Type 9
Dominant Center: Body
Located in the Body Center (sometimes called the Gut Center), Type 9’s function is structured around keeping the psyche’s autonomy – maintaining separateness between self and other. At a basic level, the Body Types each represent one fixed way of responding to the Anger that arises when it feels as though one’s autonomy is lost, when boundaries are crossed, or when the world moves or affects the psyche in an unpleasant way. Consequently, the Body Types are defined by the 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.
Because boundaries are the primary concern of the Gut Types, specifically the presence or energy of these Types is notable. Type 9s have a fluid, flexible boundary that quickly absorbs and internally diffuses any tension that might affect them in an undesired way. Contrasted with the stubborn clarity of the other Body Types (8 and 1), 9’s presence is unspecific and general, meaning their unconscious strategy of preserving their independence forces them to be at one with their environment, passively responding to what occurs around them. When an event disrupts the autonomy of the Body Type, Type 8 overdoes its reaction, crushing its enemy to smithereens, Type 1 responds to the offender with instruction and correction, but Type 9 denies the injustice, absorbing and forgetting their Anger. As Attachment Types, 9s adapt themselves as the primary way of handling the disruptions the world brings. Consequently, Type 9s have a presence that feels soft, foggy, and relaxed, because their Body Center is utilizing flexibility and withdrawal as a means of keeping their autonomy.
Passion: Sloth
Type 9s learn this overly adaptable style of existing early on in life, meaning their excessive accommodation of their surroundings becomes an automatic and unconscious behavior. What proceeds from this is an assumed responsive attitude, meaning it rarely occurs to 9s within their given environment to direct, push, or control it, since doing so would pull them out of their flexible fog and trap them in a singular location. Taking a position is antithetical to Type 9’s default – contrast flowing water with a block of ice: in its frozen state, water can crack and shatter, causing harsher contact with its environment, making things less comfortable for all parties. When moving and fluid, however, water can slip in and out of places, and external objects can pass in and out of it as well. This points to what 9s unconsciously prize above all: ease. By remaining generalized and accommodating of their environment, 9s protect themselves and others from feeling friction or discomfort. Their psyche’s refusal to be located and “solid” results in their Passion: Sloth.
While Sloth can certainly manifest in Type 9s as physical laziness, the Passion can more accurately be described as a sleepiness of existence. 9s unintentionally forsake their own responsibility to show up to their world as a full person, necessary and powerful with their own distinct agency and presence. Instead, 9s in average or unhealthy places accidentally delegate their will and being to other people and forces around them. Sloth is the personality oversleeping and missing its alarm – when 9s hear the demand to wake up and take action, they default to hitting snooze, forgetting their responsibility to live in a full, embodied way.
Sloth, this unintentional refusal to fully show up to their lives, takes root in Type 9s and produces in them an implicit belief that their presence is not only unnecessary, but also powerless. This means that 9s tend toward inaction of some variety. For Self-Preservation-dominant 9s, that inaction usually manifests in a physical indolence, but for Social- and Sexual-dominant 9s, their inaction tends to be more interpersonal in nature. Whether or not they consciously feel it to be true, Type 9s believe that their presence is superfluous; as such, pushing for their will or presence to take shape and have force in their environment feels exhausting and futile. 9s instead become entrenched in a pattern of engaging with life minimally or partially, only making contact with reality in ways that don’t create for themselves or others a feeling of friction or discomfort.
Many descriptions of Type 9 illustrate this type as fearing conflict or disconnection, but that isn’t a holistically accurate depiction of its makeup. While it can be true for some 9s, plenty of 9s (especially those with an 8 wing) have no issue arguing or being defiant. Because of their Attachment affect, 9s’ gauge of what is uncomfortable is subjected to the environment to which they are accustomed. For Type 9s who were raised in particularly conflictual or argumentative environments, disagreement may not feel threatening. More accurately, Type 9 is motivated by their desire for ease and their avoidance of anything that creates psychic abrasion, either from without or within them.
Hornevian Stance: Withdrawn
Karen Horney developed three types of personality that map effectively on 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 against (or past) others, the Compliant Types (1, 2, and 6) move toward others, and the Withdrawn Types (4, 5, and 9) move away from others. Each type does this differently within their respective dominant Center. Type 9, as a Withdrawn Gut Type, pulls away from others as a means of protecting its autonomy and ensuring the disruptions from the outside world are minimized.
The Withdrawn Types struggle to be present to their world, often late to taking necessary action. For Type 9, this pulling away is an automatic response of their Attachment affect’s adaptation to flow with its environment. As a Body Type, 9 is responding to the impressions, sensations, and objects around them, moving (and often erasing) themselves as a way of ensuring there is never too much internal or external friction occurring. Because the outside world is full of force, will, commotion, and noise, Type 9’s Withdrawal decreases the psyche’s “surface area” that is available to feeling friction. This again highlights Type 9’s primary issue – the desire to avoid conflict, conceal themselves, and even be stubbornly immovable at times is simply because of their personality’s addiction to a sensation of ease.
Consequently, 9s have a consistently lower level of energy, or at the very least a lower threshold for exerting themselves. Their avoidance of exertion can certainly be tangible, but plenty of 9s (especially those who are not Self-Preservation-dominant) can perform a myriad of tasks or activities that don’t cost them psychic energy. Rather, it is moments or environments that demand a fuller presence of self and a responsibility for their own will that quickly sap Type 9s of their ability to engage. Ultimately, as a Body Type, their unconscious goal is to remain unaffected by unpleasant sensations, so 9s Withdraw into their inner psychic landscapes as a means of tuning out the world’s chaos. We at Not My Type affectionately refer to this as “9ing out.”
As Attachment Types, 9s will usually want to avoid creating a disturbance in others, as that will in turn upset their inner world, too. Because of this, 9s’ pulling away is often done only internally, lest the environment notice their departure and reel in the wake of their absence. They may find themselves distracted or dissociated while still giving the appearance of being present and listening to others. Such a hidden form of introversion is usually the response to something in their environment that became too “noisy” – either literally or metaphorically. Unlike the other Withdrawn Types (4 and 5), Type 9 Withdraws into the Body Center – meaning their access to their Heart and Head remains limited. As such, when 9s are moving inward, their access to their thoughts and emotions decreases. The foggy softness of their inner landscape soothes their discomfort, but obscures their view of their true state. Unsurprisingly, making decisions or stating opinions in a definitive way can be challenging for 9s, since they have great difficulty knowing what it is specifically they are feeling, wanting, or believing.
Harmonic Style: Positive Outlook
The Harmonic Styles refer to how the nine types learn to unconsciously handle life as it confronts them with unpleasant realities. While the Reactive Types (4, 6, and 8) use pessimism, emotional expression, and skepticism, and the Competency Types (1, 3, and 5) use neutrality, mastery, and unemotionality, the Positive Outlook Types (2, 7, and 9) use optimism, denial, and reframing to handle their problems. This positivity is almost never an intentional delusion; rather, the Positive Types – even when they are unhealthy – distort their experience with pleasantness as they struggle to stomach the darker parts of reality.
Type 9’s Positivity is a dilution of their Anger, convincing them through their fuzzy inner and outer boundaries that the harshest parts of reality are passing right through them, rather than getting stuck and creating an obstruction. This isn’t true, of course, but the denial of their rage allows Type 9s to feel unbothered by the things that actually are bothering them. This pattern of softening the blows life deals them (be they daily and small or rare and significant) produces in 9s an intolerance of their own genuine rage. When things hurt them, 9s automatically and unintentionally believe they have forgotten the offense, reflexively adapting themselves to be at peace with the things that are occurring around them and to them.
Their Positive Outlook creates within 9s a generally relaxed, welcoming, and nonjudgmental demeanor that others tend to appreciate. The unpleasant, selfish, or dominating qualities of other types may produce irritation within 9s that they don’t fully notice, or at the very least, they may deem resolving their own annoyance an unworthy expenditure of their limited energy. Type 9s prefer to remain unbothered, letting annoyances remain little in their psychic view, thereby ensuring things can roll right off their back.
Type 9 tends toward contentment as a default, which is why they tend to numb themselves and their experience when life challenges arise. This way of being “at ease” with the world around them can be a true gift, causing 9s to remain seemingly unflappable and persistent. With it, however, 9s can learn an unhealthy belief that they have no reason and no ability to try to change their environment, their circumstances, and their world. Because Type 9 insists on remaining at one with their environment, they can tend to ignore and permit dangerous and unhealthy behaviors in others, not wanting to feel disturbed by their own feelings of Anger. More than any other type, 9s can give too many chances to those who would do them wrong, unintentionally welcoming negative influences in favor of keeping the comfort of their delusion.
Object Relation: Attachment
(to the Belonging 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). Six of the nine types orient themselves to an Object representing either Mother or Father, but the Withdrawn Types (4, 5, and 9) are oriented toward the space the child finds between Mother and Father, unconsciously creating a third Object: the Belonging Object. 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. The Belonging Object provides the child with a sense of holding, home, family, and welcome: a place to exist, fully present, and be human.
The insufficient provision of place from the Belonging Object produces in the Withdrawn Types a belief that they won’t have a “place” in a broader system. Whereas Types 4 and 5 functionally end their relationship to the Belonging Object (4 becoming chronically disappointed by it and 5 becoming indifferent to it), Type 9 Attaches to the Belonging Object, feeling implicitly that it is up to them to adapt their behavior to regain their home. Because belonging provides for the psyche a sense of place and presence, Type 9 is Attaching to the sensation of being held within a space, comfortable and at ease within their given state. Unfortunately, the only way for 9s to achieve this aim is to minimize the parts of their presence that threaten to cost them their welcome.
Their Attachment to the Belonging Object means that 9s believe that the most natural way of being is to create, reinforce, and invite a sense of home – that is, peace – both without and within them. This means that 9s have a notably soft and easygoing presence that not only keeps them comfortable, but also seems to mellow and relax others around them. Such a demeanor is their psyche’s way of further cementing an environment that feels safe and abstractly warm, ensuring that they do not at any point feel a division between themselves and their holding environment. This unconscious unifying force within Type 9s compels them toward an “all-is-one” mindset, meaning the dividing lines between 9s and everything else are minimized within their psyches.
Unfortunately, Type 9’s desire to be at peace both internally and externally means they have significant struggles locating where they stand in a given situation. For example, when in an environment where two forces oppose one another, 9s seem to naturally be able to place themselves in either party’s shoes. This provokes a near-automatic empathy that can paralyze 9s when it comes time to take their own stance. Choosing between multiple people, institutions, or forces whose positions all seem at least partially understandable tends to be exhausting and distressing for Type 9s, since any choice is, by necessity, a rejection of the unchosen. Rejecting any position produces a feeling of separation and loss within the psyche of a 9, functionally detaching from the Belonging Object’s holding.
The Belonging Object is neither the psyche’s Father nor its Mother, but rather the familial sense of place they provide in combination. One could argue that this means 9s do not Attach to a singular Object, per se, but rather to the sensation of holding that exists between two Objects. For the sake of simplicity of understanding, however, we refer to this abstracted holding zone as the Belonging Object. Type 9’s motivation to remain within that zone summarizes the conscious, semi-conscious, and unconscious decisions 9s make.
The Attachment affect is a style of relating to the world through responsive adjustment, unconsciously assuming that one’s environment necessarily shifts the way the personality functions. The adaptation of one’s own behavior in order to reattach to the child psyche’s Object produces in Types 3, 6, and 9 a belief that when something is off, it is the child’s responsibility to change until it is resolved. The Attachment Types want to be on the same page as others, and when they aren’t, they’ll find themselves adapting their behavior to do so. Because Type 9 is a Gut Type, they learn to adapt their presence – as opposed to Type 3 adapting their image and Type 6 adapting their thinking – in order to relate to their world. Being an Attachment Type is what drives 9’s characteristic forgetting of their own presence, their struggles asserting their position, and their overall go-with-the-flow attitude. Because the Gut Center is the personality mechanism managing movement and action, 9s are primarily adapting what they do rather than who they appear to be (like Type 3) or how they think (like Type 6).
In social contexts, Type 9s almost always listen more than they talk, since their style of engagement defaults to responsiveness rather than initiation. When others lead the way in taking up space and directing conversation, 9s have an easier time remaining comfortable, typically by remaining in the background and rolling with others’ preferences regarding what to talk about, where to go, or what to do. However, this trend often extends even to contexts where 9s would rather not follow the direction others suggest, because they tend to find exerting their will on the environment to be too exhausting and therefore a choice not worth making. Understandably, this means that Type 9s end up saying yes to others even when they want to say no.
Unfortunately, this produces a pattern of passivity in 9s, who build up a deficit of Anger they’ve neglected each time they’ve chosen to forget their own position in favor of flowing with the agendas of other forces around them. Type 9s secretly dread their own Anger, since they fear its eruption might destroy their Attachment to their Object. The manifestation of 9’s perceived Belonging Object can be anything from a parent or a friend to a more literal resource, like their bed or their daily creature comforts. No matter what it might look like, 9s implicitly sense that their Anger has the power to destroy all the things they hold dear; consequently, most of their problems stem from the suppression of their own Anger, which tends to occasionally erupt after long bouts of being ignored.
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 9, we hope to re-illustrate some of the more confusing or inaccurate conceptions of this type.
The most common misconception is one we’ve touched on already: simply put, the “core fear” (if such a summary of a type’s inner mechanisms could even be summarized in one phrase) of Type 9 is not one of conflict, but rather of friction and displacement. Plenty of 9s are willing to push back or be difficult and immovable with others, but their ultimate avoidance is of any sort of psychic disturbance. More specifically, many other types can mistype themselves as 9s by virtue of their own fear of conflict – for various reasons, Types 3 and 6 most commonly resonate with this fear of conflict, and sometimes the same can be said for Type 2. Those types, however, do not fear the Body-level dissonance that Type 9 abhors.
Another misunderstanding about Type 9 is the function of their Passion of Sloth, which conventionally can be understood as laziness. And while some 9s (most commonly those who are Self-Preservation-dominant) can err toward a physical inertia, other 9s can find more indirect means of dissociation. Most notably, the Social and Sexual instincts seek more interactive resources, and 9s who are dominant in those instincts tend to forget themselves and avoid responsibility through either their Social connections or their Sexual pursuits. These 9s may be excessively active physically while still managing to remain “asleep” to their full self, neglecting their right to embodied presence in their relationships. Furthermore, Social 9s tend to have personas or social roles that send their energy more “up and out,” engaging interpersonally as the very means through which they can check out. The Withdrawn Stance of Type 9 can sometimes just be a withdrawal of one’s will, even if their conversation, joking, and entertaining of others continues.