source does not.

In general, there are a some clashes of Fi-dom and type 1, not enough to make a full restriction. But a good portion of type 1 are Judging and Conscientiousness traits, things like being a perfectionist and etc.. there is the "rational" trait but that in general is quite a secondary trait, not enough to clash with Fi-dom but enough to create a small T tendency. Strong J pulls S by default, due to the N-P & S-J MBTI correlation (I explained in part that recently, here). And there you got a xstJ tendency of type 1, and that is why INFP and ENFP, specially the latter, clashes a lot and too much with type one, however Fi-dom per se, even Fi-dom with auxiliary intuition, does have some clash but not enough, because if a specific Fi-dom person is a full of 21th century MBTI J traits and Conscientiousness from Big Five traits, then that is super ok for type 1 because they will have various things in common.

I hope you got what I mean XD. If you are a J in pure dichotomy term (forgetting the functions), then you could be a 1, if you are a INFP in pure dichotomy terms, then this combination has too much clashes and is too much ambivalent, which would "put you" on type 6 instead ("whatever you say about six, the opposite is often true").

 

Some of it could be 4 but I'm not seeing the big 4 indicators--fixation on the ways one is deficient, making that your whole identity, etc. Some things point very slightly away from 4 actually--numbers 2 and 7 in particular aren't really 4 reactions, as 4s kind of rule out triumph and assume that people aren't going to like them.

Could you elaborate on #6?

I agree with charlatan about #2 (and also #3 actually) being more image-y than gut. Justifying identity through action is less 4 though, so that's something.

A lot of these points seem like they could be 6 actually. In particular 4 (6s like to rely on others or on an external set of standards for decisionmaking), but also 8 (6s doubt themselves) and kinda 6 too (6s need everyone to agree with them on some level). That said 8 and 6 could also be 1. 6s do have a line to 3 also, which is where your image focus seems to lie.

When you say "my flaws and shortcomings", what do you mean?

 

For what it's worth, a bunch of what Vendrah says is important stuff to keep in mind/what I hoped to underscore -- I think saying a Fi-dom is way less likely than Ni-dom to be a 1 smells fishy, whereas saying a J mentality is somewhat more likely to be 1 than a P mentality sounds less fishy. That said, I think even this deserves a bit of elaboration.

The part of E1 that is fairly neutral to J and P is the idealism about how things should be. The part that at all makes it lean J is probably the fact it's a gut type and may feel the need to repress doubt and such things common to type 6/other head types, and thus lean towards a very unambiguous, decided sense of what's right/wrong. That "decided" vs "open-ended" part is where the J vs P (dichotomies -- not functions) comes in.

Still, I sometimes think there may be a bit of a difference between 1w9 and 1w2 here; a 1 who is more likely to feel anger at things not being as they are, but perhaps more detached and cynical about whether they can be fixed, for instance. I think the added image type of 2 might push 1w2s into action more surely / have a more "what am I doing to make things right/otherwise I'm not worthy" vibe.

I also would note that P vs J doesn't really map too neatly onto perceiving vs judging dom in either direction, partly because "perceiving" is not necessarily oriented to open-endedness, particularly in types with an auxiliary function that is well-developed. At that point, other aspects of "perceiving vs judging" can take priority. In particular, one major thing about irrational vs rational is that there's a sense in which "irrational" functions have a vibe of "that's just how things are" -- for instance, when we note there are just certain laws of physics that happen to hold, and if there's not really a principle we can use to explain this, that's part of the irrational vs rational dichotomy. It relates to what in philosophy we talk of as empirically known vs rationally known. There's an association drawn between this and open-ended vs decided dichotomies in that in the very extreme, the former may be more willing to simply be open to seeing things as they simply are/let them be, rather than organizing them according to some principle (some meditation-oriented mystics emphasize this sort of thing a lot).
That is clearly where socionics might associate perceiving and P.
However, the fact is in terms of keeping things "decided" vs "open-ended," actually simply going by experience vs introducing further use of judging functions can actually leave things less decided at times.
What I think is clearest is that the "purest" types fit the most obvious association best-- e.g. perceiving-doms with little judging function use...are probably Ps.

 

Can you elaborate on this? I don't quite follow.

 

Sure!
So the background is I'm discussing ways perceiving-judging (in the sense of the functions: i.e. sensation/intuition = perceiving, feeling/thinking = judging) differs from and is similar to P vs J as found in traditional Myers Briggs tests (in dichotomies form).
By the purest of perceiving doms, I mean the ones where there's as little balancing out by an auxiliary function as possible.

The basic point is that perceiving vs judging in the sense of functions (thinking/feeling being judging, intuition/sensation being perceiving) has some relations to the P/J dichotomy in Myers-Briggs, but it's more in the sense of some overlap than complete overlap. E.g. the facet about keeping one's eyes open to whatever may come by vs liking things decided.

With the purest perceiving doms, they're going to have to be as perceiving>judging as can be, so they're more likely to also exemplify those aspects of P-J do overlap with perceiving-judging.
So I'd gather the perceiving-doms with the least balancing from an auxiliary thinking or feeling function are most likely of all to be P > Jish in the Myers-Briggs dichotomies.

I got to explaining this because there's some dispute in the typology communities what the relation between P vs J and perceiving vs judging is. Socionics theorists (when they discuss connections to MBTI) can be found saying at times that the best way is to go perceiving~P and judging~J.
MBTI focuses on the extraverted function-attitude. Obviously, both admit there is some relation between P-J and perceiving-judging.

I try to focus on at least explaining the part I think follows most conservatively without much allegiance to either of these.

 

You're less "judging" than I am here. While I understand the terminology in both socionics and the function model in MBTI, my personal stance towards the dichotomy models can be summed up as "useless bs", in that its minimalistic output makes any theoretically forward-thinking analysis impossible. I have been trying to find the way back to the roots in order to determine whether there is still any validity for dichotomy outside a statistical and thereby comparative field.


Personal opinion aside, I do think I understand what you mean now. You see a pure type in decisive preference of the type-denoting function. I wonder if it doesn't create a highly unbalanced personality, but that is besides the point.

I'm not sure if MBTI has much of a say in Enneagram. Likelihood doesn't keep something from attaining some truth value, right?

 

My personal pet peeve is mostly when people take one of the functions-based systems and adhere to the rules too blindly -- after all, there are lots of competing theories for a reason. At the least, one has to justify why one takes the interpretation one does with a lot of seriousness or simply refrain from making too strong a claim.
This includes when newcomers are told (somewhat snobbily by the somewhat more initiated) of course the auxiliary is in the opposite attitude to the dominant, you're making a rookie mistake!
While that may be the theory one adheres to, it's a matter of raging discussion and ought to be presented as such.