In this conversation with Catherine Quiring, host of the podcast Who We Are & What We Need, we explore how the Enneagram can help us make sense of and grow in our relationships.
We use the characters of the Apple TV hit Ted Lasso to compare & contrast various Enneagram types, instincts, & subtypes as they reveal specific relationship feedback loops.
Scroll down for the video, audio, & transcript.
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Dani Rojas: Enneagram 7 SX/SO
Ted Lasso: Enneagram 7 SO/SX (countertype)
Rebecca Welton: Enneagram 8 SX/SP
Roy Kent: Enneagram 8 SP/SO
Keeley Jones: Enneagram 2 SX/SO
Jamie Tartt: Enneagram 3 SO/SX
Nate Shelley: Enneagram 3 SP/SX (countertype)
Rupert Mannion: Enneagram 4 SX/SP
Sam Obisanye: Enneagram 9 SO/SX (countertype)
Leslie Higgins: Enneagram 6 SP/SO
Dr. Sharon: Enneagram 5 SP/SX
Coach Beard: Enneagram 5 SX/SO (countertype)
Trent Crimm: Enneagram 4 SP/SX (countertype)
Isaac McAdoo: Enneagram 8 SO/SP (countertype)
Colin Hughes: Enneagram 6 SP/SO
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Transcript
Welcome to Who We Are & What We Need. I'm your host, Catherine Quiring. I'm a licensed mental health counselor and an advocate for needs, honoring needs based society.
In this podcast, we talk about how to trust and care for yourself as a person cares and feels deeply, how to understand the inner physics of human nature and our place in the world where we can flow and live harmoniously, how to support each other, thrive and collectively challenge world views and systems that feed off of and perpetuate harm. In this podcast, we gently blow away the layers of noise, chaos and reactivity, so we can get to who we truly are and what we need. Thanks for joining me. I'm so glad you're here.
Note:
Well, welcome to Season Four of Who We Are & What We Need. I'm so glad you're here. I wanted to mention just a tiny bit about today's recording in it, we mentioned Highly Sensitive Person, and I want to provide the caveat that I don't endorse or agree with Elaine Aron's ways of characterizing autistic people. And so in general, I shy away from the phrase highly sensitive person, and instead just talk about high sensitivity. But today's guest finds the highly sensitive person label really helpful for her. And so in that vein and in that spirit, I wanted to honor using it for her, but also provide the caveat that Elaine Aron's work, while helpful for highly sensitive people, has been really damaging for autistic people, so we should always use highly sensitive person with a lot of care and respect. Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy today's episode.
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Catherine Quiring:
Welcome back to Who We Are & What We Need. I'm your host, Catherine Quiring, and today I have with me, Joanne Kim from OliveMe Counseling.
I ran into Joanne through a summit that she was a part of talking about people pleasing in the Enneagram, and I was entranced and reached out to her and said, Oh, can we please talk about this more? And can we talk about it on the podcast? And so Joanne and I have thought about some interesting things to share with you today, about the Enneagram, and also we're going to talk about Ted lasso, one of my favorite shows, and all sorts of fun things.
But first, let me introduce Joanne a little bit more to you, and then I will let her say hi and introduce herself. So Joanne is a marriage and family therapist, and she is an Enneagram for an INFJ, highly sensitive person. Grew up as a church queer kid, and used to be a pastor, but now is welcoming to those who are deconstructing and reconstructing loves, things Woo and true, seeking, which I love. I'm also in that camp, and we also have really similar astrology. She's Libra rising Aries sun and Virgo moon, and I'm Libra rising Aries sun and Pisces moon, and we also really passionate about emotional intelligence, and, you know, just lots of fun connections. Joanne, is there anything else you'd like to share in introducing yourself?
Joanne Kim 3:39
Yeah, glad to be here. I take great pride and joy in having a monkey brain, and that I've kind of gone through all kinds of different arenas, like went into college as mechanical engineering, graduated as political science, international relations, and then I did the little stint as a pastor for a couple of years, and then now a therapist and a feelings translator. But you know, fast forward 10 years from now. I don't know what I'll be doing right at that time, but I think that kind of does align a lot with the type four piece. Throughout it all, there's been a consistent theme across all of them, and it has always been to build bridges between people. That's cool. So I come across a lot of people who tend to be highly sensitive or empathic or very conscientious and responsible, and I think this iteration of my life journey is to build the connection between the person and their own self. Yes, because they're very good at connecting with other people.
Catherine Quiring 4:50
Yes, yes, absolutely. How is that playing out?
Joanne Kim 5:05
As a Marriage and Family Therapist, that's really interesting, because it sounds like like overtly, people might think, okay, that's just about the relationship between us, but there's also so much to our relationship with ourselves within that I feel like they really have to change the name of the specific license. There are at least like 15 different terms, like Professional Clinical Counselor or whatever. LMFT tends to be the biggest license in California, which is where I match. But actually a lot of the work that I do is specifically with individuals naturally.
A lot of the tricky situations that they find themselves in is in family dynamics, right? You know, romantic dynamics, friendships and work conflict. So I kind of have a skill in being able to connect with people on an individual level, being able to draw out each person's autopilot. I like calling that the Enneagram type as our automatic cluster of reactions and defense mechanisms. It's really hard to be able to see that while we're interacting with someone else in real time, because I don't know how many of y'all know, but a third of the Enneagram types are shape shifters, you know. And so those folks may actually be shifting as they're interacting with a new person, and then the third person comes along. And so it's really hard for some folks to stay connected with their true selves long enough to be even able to tell what the behind the scenes mechanisms are.
Catherine Quiring 6:38
So I'm so curious what the third number is because I know Threes and Nines would be shape shifters.
Joanne Kim 6:43
Twos,
Catherine Quiring 6:44
Yeah, twos, that makes sense. Okay, yep, yeah, yeah.
Joanne Kim 6:49
All of the types are archetypes of the universal human experience.
So it's not surprising that when people read through all the Nine types that they resonate with a good number of the list. And so sometimes that leads to people feeling confused or feeling like, I don't think this Enneagram thing is legit, because, like, you know, I thought I'm supposed to be one type, but I also resonate with this one and that one. Well, we're supposed to resonate with everything. It's just that we get STUCK in one type.
So the hope of the Enneagram isn't for us to find out our type, to then collect all these life experiences like what kind of person to date or what kind of lifestyle to have, to reinforce our type.
Actually, the point is to find our type as the launching point for us to grow beyond it, yes. So naturally, the more personal inner work and healing someone has done, it becomes trickier to identify what their type is.
Catherine Quiring 7:51
The common advice I've heard is like, think about how you were in your 20s.
Joanne Kim 7:59
Yeah. Because I think up until high school, most people are living in their original family of origin, right? And also, besides maybe the ability to drive like there's not a whole lot of freedom and decisions that high schoolers can make.
But college years are usually the first time when people can decide how to spend their time, how to spend their resources, what kind of people to associate with, and so on.
But it's also right before the mid 20s, when, you know, college grads who are super confident after hearing their graduation speeches about how they can conquer the world, and, you know, change everyone's lives and all that, and then they find out the hard way that they really don't know much in life, and then the disappointments and the breakups and getting fired from jobs, or all of those shifts, usually, is what sets up the person to be open to therapy, mostly for the first time, right?
Catherine Quiring 8:59
Because there's some disillusionment. There's some like, oh, life is not what I expected. I need to adjust to this, and I need some support.
Joanne Kim 9:06
So usually, like 27-28 and on is usually like the very ripe client who is finally open up. They're cracking themselves up beyond their autopilot and are considering a different life. But they can't do it in their own echo chamber, right? They need to go outside of that, and the therapist is the other person, kind of providing a mirror for that. So because the types are about defense mechanisms, the early 20s are when people have crystallized their patterns enough, but right before they started doing their therapy work, yes, so that will be the sweet spot.
Catherine Quiring 9:45
Yes, agreed. I'm curious if we could talk a little bit about one. I'm curious about the feelings translator, and then we can dive into maybe, like the instincts and the Enneagram. But that's so fascinating to me. I love that term, being a feelings translator. And I wonder if you just tell us a little bit more about that as well.
Joanne Kim 10:05
Yeah. Well, I think brief, brief history of the western world is that, especially post enlightenment, there's been major emphasis on reason, logic, things that are measurable, scientific method, things like that. But as the Enneagram symbol itself also communicates thinking is only 1/3 of our entire essence.
And there's also the heart center that whose main currency is feelings. And then the body center whose main currency, I think, is energy or sensory experiences or movement. So in the Western world, where, you know, psychology as a field has been constructed, still has a heavy, heavy bias towards heady stuff.
And I'm, I live in the middle of a Silicon Valley, so we got a lot of engineers and tech people over here, and naturally tends to attract a certain crowd who either grew up in or are still reinforcing messages that feelings don't have a place right. In recent decades, with people like Brene Brown or whatnot, like we finally started making some more room towards heart center, you know, empathy, emotional intelligence, and we hear of these waves shifting people's attention, but it's still going to take a couple of decades, I think, for it to be considered on equal standing.
And I think with the current political state of things, I think there might be some bumps in the road, and then the body center experiences things like yoga, or some of the Eastern traditions that emphasize like the centrality of energy, qigong, tai chi, like those kinds of things, it's going to take even longer time before I think we can reconcile all three as being on the same equal level, right?
But in that context, I think because people are starting to be more open towards emotionality, and I think Ted Lasso also speaks to like what happens when we repress our feelings and we don't deal with our past or our wounded experiences, some needs that were unmet.
Struggle with feelings that seem to show up at the wrong place, wrong time, or the wrong ways? Here’s a free guide that helps you find your emotional footing fast!
Myself having grown up as a big feeling person in a feelings-repressed family, also growing up as a closeted queer kid in a church context like there wasn't a whole lot of room for me to connect with myself, I was heavily dissociated for the vast majority of my life, and then, as I was doing my own personal healing work alongside me, learning to become a therapist, I started noticing, well, it seems like there's a pattern to certain emotions, that each of the major feelings actually have their corresponding themes. Like last I checked, anger has or at least 18 different themes or needs that it's associated with, like justice, integrity, change will, boundaries, fairness, things like that.
And so what if emotions aren't as chaotic and random and murky. I think the phenomenon of empathy proves that there is an inherent logic to emotions, because if, if they were completely random, I don't think anyone will be able to attune to someone else and comfort someone without any words being exchanged, right, right? So I think some people like highly sensitive people or empaths, it's like they're born with that as their first language. They don't need to be formally trained in it, but as like any other language, people can learn it if you know, even later in life. So that's kind of where the term Feelings Translator comes in.
A lot of the work I do with my clients is to kind of gauge, you know, or name what emotion they might be feeling in the moment, and then I kind of list out the potential definitions and say, okay, so you're feeling sad.
Sadness usually comes with themes of connection or disconnection, you know, not being with the person or experience you love, or having had something good in the past, but you're not able to access it right now and so on so forth. Where are you at? What is your need? And some of those needs are within the window of opportunity for us to still meet. So if someone is feeling FOMO because they saw an Instagram that their friends are all hanging out there and they're feeling like left out or whatever, well it's something happening in real time or within the past couple days or weeks. So there are some needs that we currently have that we can meet.
And if you think about our needs as being tanks, some tanks that are full empty, half and half, and positive emotions speak to how those needs are fulfilled. Negative emotions speak to how those needs are not fulfilled. Right? On average, there are obviously some exceptions to the rule, and there's a whole lot about the actual state of the tanks too. Because there's some people, myself included, who've grown up with the idea that we should be able to fill our own tanks, right? And to ask for or expect other people to fill our tanks, feels like it's saying something about how enough we are right, things like that.
But all in all, there is a rhyme and reason to how feelings work. Is just that nobody has ever told us about it. And I'm hoping through my work, either in therapy or coaching or the online content I put out there, that people will be able to put words to their experiences right.
A free PDF guide covering the usual ways each Enneagram type deals with the BIG 5 Feelings: MAD 🔴, SAD 🔵, GLAD 🟡, SCARED ⚫️, & NUMB ⚪️
And the Enneagram has been a super useful tool, because there's actually a way to overlap, because the three centers have their own corresponding emotional habits. And I actually have a free guide called the emotional habits of Enneagram types. Because great. You take the BIG 5 Feelings of MAD, SAD, GLAD, SCARED, & NUMB and each of the nine types tend to do different things with different feelings.
So it's not as complicated as people might feel that they are when we remove ourselves from anything that thing becomes more overwhelming and scary as we draw closer to it, we find out, Oh, actually, it's not that bad.
Catherine Quiring 16:51
Yeah, I love that. Well, we will definitely link to that resource in the show notes. And I'm wondering maybe then if we can go into the instincts, yeah, a little bit. That's something that I think people new to the Enneagram, and maybe to my audience in general, haven't been as familiar with, like we've gone through a little bit about numbers and types and that kind of thing. But the instincts are like, slightly separate thing that then is overlaid.
Understanding Enneagram Types vs. Instincts
Joanne Kim 17:20
yeah, well, you think about a building that has multiple doors, and you can either enter the, you know, through the main door or through the side door. And I think instincts might be the side door that is actually easier to get into, because the big door might actually have some complicated locks on it, right? People might feel overwhelmed in trying to figure out all the nine types. And sometimes I introduce people through the three instincts. Yeah, it's that makes sense, simpler. But in the we have not one brain; we have three: thinking, feeling, doing brain.
So thinking is the human brain, which develops the latest and the the oldest brain is the lizard brain. This is the reflex we have zero control over these so in the lizard brain, is where the three instincts live, the three survival instincts of Self-Preservation (SP), Social (SO), and Sexual (SX), the 3 S’s. Sometimes the sexual instinct is called the one on one instinct. It depends on context, because it's loaded term.
We have all three. But you think about the Enneagram type as raw firepower, and then the instincts as the barrels of the cannon that are pointed in different directions. And so it's like the motivation of the type is channeled in different directions. And so how they manifest might be different. So the Enneagram type is about the WHY, or the motivations, and then the subtypes being namely the type + instinct is the HOW.
So it's useful for us to know both options, or to know both doors of the building and see which one feels easier to access. Because one of the difficult things about the Enneagram is that precisely because it's about behind the scenes, motivations and needs and fears that people aren't always aware of, it's still driving the person, but sometimes out of self conscious awareness, it's harder to even think about it when talking about, you know, feelings translator, emotions are also abstract, so it's kind of hard to suss out different things, but the instincts and the subtypes are visible. They're concrete.
Usually, there are certain types where you can observe the person from afar and you're like, I have a feeling they're this subtype, and some other people might be harder to track, but there are some visible behavioral traits that come with some people, and this is part of the fun when watching TV shows or movies and things like that, like I think, you know, you can't really interact with the characters, right? Right? You can't ask them about their family of origin or their upbringing, but you can observe certain traits from afar, right? To make an educated guess, right? And a lot of Enneagram schools think that, understandably so we shouldn't type other people, because we don't really know what's going on behind the scenes, right?
I have mixed feelings about that, because the vast majority of the people that I work with in therapy are people who are in relationships with very stubborn or sometimes even like people with personality disorders or some kind of toxic who will like rarely or never seek therapy, right?
So if we don't have the option of at least making an educated guess on someone else's type right, then we might be handcuffed and being able to figure out what to do with them, like in the spirit of, you know, not wanting to judge other people, right, we end up keeping ourselves in the dark, right? And what do people do when they don't know what they're doing? Their stress level goes up and their type patterns get louder, right?
So practically speaking, I could say, you know, you don't have to know exactly what's going on for the other person, but make an educated guest and test it out and then see if your interactions with them, or the way that you speak to them, seems to land, hopefully, in a better direction.
Catherine Quiring 21:44
And that the goal in creating an educated guess is so that you can better have compassion for them and like relate to them, right? Like not to put a label on them, right? Which is part of that, like, it's like, where we're coming from, right?
Joanne Kim 21:56
Part of it is to put a guardrail for us to judge others, but part of it is also so that we set up effective boundaries towards that, because sensitive types tend to have a bias or emphasis towards understanding others, which means we're going past the boundary and putting ourselves And sticking our necks out there, sometimes with people who haven't demonstrated that they're trustworthy. So sometimes over explaining ourselves puts us into trouble, right? Especially people who, let's say, have a habit of being more manipulative or self-absorbed or whatnot.
And so part of it is yes to, you know, keep us from judging others. A part of it is also to keep us safe, right, and recognizing that, okay, this person has this, this type structure. Would they really care about what my intentions are? I don't know. I think they might give more weight to my actual decision. So instead of me explaining why I made my decision, I'll just tell them the decision, yes, and then move on with it.
So the three instincts, Self-Preservation (SP), Social (SO), Sexual (SX). In a nutshell, the Self-Pres instinct is more internal and self focused, but about like concrete, practical things. So how your physical body is doing anything that enhances the person's sense of control? Self-pres folks hate surprises, even good ones, because they didn't get to prepare for the unexpected thing, and so they tend to lean more heady or analytical, more cause and effect. They tend to see life as being in a closed system. So if some outcome happened, it's because someone pushed some button, and I got to figure out what button that is to get that outcome.
The other two instincts, the Social and Sexual ones, are inherently relational. So they assume that the world is in an open system and that sometimes things can happen independently of them, having pushed some button, but now they have to account for how they relate to a group of people (the social instinct) or how they interact with a specific, special person (the sexual instinct).
So the Social instinct comes with themes like status, position, belonging, who's in, who's at, who's above, who's below, hierarchy, power, influence, whereas the Self-Pres instinct focuses on safety, security, trust, mistrust, predictability, order, strategy, and then the Sexual instinct, which usually gets a lot of flack because it's a loaded term, but is usually around themes like intimacy, intensity, dynamism.
I think it's the source of vitality and life force. So those who are Sexual dominant have a lot of fun in ways that those who are Self-Pres dominant, who likes the predictability in order has a hard time enjoying vacations because they want things to be a certain way. And so the Sexual instinct, I think, has a direct connection to anger, whereas the Self-Pres instinct has a direct connection to fear and numbness. And then the Social instinct probably is more towards sadness and shame.
Again, we have all three, right? Yes, so then we try to find out what's the dominant instinct, and that's the one that we can access without trying. Takes zero effort. It's automatic, but also it ends up showing up even when it's not supposed to. So it over functions, and then the repressed instinct is the one that takes effort because it doesn't come readily to us and we don't even remember it half the time.
Or other people who tend to specialize in what is our repressed instinct? We tend to judge them, thinking that what they're doing is bad or undesirable. But the repressed instinct is what we underly functioning. So what we're actually supposed to do more of, and a lot of the challenges we find ourselves in, chances are, is because we locked up the key that we need to get to the next room. But we can't do that if our dominant instinct is taking up way too much space.
So we gotta dial back the dominant instinct and we gotta give more room to the repressed instinct, so that, all in all, will kind of even out right. You know, because we have all three, we're supposed to have all three. We resonate with all nine types, but we get stuck in one. And growth and healing involves us kind of accessing the parts of our human experience that usually are relegated to the shadows.
Catherine Quiring 27:06
So have you seen the instincts show up differently for people who are highly sensitive or even neurodivergent? I think I'm thinking particularly about like, Social for instance, like, that's my past one, and I've realized maybe it isn't as repressed as I think it just I am not interested at all in hierarchy or, yeah, like social things, but I enjoy group interactions a lot, but it's when they're neurodiverse and they so they look a lot different than ones that maybe are more neurotypical, right?
Joanne Kim 27:43
And I think if you're in a group full of neurodivergent folks, it's like, I mean, I think that's a classic example of how people can be unique while also being equal, right? So there is no inherent hierarchy, per se, compared to neurotypical folks, where there is kind of a ladder, right? So part of that is like, if everyone belongs, then I also am included in that. So I don't have to think about whether I'm in or out because everyone belongs. I don't think there's a particular pattern.
I've seen people of all three dominant instincts be highly sensitive. I think it's just that certain highly sensitive traits tend to be emphasized while others are dampened, kind of like, you know, sound waves, right? Yep, sometimes they enhance, sometimes they cancel out, sometimes they're, you know, comes out to be a wonky dynamic.
I've heard some people say that Fours and Fives tend to be the Highly Sensitive Persons, but I've also seen highly sensitive people who are Type Eight. So, I mean, that's not usually considered to be you can be any type, because the HSP trait is what we're physiologically born with, yeah, I do think people are born with their Enneagram types as well, but I don't know if it's based on our biology.
This is kind of where a little bit of the spirituality piece kind of comes in. I think everyone is on this planet to exhibit a certain wonderful aspect of humanity. If they do their work, if they don't do their work, then it backfires, right?
Catherine Quiring 29:28
Yeah, yeah
Joanne Kim 29:32
Yeah, but it's important to know what our autopilots are, because if we don't, then we're completely controlled by it, right? Yeah, like a puppet on strings, yeah? And sometimes it's a tricky process, once people start recognizing the pattern structure that they have, but they don't quite have the distinction between them in their mask, right? That they're in that awkward period like, oh my gosh, I know I'm supposed to not do this, but I feel like I don't know how else to do, right, what otherwise to do. And there's a moment of feeling powerless and out of control, but it's kind of mimicking the recovery process of those who are coming out of addiction.
And I've heard like, you know, addiction that dynamic also, and you know, the 12-Step programs and things like that, part of the reason why there is kind of a spiritual, you know, parallel to it, is because they speak to the universal human experience, right, that we live on this planet as if we're super human, to find out that if we mess up, then we judge ourselves as sub human, right?
But this entire time, we've all been human on equal playing fields. And you know, if addiction is something that deludes us into thinking that we are someone that we're not, then recovery is actually us hitting that wall or hitting rock bottom and realizing no, we don't know what the crap we're doing and it's in our best interest, even though super painful for us to be in touch with full reality.
So you can think about all the nine types as nine different addictions, and and the the points or the goal isn't to reinforce our addictions or feed it, right? It's to recognize that no, like even human, Oh, wow. So we don't have to try to make ourselves into something that we're not. Yeah, yeah. I love that.
Applying the Enneagram to Ted Lasso
Catherine Quiring 31:42
Well, shall we branch off and to Ted Lasso to go there next I, similar to Joanne, find it fascinating to I don't know, have all my layers of understanding when I'm watching a TV show, right? That it's like, whether it's typing for Enneagram or something else that's so lovely to like, have my frame of references that I like, yeah, slot everything through, right? And so we're gonna do that with Ted Lasso and go through some of the characters and just understand their Enneagram types to help understand them and what's going on.
Joanne Kim 32:23
I rewatched it to kind of see because, you know, watching the second time, then I know where the story is going right, kind of, you know, reviewing what the characters did earlier in the seasons, according to, you know, having the big picture was super helpful. Because some characters like Dani Rojas, super obvious what their types are.
Dani Rojas: Enneagram 7 SX/SO. The quintessential Type 7.
Dani as a Sexual Seven, the golden retriever: Sexual first, Social second, and then Ted Lasso also is a type seven. But you know, this is kind of where the it's cool to think about instincts and subtypes, where both Dani and Ted are very, very positive and happy go lucky and super excited. But you also know the difference between those two characters in that Dani is kind of a golden retriever. He just wants to chase his ball, yeah, right. And soccer is life, yeah, totally. And he does still have a connection with his teammates, but he's still very much himself. He know what he wants, yes.
Ted Lasso: Enneagram 7 SO/SX — Same type, diff dominant instinct than Dani Rojas, as well as a countertype 7.
Whereas with Ted, even though he's also a Seven. He's a Social/Sexual seven. So just the first two instincts, the swap the initial positions with Ted, also happy go lucky. And it's really hard to get him to stop talking, yep, but you can't always tell what his motivations are, because the type seven nature of pursuing pleasure is run through the filter of a social lens. It's more of like what will be enjoyable or exciting for the team or the group.
I didn't mention this earlier, but there are nine types, three versions per type, according to the instincts, but the combination of some instincts with some types are known as a countertype, yes. So there are three version, three types of sevens, three types of fours, etc, but one of those tends to look least like how the type is usually described. And Ted Lasso is a counter type, meaning he's a seven that doesn't always look like sevens, right? And so although sevens are usually known, you know, for their the deadly sin of gluttony, like whatever they want, they're gonna pursue and collect and enjoy with Ted, there's kind of this ambivalence to what he personally wants. He does seek what is good for his team, but there's more of a self sacrificial aspect to him, where sometimes he might do something even though he is not the primary beneficiary. Actually, he his decisions might cost him personally, but he still does it because he knows that that's what is in the team's best interest.
Catherine Quiring 35:22
So it seems like a social someone would make a great coach.
Joanne Kim 35:26
It absolutely and I'm of the opinion that because the instincts, or, sorry, the nine types, if you add two to the seven deadly sins, you get nine deadly sins, right? And there's one per type, basically, like pride, envy, gluttony, things like that. And so usually, the non-counter types, or the more obvious Enneagram types, tend to manifest in ways that work against humanity, because they're allowing their deadly sins to run amok, right? But for countertypes, the way that the specific instinct and type combination are set up, there's kind of they're going in opposite directions, so it's already balancing themselves out, yeah, so in some ways, it kind of dampens the typical effects that we would anticipate.
But the shadow side of that is that it's trickier to identify people's types, and therefore it's also trickier to find out what their actual growth path is, right? Just as an example, I resonate with type four when I was, you know, reading through the books, but I had mistyped myself my my subtype for a couple of years, yeah, so I knew that I was type four. I deeply resonated with the behind the scenes mechanisms. But it wasn't until my Enneagram coach that I've been working with for a couple of years, like, sat me down and was like, look like I think you should revisit what subtype of four you are, because I thought that I was a social for for a couple of years, thinking that, you know, I was taking up too much space. I was sucking all the life force out of the room and things like that.
But that was my internal perception, right, of how I was showing up from the outside, from other people's perspectives, or like, when do you ever complain? And, you know, people usually saw me as being more cheery or more spirited. And, you know, sometimes, like, not really knowing about the three instincts and the subtype combinations makes it trickier for us to find out our type. So I thought for a couple of years, like, Man, this type four growth path is really easy for me. It's, I'm really good at being mechanical, like type ones. I'm really good at being conscious and considerate of other people. Like to is, like, great. Like, I'm, I'm, you know, just blasting through all these growth levels. And, you know, I must be great because of it, only to find out that I was accidentally reinforcing myself press four subtype of things I already know. And you know I gravitate towards by default, right? So instead of going in the proper growth direction, I was going the opposite way, wow, until I actually locked down my real type.
Yes, that's really important for people to not just find out what their types are, but to know it on a subtype level.
Catherine Quiring 38:26
Well, I've wondered, and I'm curious, from your experience, if finding our second in the stack of instincts is actually easier in general, like that for me, I mistyped my instinct for a while as well. And it was because I had so much more anxiety and awareness of my sexual self, press and my dominant one, which is sexual, it was just so like the air I breathe, I wasn't aware of it, right? And it took me a while to figure that out.
Joanne Kim 38:59
It, I think it depends on the type, okay? Because again, I mentioned alien type, right? Shape Shifter types, and the nature of sexual instinct is that emerges with other people. So you have a shape shifter type plus a emerging instincts, then naturally it'll be harder to focus on yourself, like observe yourself. Yeah, I don't think I've particularly noticed which of the three instincts or the stacking combination. It is usually repressed instincts you identify by the consequences of what was missing. So usually you find that out after the fact and the dominant instinct, because it's so natural to the person, they're not going to see it as a problem, right? Usually the people around them are going to see it as a problem.
But then again, that also depends on whether or not the person happens to have a very productive autopilot. For example, myself being self pressed for self press four is the workhorse. We're the ones who work all day and night without ever complaining. Yeah, so the feedback we get is good job. It doesn't occur to us to even reevaluate things, right? So, yeah, I mean, all in all, sometimes some people have an easier time identifying their type, right, sometimes people have an easier time identifying their dominant instinct, right? Go with whatever works. Eventually you'll find yourself in the same room again,
Catherine Quiring 40:37
right? You've mentioned some really helpful terms for different subtypes. And I'm curious if you have a resource around that, or anything that you recommend for, like, kind of categorizing those terms, or more about like, what each of the subtypes looks like.
Joanne Kim 40:54
Yeah, two different resources. One I generally recommend as a permanent shelfer, it is Beatrice Chestnut & Uranio Paes is Enneagram Guide to Waking Up, right? Beatrice also wrote The Complete Enneagram, which is a very thick book, and I don't recommend it to beginners.
Catherine Quiring 41:17
Yeah, I tried to get through that one, and it's very dense, hefty, yeah,
Joanne Kim 41:21
but she also wrote a very thin booklet of the 27 subtypes, and so each page is about the subtype. So each of the 27 has its corresponding term, yeah, like self press five is known as the castle. Oh, cool. And I think social sevens are known as self sacrifice. Okay, yeah, so I'll provide the links to that.
Great. But going back to Ted Lasso, yes, I'm just kind of, I'm going to run down the list, just so people have heard the types, and then you let me know which one seems most interesting. But mentioned Ted and Dani both Type Sevens. Dani is SX/SO, Ted is the opposite SO/SX.
We have two Type Eights, Rebecca and Roy.
Enneagram Eights: Rebecca Welton & Roy Kent
Rebecca Welton: Enneagram 8 SX/SP. Not afraid to take up space and speak her mind, even in a male-dominated field. Difficulty opening up except to her “special” persons, including Keeley & Ted.
Roy Kent: Enneagram 8 SP/SO. Gruff, grumpy exterior that conceals a soft heart for his team & loved ones that activates when he sees anyone being treated unfairly. Reluctant leader.
Catherine Quiring 42:21
I was wondering. Okay, yeah, that's my guess.
Joanne Kim 42:24
Rebecca, I think, is a sexual first, her middle and last instance, I'm not completely certain on but sexual first, I think, is clear. Sexual aids are known as charisma, whereas Roy, who's a very five ish eight, the grumpy old man, is self predominant, social second, sexual last, the sexual instinct is known as being the special one, or being close to the special person.
And for Roy, that's not as loud of a theme as he is, like around his own personal experiences, or about the team and what they're needing, versus with Rebecca, it's very clear that she is the person, yes, to focus on, even though she's the boss. I don't know how often she operates in the boss role. I think she's kind of delegated that to Ted, right?
Keeley Jones: Enneagram 2 SX/SO. Often seen with one other special person, such as her bestie Rebecca (with whom they’re each other’s arrow types). She develops a deep connection with herself, often in solitude.
So we got those the eights, and then Keely, I think, is our Sexual 2, Social second, very dynamic and very good at being so focused on one person at a time, without much effort, she's able to pick up on how the other person's doing and, you know, show up in a way that she intuits the other person's wanting or needing.
So she shows up differently between her relationship with Jamie and with Roy, or with Phoebe Roy's niece or with Rebecca like but I think her growth trajectory is one of the obvious ones in the entire show, and I'm covering up to Season Three, waiting for Season Four. We'll see how it goes. But her journey goes from her being seen as someone special or desirable in the eyes of whoever she's partnered with, and then she ends up at the end.
Spoiler alert, you know when Roy and Jamie are kind of fighting, rivaling against each other to see who deserves Keely attention. Keely is like, “What are you guys doing? I don't want either of you.” Right, because her journey has been to nurture the connection with herself, instead of constantly giving away who she is to fit someone else's life and narrative.
Then we have the other shape shifting types, Nate and Jamie, Type 3, and this is a cool example where the instincts are exactly the opposite.
Enneagram Threes: Jamie Tartt & Nate Shelley
Jamie Tartt: Enneagram 3 SO/SX. Loves being seen as the pinnacle of success & the center of attention based on his achievements & star power. Highly emotional & relationship-oriented, he struggles when his image is shattered and works on discovering his true self.
Nate Shelley: Enneagram 3 SP/SX (countertype). Undervalued but still hardworking from the message “I am what I DO”. Intensely anxious about being in the spotlight, but he “shapeshifts” to become what his dad > Ted > Rupert wants him to be, until he has his own identity crisis of coming into his true self.
Jamie is easier to peg as a Type 3, Social dominant, Sexual Second, you know very much, loves and craves the spotlight, yes, and gets offended when you know he's not the main focus point. Self-Pres repressed, so he really focuses on how he's seen by other people, right?
Whereas Nate is also a Three he was. I had to watch the show again just to confirm his type, because the most mysterious one,
Catherine Quiring 45:40
Yeah, because he changes so much. And, sure, yeah.
Joanne Kim 45:45
And I think he's a Self-Pres Three, Sexual second, Social last.
So the Social instinct repressed for Type Three means someone who avoids being in the spotlight. Ah, okay, very uncomfortable drawing attention, and we see that in first season, and Nate and Jamie were, you know, so antithetical to each other. They're kind of like, you know, pegged as opposites, and Jamie picking on Nate as an easy target, and then Nate just taking it, taking it, taking it.
But this is kind of where the Threeness does show up in that some people thought that he was a Nine, and some people consider him as a Six, because it's obvious that he has a lot of fear and hates conflict and things like that. I think that's kind of like the easy guess, if you don't know subtypes, but compared to Nines and sixes, there's definitely an image orientation where he's very much focused on how other people view him, especially special people his dad, Ted or like Rupert, eventually, right?
So that's kind of the Sexual instinct in second place he leads with the sense of dedication and focus, you know, taking care of the field and the as the kit man like being very hard working, but without particularly needing affirmations, because Self-pres Threes are the One-ish Threes. They do things because that's their work ethic, until he got a taste of what it's like to get attention from very special, shiny people, and then he switched kind of the Sexual Three-ishness got louder from his budding relationship with Ted, kind of to compensate for his relationship with his dad.
Right then the main breaking point for him that got him to leave the team was because Roy came in as another coach, and all of a sudden there was less attention given to Nate. And so Nate's complaint towards Ted was, you just dropped me. You completely abandoned me, right? So then he left, and then got attached to Rupert.
Rupert Mannion: Enneagram 4 SX/SP (very unhealthy: likely also a narcissist). Sees himself as superior to others, but rather than directly dealing with it, he manipulates relationships & power dynamics from behind the scenes. Externalizes his own insecurities onto others, poking at their sore spots or exploiting their vulnerabilities.
Joanne
I think [Rupert is] a Sexual Four. Some people think that he's an Eight.
Catherine Quiring 48:16
Yeah, he doesn't seem like an Eight to me. He seems like, if anything, he'd have some like a Three wing.
Joanne Kim 48:23
Yeah, he seems like an image oriented type who's very good at understanding the world of feelings. But I think Sexual Fours usually get pegged as the villain character in things, and that he knows what people's vulnerabilities are, and then he uses it to the advantage.
Now, I think Rupert specifically is a very unhealthy sexual for I'm not saying that Sexual Fours are bad, but just the way that the patterns manifest is that as a way of dealing with his own internalized shame, right?
Later, way later in that series, the banquet scene with Rebecca and all the other guys, right? Like, there's a scene where Rebecca sees Rupert as a child, right? So it's like Rupert was like, dealing with his own insecurities by manipulating and exploiting other people, using them as his pawns so that he can construct this image of like being powerful or whatever. So I think that's why he can come across like an Eight, also because he's a man, old white man.
But he takes a more roundabout way that I don't think Eights have the patience for. But anyway, you know, you take Nate to, like, starving for a father figure, and you take Rupert, who's able to sniff it out really easily until Rupert doesn't need him anymore, and then they just throw him back out.
Nate's journey has been a lot of, like, seeing himself as valuable, according to his accomplishments, and then getting frustrated when he's not, you know, valued accordingly, right? And a lot of [Nate’s] work is identifying, like, what he personally values and what he enjoys, like the high side of three, where threes get to when they've done a lot of gig. It's called veracity. Is like knowing their true selves, not only through the eyes of other people, but according to who they personally want to be.
Kind of segueing from Nate, who's a very Nine ish or Six ish Three is Sam, who's a very Three ish Nine as the Social Sexual Nine. Sam was also hard to peg.
Catherine Quiring 50:49
Right? I was, I was having a hard time his type.
Joanne Kim 50:55
Because social Nine is also counter type. So we have Ted, we have Nate. We also have Coach Beard later on. And I think Trent Crimm is also countertype, where it's hard to tell their type just from looking at them. You have to understand the behind the scenes mechanism.
Sam Obisanya: Enneagram 9 SO/SX (countertype). “Merges” with the agenda of the group/collective, which requires great teamwork & bright energy. Focused more on other people’s goals & values as their representative until he later individuates & discovers what he himself really wants to do (Right Action).
Joanne Kim 50:55
But Sam, a lot of his dynamic is he's not going to be known as the peacemaker, but he's going to be known better if you think about Type Nine in the deadly sin being Sloth. Sloth meaning not laziness, but a disconnection from their own agenda. So the reason why Sam can look like Threes or Twos or whatever is because the central driving force is OTHER people's agenda. What other people find valuable, what his dad finds valuable, what his team finds valuable, right?
But it's hard to peg who he is as an individual. We don't know what he wants, and that is actually his story being unfolded with a full, you know, taping up his jersey as a way of boycotting, you know, his sponsor, or him declining that invitation to this exclusive Premier League, right?
And so you see his struggle in identifying what he finds personally important, even though it might risk being disconnected from or being judged by other people, right? So, yeah, a lot of his growth process involves him also identifying his true self (Right Action in Enneagram speak) in a way that's different from Nate's. Nate’s pattern is still more of a shape-shifting image orientation piece, whereas Sam is more like finding out what his own agenda envisions and implementing that — so less a heart type feel.
Let's see. Who have we not covered? Leslie, obvious Self-Pres Six.
Leslie Higgins: Enneagram 6 SP/SO. Very reliable, but timidly sees himself as powerless and becomes the trusty right-hand man to powerful people (Rebecca, Ted). Later reclaims his own power & strength and asserts his own challenging opinions.
A lot of kind of giving away his own power and authority to other people, being terrified of Rebecca, who's a very powerful person, but then later on, he becomes more leveled out by voicing his thoughts more directly in the Diamond Dogs, right?
And then, let's see. Coach Beard and Dr Sharon.
Catherine Quiring 53:34
Both fives. She was five, yeah.
Enneagram Fives: Dr. Sharon & Coach Beard
Dr. Sharon: Enneagram 5 SP/SX. Very private & boundaried. Does well in one-sided relationships like therapy because she doesn’t have to reveal much about herself. She realizes the professional & personal challenges to this and starts opening up more.
Coach Beard: Enneagram 5 SX/SO (countertype). Still occupying the expert role in accumulating knowledge, but has a very strong romantic, idealizing bent. Highly compartmentalized: his personal & professional life rarely mix.
Joanne Kim 53:38
Dr Sharon, I think is the more obvious Five: Self-Pres Five, Sexual second, very much to herself and loves or privacy. But if she does open up, she opens up to one other person at a time, namely being a therapist or her connection with Ted. Doesn't care to be really involved in team-based things, except as the expert from a distance, whereas Coach Beard, he's very much a part of the team.
He's a Five that doesn't look as much like a Five, precisely, because he seems to be around a lot, less private than what Fives are known for. And I think that is partly the countertype piece of Sexual Five, but also Sexual Fives are known as, like the Four-ish Fives, who can be a bit eccentric.
So who he is in his professional role as the expert who spouts out all of these random bits of information or quotes is very different from that one episode, yes, where we see very, very ends up being, yes. It's like you would have never imagined that, but he pursues things that he's interested in, and then by the end of that night, he comes back to the office, even though he's in this weird get up, but still back in his,
Catherine Quiring 54:54
Like professional expert mode.
Joanne Kim 54:58
And then I think last person is Trent Crimm. I think he's a Self-Pres Four, Sexual second. So he's the Four that doesn't look like a Four as often.
Trent Crimm: Enneagram 4 SP/SX. Very individualistic with a splash of elitism, but done in a more professionally savvy, personally guarded way. Mistrusts Ted’s intense positivity, but once Ted earns his respect, he works hard to support the team however he can. Has a keen sense of others’ vulnerabilities & secrets, but doesn’t exploit them, even to the point of curbing his career.
So he's more like professional and kind of more put together, like we usually can consider Fours as being like very messy, if you will, but creatives. I mean, there's definitely the innovative and unique bent to Trent, but there's a lot to him that we don't see, right? We see it in his interaction with Colin, who I think is also another Six in their whole storyline of being deposited, and you know him pursuing Colin, who's very vulnerable and very outcast, but kind of taking him under his wing, instead of someone like Rupert, who would exploit someone like Colin, right?
So that's kind of the difference between the Sexual dominant Four who takes their insecurities and dumps on other people, versus Self-Pres Fours who tends to take on other people's suffering as if it's their own. So that's kind of the contrast there. So I'm probably missing a good number of people, but I mean, those are the main thing.
Catherine Quiring 56:22
I mean, those, those were the top of my list. Like, all the others were, like, you see, every now and then, like, Isaac McAdoo was another one that I was like, you know, some of the team players, like, it was hard, right? Because, like, he's, like, just part of the team, and then he surfaces as a leader, you know? And you're like, okay, yeah, what is that role exactly?
Isaac McAdoo: Enneagram Eight, SO/SP (guess). Shows care for others in his own way that makes him a central pillar that others naturally look up to. Direct access to anger that’s about power dynamics & fairness more than standards. Not enough info.
Joanne Kim 56:44
I think his character hasn't seen be developed all that much like we get a glimpse of it when you know Colin was outed, right? I kind of might guess, like an Eight, maybe like Roy, yeah, maybe more Social Eight, right? Because we don't see him the individual as loudly as his role in the team, right? And very tough, and doesn't like showing vulnerability and things like that. Yeah, that'd be my leading guess.
But the cool thing about Ted Lasso as a show is that compared to other series, it is an ensemble cast, which means that there's relatively I mean, it's called Ted Lasso, centered around one character, but it's not about Ted lasso, right, right?
It's about the team, you know, and we see a lot about the interactions between characters and the feedback loops we get into them, like how Jamie heals a lot of his wounds by going more revealing more of his true, vulnerable side, while Roy, who's like, known as a tough old guy right it starts getting very tender, and we see that, you know, with Phoebe, but Roy is a giant marshmallow, like, right? Yeah, he's, he's very consistent and steady, which is not what Eights are usually known for, right?
So interestingly, like, we see Jamie and Roy just going at it at the beginning of the series. By the end of it, they're like, they all. They both have reversed their patterns, but in a way that they still remain their equal status, right? Each other. I think Jamie's dad was probably a very toxic Eight. I think that's, there's a little bit of that. So Jamie was a very Eight-ish Three, right?
I don't know if you know, the creators of Ted lasso knew about Enneagram types, but I think that they picked Roy as being the healing agent in Jamie's life. I think was fantastic. Yes, yeah. And then let's see.
Catherine Quiring 59:03
There's so many great healing arcs, yeah,
Joanne Kim 59:07
Keely and Rebecca being the same instinct setup, but opposite types across the arrow lines. I think also we have storylines the most interesting characters tend to be people who are either opposite instincts
Catherine Quiring 59:28
or opposite types. Oh, interesting, yeah.
Joanne Kim 59:32
I'm not gonna go into Wicked too much, but just in a nutshell, I think that Glinda is a 2 SO/SX. And I think Elphaba is a SP/SX Four. And then there's that feedback loop dynamic.
Enneagram Types of Wicked characters (coming soon!): Elphaba - 4 SP/SX, Glinda 2 SO/SX, Fiyero 7 SX/SO.
And then also Fiyero is obvious Type Seven. And so there's kind of this opposite dynamic between Elphaba and Fiyero as well. So I'll just say it's, you know, not only is it neat to watch shows through the lens of the Enneagram trying to type all the characters, but also to pay attention to the space between people, right? Because it's a feedback loop. I could either it could backfire and hard things get worse, or actually, both agents can be a very powerful healing factor in each other’s lives.
Catherine Quiring 1:00:26
Yes, I love that so much.
Joanne Kim 1:00:30
Yeah, one of the common questions I get is like, you know, “Okay, so I'm this type, so who am I romantically compatible with?” Right? Yes, yeah. And the short answer is, it doesn't matter what type and matter what type, but it does matter what type, because people tend to unconsciously gravitate towards people who have opposite setups, because we've shut out a good chunk of us and relegated into shadows, and then find ourselves drawn to people who specialize whatever we've outcast.
So, you know, getting triggered by the other person. People think like, oh, man, we're fighting so much. Does that mean our relationship is terrible? I might even argue that for some a lot of cases, that means the relationship is working because how are we? Right? People are under the illusion that they know themselves really well, but they only know themselves through the lens of their own autopilot, right? It's an echo chamber. So other people are actually very valuable mirrors that reveal to us, things that, you know, we're not always connected with, right?
Yeah. So that was the spiel of Ted lasso.
Catherine Quiring 1:01:52
It's so great. And unfortunately, we're getting short on time, so we're gonna have to wrap up because, I mean, you were just such a wealth of knowledge. Joanne like this has just been so fun and so enjoyable. I'm curious if you have any like resources or offerings or anything that you'd like to share with us as we wrap up, for people that want to continue learning from you.
Joanne Kim 1:02:17
Well, I mentioned the guide earlier, the Emotional Habits of Enneagram Types? Yes, and I recently finished a blog about the Enneagram types of genogram sorry, the Enneagram types of Bridgerton characters, specifically focusing on the relationship between them.
So what we've been talking about with Ted Lasso characters in that blog, I zoom in on a very specific type of relationship called triangulation. So we have a feedback loop with one other person for sure, but we also have a very different kind of feedback loop with three people, right?
And I'm also putting together a workshop called The Drama Triangle and The Enneagram, because, you know, great stories are comprised of, you know, there being roles of Hero, Villain, Victim, right? And if you ever find yourself dragged into someone else's beef with each other, then you're also, you know, caught up in that Drama Triangle and that one.
Catherine Quiring 1:03:33
I know there's just so much. Yeah, juiciness there. Yes, absolutely. Joanne, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for being here with us today and listeners, I will see you again next time on Who We Are & What We Need.
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JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT
Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.
Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
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In a conversation with Catherine Quiring of the Coming Home to Ourselves Substack, we explore the Enneagram through the lens of the show Ted Lasso, going into the importance of emotional intelligence, the role of instincts & subtypes in the Enneagram, and how these concepts can help individuals navigate their personal growth and relationships.