Instinctual Stacking

A theory often paired with the Enneagram of Personality is the theory of Instinctual Variants. You can read more about the instincts themselves by clicking here, but this page is meant to unpack how we believe the instincts are connected to each other, how we use the instincts in typing our clients, and the effect we found in our research that someone’s instinct stacking has on the manifestation of their core type.

We align with a newer perspective of the instincts that contrasts with some of the more well-known literature about this topic. We believe that the instinctual variants are biological drives that shape the manifestation of someone’s fixations. Put simply, we believe your Enneagram type serves as the psyche’s tool of meeting your instinctual needs.

The instincts do not function independently of each other. They work together as one machine, falling in a certain order within someone’s psyche. This means that someone’s unconscious motivations are ruled by a dominant instinct, supported by a secondary instinct, and driven by a repression of a last (or blind) instinct. These instincts each fill a different purpose within the psyche’s machinations, necessarily intersecting and interacting.

The dominant instinct becomes the psyche’s greatest obsession, operating from a distorted sense of scarcity. This instinct is the origin of most of the personality’s neuroses. We are excessively motivated to stockpile resources required by the dominant instinct, be they physical or nonphysical. The dominant instinct ultimately controls our focus, our thought, and our conversation. The fixations of our type are merely machines to actualize for our psyche the resources demanded by our dominant instinct.

The secondary instinct supports the agenda of the dominant, providing an arena or context in which the dominant instinct seeks its aims. We pursue the resources needed by the secondary instinct as a means to an end – answering to the psychic slavedriver that is the dominant instinct. Some have called the secondary instinct “the playground,” as we tend to relate to our own secondary instinct with some degree of ease. When it comes to satiating the secondary instinct, the stakes are low, so we have a portion of flippancy in its realm.

By neglecting our last (or blind) instinct, we create nearly as many problems as we do by fixating on meeting the needs of the dominant. In the psychic hierarchy, the needs of the blind instinct stand as a threat to the flourishing of the dominant instinct, so our unconscious subsumes its voice, drawing our focus back toward meeting the needs of the dominant instinct. This automatic prioritization is formed early in childhood, but in our adult lives, it compels us to work double time to fill the growling stomach of our dominant instinct. Giving attention to the blind instinct is almost always what we need for maturation, but it is always perceived by our unconscious mind as dangerous and a waste of attention.

Consequently, we come to interact with our blind instinct in a rather immature and undeveloped fashion, usually pretending its needs do not exist within us. When placed in contexts where we are forced to utilize our blind instinct, we usually react poorly. Typically, we dismiss opportunities to use our last instinct and can create plenty of reasonable or moral arguments as to why we do this. When obligated, the instinct “acts out,” squandering not only its own resources but also those of the secondary and dominant instincts.

For example, the most common instinctual stacking (abbreviated as “sp/so”) is Self-Preservation (sp) as the dominant instinct, Social (so) as the secondary instinct, and Sexual (sx) as the last instinct. The Self-Preservation need for safety, comfort, and grounding is aided by the engagement of Social, entering into the world of relationship, connection, and coregulation in order to ensure physical survival needs are met. Meanwhile, the Sexual need for chemistry, upheaval, and transformation remains out of sight. This stacking creates leads to a natural conclusion: while Social is balanced and comfortable, Self-Preservation and Sexual become psychic opponents — and because Sexual is in the blindspot, it will almost always lose. Consequently, sp/so as a stacking leans toward a general resistance of change or upheaval and ambiguous sexual chemistry, as such volatility is perceived as destabilizing to the psyche.

This same blueprint of imbalance is displayed in all six of the instinctual stackings, where the secondary instinct acts as a sidekick to the insatiable dominant instinct, while the blind instinct remains forgotten or repressed, typically used poorly and destructively.