Type 8
Dominant Center: Body
Located in the Body Center (sometimes called the Gut Center), Type 8’s function is structured around preserving the psyche’s autonomy – maintaining separateness between self and other. At a basic level, the Body Types each represent a fixed way of responding to the Anger that arises when we feel as though our autonomy is lost, when boundaries are crossed, or when the world moves or affects us in unpleasant ways. Consequently, the Gut Types are defined by their psyche’s learned boundary that aims to protect them from being affected by their environment. The fundamental agenda of the Body Type is to manage Anger while preventing future breaches of their autonomy through how they act; as such, energy, movement, and force are the primary themes and issues that will persist throughout the life of a Body Type. The Body Center represents how much space the personality feels permitted to take up, and within that space, the Body determines how one does or does not respond to their environment.
For Type 8, their boundary is one that expands, dominates, and possesses its environment as its way of staying unaffected by it. What this means is that 8s unconsciously operate from a Gut-based belief that they have total possession of their given environment and are not at the mercy of it. This boundary creates a presence that can be large, overconfident, and intimidating to others who are less forceful. And while 8s certainly have their own insecurities, as a Rejection Type, they remain unconscious of their vulnerable parts of self as their default way of being. Because of this, moving through their environment with a large, powerful presence feels natural for Type 8s, and they (incorrectly) perceive themselves as entirely invulnerable to the world around them.
Passion: Lust
As Reactive Body Types, 8s want to experience vitality, liveliness, vibrancy of being. The larger-than-life presence they have is an expression of this intuitive reach for a fullness of existence, but when 8s become unhealthy, their expansiveness can manifest as domination, control, and the dismissal of any will that doesn’t align with their own. 8s feel entitled to their vim, so their force can be unfettered by the caution and consideration that comes more naturally to other types, and 8s can overlook how they steamroll others. In an attempt to preserve their autonomy, Type 8s overreact to perceived wrongs and dominate places and people that weren’t initially theirs. This taking and possessing of that which they don’t own is Type 8’s Passion: Lust.
Lust has a particularly sexual connotation, but as the Passion of Type 8, it represents the way 8s unconsciously expand and control and own their environment. In functional, average space, 8s are influential, powerful forces wherever they go. They are decisive, confident, and very at ease with themselves. But when Lust begins to bare its teeth, 8s become insistent on taking up more space around them. This Passion is at the base of many of history’s greatest atrocities – and while this doesn’t mean 8s are worse than other types, it does mean that within the structure of Type 8 is a psychic colonialism, an imperialistic demeanor, ready to subsume the world around them until they are the only singular thing left.
Type 8 represents a vividness of the Body Center’s presence – the vitality of existing fully, intensely, and unapologetically. There’s a beautiful realness in this structure of personality: a deep knowing that humans are entitled to live with verve and power. Type 8’s Lust is a distortion and inflation of this beautiful principle. Lust takes someone’s right to exist and extrapolates inappropriately, mistakenly believing that that right extends to all things around us. And while they rarely admit it to themselves, Type 8s (at their most unhealthy) believe they have the right to own anything, and it is only up to them to take it. The Passion of Lust is born of Type 8’s Rejection affect, which means they implicitly seek power and control in the world as their psyche’s way of concealing their vulnerable parts. As a Body Type, this control and power manifests physically in an impulse to have command of their environment.
As is true of all of the nine types, the most common iteration of Type 8 is Self-Preservation-dominant 8 (or sp8). Because someone’s dominant instinct becomes the sea in which the psyche swims, sp8s will implicitly feel the need to have possession in a tangible way in their environment, wanting to feel the most physically powerful, never at risk or vulnerable in their material environment. The Sexual- and Social-dominant iterations of Type 8 (sx8 and so8) unconsciously aim to control a very different form of “environment,” since their psyche’s desired resources are immaterial. Sx8s will feel the impulse to be in charge in their sexual and romantic relationships, dictating how relational chemistry flows and functions, whereas so8s will unconsciously seek power in interpersonal and hierarchical environments. The way that they automatically assume and overuse a position of authority is fundamentally what Lust is as 8s’ Passion.
Hornevian Stance: Assertive
Karen Horney developed three types of personality that map effectively on to the Enneagram. Her theory suggests that everyone learns one of three responses in an attempt to get what they want. The Assertive Types (3, 7, and 8) move past (or against) others, the Compliant Types (1, 2, and 6) move toward others, and the Withdrawn Types (4, 5, and 9) move away from others in order to get what they want. Each type does this differently within their respective dominant Center. Type 8, as an Assertive Body Type, is demanding autonomy by moving past and against objects in their environment, ensuring dominance for themselves so as to avoid being dominated.
Assertive Types have been deemed by some to be future-oriented, meaning they are pushing past the present moment, taking initiative to usher themselves into their desired outcome. In contrast to its other Assertive Stance siblings (Types 3 and 7), who often get their desires met more indirectly, Type 8s can overtly make demands. There’s a certain speed that’s intrinsic to the way the Assertive Stance operates – 3, 7, and 8 all rush toward what’s next, keeping their eyes on the future. For Type 8, as a Body Type, this is a quick, pushing boundary. The expansive nature of Type 8 is the product of this convergence of the Assertive Stance with the Gut Center.
There’s a certain largeness of the Assertive Types made most notable in Type 8 as Gut Type, with their psychic structure built around presence. This Assertive quality explains Type 8’s Passion of Lust, demanding more and more space and energy as they move through their environment. This manifests in a natural ability for 8s to push for what they want in a given environment. Assertive Types know how to pursue their desired goals and outcomes – if something is in the way of 8s going where they want to go, 8s will move that object. This spatial force is central to understanding the function of Type 8 as a Body Type: their Assertion manifests dimensionally. The bigness of the Assertive Stance converges with Gut energy to create a particularly sizable presence, and others often experience their expansive quality as intimidating or threatening.
Along with the other Assertive Types, 8s tend to overestimate the impact they can have on their external reality. As such, pushing forward into their desired future makes the Assertive Types too fast for the world around them. This doesn’t necessarily manifest as physical speed; they can be rushing through activities, events, obligations, etc. to get back to whatever they want to be doing. This speed can make other “slower” types feel as though the Assertive Types are moving around or past them… there’s a tendency for 8s to miss the person before them in favor of whatever is next in their desired agenda.
The immensity of being an Assertive Type and a Body Type means 8s have a presence that feels hefty, weighted, and immovable. This manifests practically in that 8s feel very allowed to be exactly what they are. When it comes to protecting themselves and establishing boundaries, 8s don’t feel the need to apologize for the actions they take. While there’s value in such an unapologetic way of existing, it means 8s run the risk of causing physical and emotional damage in the name of protecting what they believe is theirs.
Harmonic Style: Reactivity
The Harmonic Styles refer to how the nine different types learn to unconsciously handle life as it confronts them with unwanted circumstances. While the Positive Outlook Types (2, 7, and 9) use optimism, denial, and reframing and the Competency Types (1, 3, and 5) use objectivity, neutrality, effort, and mastery to handle their problems, the Reactive Types (4, 6, and 8), by contrast, use pessimism, emotional expression, and cynicism to manage the issues they face. The Reactive Types’ quick responses cause them to “overdo” the primary emotion of their dominant Center of Intelligence. For Type 8, that means overdoing Anger, expecting things in their environment to be antagonistic to their will, demanding a forceful response. This pessimism is the Reactive Types’ best attempt at seeing reality appropriately, but they inevitably skew their perspective to be more jaded and wary of life (and other people) than needed.
This negativity of outlook doesn’t mean 8s are “worse” people than more positive types; rather, it means that they tend to assume a stance of defensiveness. As a Body Type, this means Type 8 has a Reactive presence, maintaining their autonomy and position by shoving back against the world around them. This means that 8s tend to be too expectant that others may be trying to cross their boundaries or get the best of them, so they can be overly emphatic in their establishing of boundaries, too expressive in their Anger.
Body Types are preoccupied with protecting their own autonomy, so when others cross the boundaries 8s set, their Reactivity causes frightening outbursts, and 8s can burn bridges without hesitation when attempting to right their compromised position. On a much smaller scale, a blunt matter-of-factness is often how 8s appear to others in their language, since they feel no need to mince words or conceal their reactions. Type 8 is quite an uncommon type, so their clarity of position and their upfront illustration of what they will and won’t do can feel too direct to others. Rarely will 8s feel an obligation to behave any way other than how they do naturally; consequently, they have little interest in justifying or explaining to others the things they do and say.
Reactive Types automatically push back against the world, creating an implicit “me vs. you” mentality. For 8, a Body Type, this oppositional perspective is the way they learn to preserve their autonomy. Automatically, objects in the world around 8s become opposing forces they feel the need to overtake or conquer. 8s learn to see their environment as a battlefield, a chess board. Type 8’s severe confidence is their psyche’s protective response to such an antagonistic environment. Their offensive stance (and demeanor) is their way of remaining on top of the heap. Being king of the hill grants 8s the belief that they are not at risk of losing their autonomy.
Object Relation: Rejection
(of the Nurturing Object)
Type structure is built through a learned way of orienting toward the world called an Object Relation, a dynamic that forms as a child discovers how they relate to their parent(s). Every child receives and absorbs some form of wounding from their parents, and their psyche consequently learns to orient toward the world through an internalized Object – a distorted minimization of what should be the parent. This Object is not a full person; rather, the Object is a representation of the supplier of the child’s needs that did not do its job sufficiently. As an Assertive Type, 8s are oriented toward the Nurturing Object, the Mother who cares for an innocent infant.
The Rejection Types unconsciously move throughout the world perceiving themselves as the active agent in all things, seeing themselves as the ones to establish (and enforce) unspoken contracts of engagement. The world becomes a chess board, and the Rejection Type is playing with the white pieces, taking the first move and forcing a response from their opponent. The offensive stance is crucial to understanding the Rejection Types – they offer a significant impact to their environment because their psyches are unconsciously resistant to being in the responsive or defensive position. This means that Types 2, 5, and 8 move through the world initiating contact in their preferred manner, through a concentrated offering that forces the hands of others around them to play by their rules. There is an assumed promise deep in the Rejection Type’s psyche that tells them that they control how things go. Naturally, they bring a definitive confidence that suggests they know (and control) where an interaction is going.
For Type 8, this specific and controlled mode of operation manifests in the realm of the Gut Center, meaning their control issues orbit protecting their own autonomy through establishing boundaries. It’s very easy for 8s to differentiate what they will do from what they won’t do, and they have no hesitation in asserting it. They know how to push for their agenda – 8s are in frequent communication with their “masculine” side – the part of them that has a destination and actively, independently pursues it. This inflated masculine force is a response to the psyche’s wounding.
Type 8 is oriented toward the Nurturing Object, the psyche’s Mother (potentially literal or metaphorical) who offers care, tenderness, feeding, adoration. In an ideal world, Mother sees, fills, and cherishes her child, and the child absorbs such love. As an Assertive Type, 8 fails to receive that love as they need from Mother. But where 3 aims to win back Mother and 7 insists on nurturing themselves, 8 rejects the part of themselves that needs nurturance. The most vulnerable part of self, the part of the psyche that yearns for a soft, sensitive love, Type 8 attempts to amputate from their inner world. This separation from their tenderness becomes the primary catalyst of Type 8’s function, and with it comes an intense repulsion to anything that resembles this softness and vulnerability – both in themselves and in others.
Father is the figure who remains untainted in Type 8’s psyche, and without Mother, this masculine presence becomes the only blueprint for 8’s understanding of what living is. 8s have a protective, powerful presence they adopt from Father (though he may not be a literal father), and they can be rather possessive of those they love. Because their infant self is forgotten, 8s tend to be rather unempathetic by nature. Resistant to anything reminiscent of weakness, 8s end up offering a form of “tough love,” no matter what others may or may not want from them. This extends to those to whom they perceive as their psychic property.
8s consequently have a very narrow lens through which they see themselves, unintentionally reducing their self-concept to owner, protector, victor. Type 8s learn how to see power within every environment, because they aim to position themselves as completely invulnerable and in charge. Type 8s subconsciously believe being in control of their environment is the place they deserve. 8s seek to get what they believe is theirs, channeling the Body Center with force, quickness, and assertion. 8s use a clear, distinct presence as a way of establishing control in their environment.
8s’ offensive first move is through the Gut Center, which offers presence, force, and energy in excess. This “gift” 8 puts forth to the world around them is what shields their vulnerable parts from exposure and danger from others. 8s dominate the spaces they enter because this expansion feels comfortable, safe, and powerful, increasing the buffer between themselves and potential psychic threats. This singularity of Body energy is why 8s can be so overwhelming for others to be around, because their sheer presence is so intense. It’s important to remember that no matter how much largesse and force 8s have, the active force they embody is simply the psyche’s best attempt at convincing itself that Mother – the one who wounded the child – never existed.
The vivid presence 8s have often comes in packaging others struggle to handle. 8s feel extremely comfortable with levels of interactional friction others may deem extreme. They have little patience for those on the other end of the spectrum with less decisive ways of moving through the world. When people are unclear, seemingly dishonest, or even indirect, 8s rush forward with the part of self they feel is invulnerable – their strong, Father presence. But when they’re unhealthy, this manifests as 8s forcing others to pick a position, often before they’re ready. 8s create friction in their environment as a way of unconsciously bringing into their line of sight anything that might threaten their autonomy. Type 8s use power merely as a tool to keep their soft, dejected parts of self locked within their psyche’s dungeon.
Common Misconceptions
Enneagram type structure is rarely understood at an elemental level. Without knowing the “bones” of a type, many supposed Enneagram teachers have written terribly misleading descriptions of each type. No type is an exception to this issue, so by examining the specific parts of 8, we hope to re-illustrate some of the more confusing or inaccurate conceptions of this type.
The Rejection Types learn to relate to other people (or “objects,” as the psyche sees them) as things toward which the singular, conscious portion of the self is directed. This means the leftover, unsevered portion of the ego (the dominant Center of Intelligence) is automatically offered to people with whom the Rejection Types interact. For Type 8, this means the energy of the Body Center – weighty, powerful, concentrated force, presence, and protection – is thrust forth into other people’s fields of existence. This is the very basis of how the Rejection Types learn to engage – by shoving the energy of their dominant Center toward others as a means of remaining out of touch with their own severed parts.
Because 8 is rarely understood through the lens of the Rejection affect, other types with some shared behaviors are often mistyped as 8s. Type 3 is likely the most common type to mistype as 8. 3s and 8s are oriented toward the Nurturing Object, meaning they are Assertive Types, so they both are driven to move past and against their present reality in favor of their desired goals. However, 3s do this from their Attachment affect, meaning their ambition motivates them to regain Mother’s nurturance. 8s, as Rejection Types, have no interest in drawing Mother’s attention back to their tenderest parts; in fact, their psyche is hinged upon ensuring She never finds them again. 8s are motivated by their intrinsic desire for actual independence from Mother, rather than 3’s appearance of independence that bolsters their sense of value.
Type 6s also often mistype as 8s, because their shared Reactivity makes them defensive, cynical, and guarded like 8s can be. However, 6s are Reacting against a completely different Object than 8s are. 6s are oriented toward the Protecting Object, attaching to figures of authority in their environment that provide guidance in some way. When 6s are combative and defensive, it’s a reaction against figures of authority that have the potential to influence their frame of thought. 8s, by contrast, react as a way to preserve their autonomy. 8s are not frightened of being misled, misinformed. 6s get “big” like 8s when they feel the need to “fight the power” that threatens their sense of security.