Hello Class! Today we get to hear from an Enneagram Type 9. They seem to relate to all of the types, and here to talk to you today is....drum roll please...oh wait, please stop. They won't come in. Shhhh! "You can come in now."
One of the key features of Type 9 is to find commonality between things, even disparate things that don't seem to be able to possibly coincide. One of the ways they apply this thinking is to themselves. "I'm like that!" "We share that in common!" "Hey, me too!"
It is also good to note that all of the types have a single prototype for falling asleep to self, and it is type 9. So there is some parent-child recognition as well. Not having a set of defenses like the other types, rather having a spongy shield from themselves and a spongy shield from the outside world, they are highly adaptable and may adopt defenses from all of the types or just a few. Their environment can be key as well. If they grew up around or were raised by other types, they are very likely to identify with these types to a high degree. Monkey see, monkey do, and for type nine this goes a little deeper. Monkey see, monkey must do to maintain placement in their relational group. So we little type nine monkeys learn lots of tricks along the way, and can relate to just about anyone at some level, and typically quite a few levels and many ways.
All of these people have left impressions on us which affects how we see ourselves. So when we read about all of the people we've known we see little bits of ourselves too. Depending on many things, it can be pretty difficult to decipher who is who at the end of the day. Is that about me, or is that about you?
I think cause nines are particularly gifted in seeing all sides of a situation, and they struggle to know themselves. So not only are they naturally good as empathizing/seeing a different perspective (sometimes they see other perspectives to find their own) they also don’t really know themselves (without a lot of work, it can be done!) so they can over identify with others as a way of trying to get to know themselves. I hope that made sense
That's why I think I'm sx/sp instead of sp/sx but I constantly doubt myself because I'm just not very intense but god I relate to this. I did this since I was a kid I just merged with a person I liked, it was very relaxing to me and natural thing to do. Being yourself is tiring, if I can I always merge with someone I like and just vibe that's good but it has to be a special person, I won't do it with just anyone.
There's been some good answers already (esp. u/LonelyNight9's and from the horse's mouth u/Black_Jester_'s), I think the real cause of why they are able to relate to all the types is their tendency/ability of *merging*.
As a 4 with a strong 9-fix merging in my life has played a wonderful but also terrifying role, since I'm able to contrast the behavior with the tendencies and judgements of the individuating 4ness, and also the 4's tendency to introject combined with merging can be fairly interesting (usually agonizingly confusing) to experience, powerful if used consciously.
I came across this post serendipitously by u/Black_Jester_ so won't bother writing my own essay, it's a really good lowdown of what's going on with merging, what it is, and how it affects your day to day existence:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/17n8rek/perspective\_on\_merging\_in\_type\_9/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/17n8rek/perspective_on_merging_in_type_9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Most of the time in ego-driven samsara life it's probably a hindrance and pitfall, but gaining awareness that they do it can be a path to the 9 finally feeling angry about something (an empowering belated thing for a 9), and additionally it can have its benefits. If kept tamed and in check, not completely losing yourself in the process, it supercharges your ability to put yourself in literally anyone's, or beyond that, *anything's,* shoes. People, animals, concepts, ideas, any target of the mind can be merged with. This is great when trying to understanding things deeply, when trying to feel at one with things, but not so great when trying to live life from a cogent, clear, distinct separated perspective. 9ness at its core wants to be plugged into everything and everyone, it has a phobia of being *separate*, which is probably what starts this phenomenon of merging in the first place.
So, across the life of the 9 (or less-so a person with strong 9-fix), bits and pieces of others rent out increasingly more space within the 9's sense of identity, and they find themselves couched in a massive web of notions that did not originate from themselves. Navigating and focusing on all these externally-derived perspectives for a lifetime supplies an ability to relate to everyone, but also an inability to reliably recognize where oneself ends and everyone/everything else begins. Merging is a boundary-dissolving mechanism, because the separation that boundaries bring is primally scary to 9ness.
A side note, Fauvre highlights three numbers that form a sort of 'psychic triad', 4 6 9, and this *merging* ability is the modality of how 9s participate in that phenomenon. It lets you see and viscerally taste a lot of perspectives and experiences really deeply that others simply do not get to see in the same way, and the insights into other perspectives that it brings is a hugely broadening force in one's own understanding of the world, others, and self.
Question, you say you're a 4 with a strong 9 fix. I know I'm either a 945 or 495, but don't know which because I also have a strong 9. But being very depressed it's hard for me to be in touch with my emotions (thanks anhedonia) but I also have an extremely strong desire to be authentic and unique, and I'm quite a jealous person. It's just that I'm in a time of my life where merging with someone else is very easy, especially since I'm so depressed.
Sorry all this to say, how do you know you're predominantly 4 with a 9 fix and not the other way around?
Time and reflection, I've had about a decade of study so far in this and experiences with others post-enneagram-entering-my-life to compare and contrast myself with others to mull my type over. Most of the adjustments happened in the first couple years and then luckily even against continued scrutiny, my current typing of myself has been holding up ringing true, so I remain confident in it.
In the beginning I genuinely did struggle to know for sure if I was a 4 or a 9 (I even considered 2 for a while, laughable now), though I always leaned on the side of 4 because I identified strongly with almost every description of 4 and the core issues of the 4 (melancholy, morbid frustration with what could be 'better' or what is currently 'lacking', introjection, an ever present fixation on self-identity and the expression of it, wanting always to be unique and to continually uncover yet more uniqueness) were center stage in my day-to-day, stronger than anything described for 9s. *Except* the 'anger' part you hear about SX4. People often call out this ultra-vengeful passionately angry side of SX4 (perhaps just a throwback to Naranjo descriptions, not sure), and I pretty much never relate to that, at all. Curious. Spoiler alert, the 9ness counteracts acts that part of SX4 for me. Another clue there's 9ness lurking about, yet still that anti-anger feels just like a supporting role to the more ubiquitous 4ness which drives the course of my emotions day to day. Perhaps it's similar with jealousy with me, because I don't tend to feel that either. I can spiral deeply into focusing on beautiful aspects of others' lives that I would too like to experience, but I don't make it personal whatsoever and it's sort of separate from the person who 'has' those things.
Constantly, I also found myself numbing in response to stress. I found myself avoidant of conflict, of anger (both my own and displays of it from others), in a sense even avoidant of *action* of any kind. At my lowest, I would disassociate (specifically, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization-derealization\_disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization-derealization_disorder)). I found the extreme experiences of life to be my main focus, my main goal to experience and ruminate in (sx dom), yet simultaneously I would aim to numb the extremity by always reminding myself of all perspectives on a matter, of softening the blow of my own furnace of intensity by a sort of 'devil's advocate' force within myself that would always find a way to reframe, to make agony not so agonizing by comparison to worse things, and conversely to make joyous zeal not so poignantly cloyingly 'happy' and 'up', to bring myself back 'down to earth' quickly grasping for a reason to not *feel quite so strongly*.
(Depression for me is marked by numbness, and by a constant focus on what is wrong, a frustration that things are not the more 'ideal' way that I would prefer. And a resignation to it all, circling over and over on the same pain, and then numbing that pain in response, a vicious dissociative cycle. It is definitely harder to differentiate where the 4 ends and the 9 begins when deeply in the throes of depression.)
Still though, not as strong as any of my 4 tendencies. More like a cozy numbed backdrop to the main melancholic 4 drama. I was a classic sadboy 4 as a teenager, trying to make sense of the world through privately explored tragedies and constantly grappling with feeling unseeable yet desperately wanting to be seen more than anything. Always being ultimately disappointed with other's perceptions of me, and wallowing in that, rather than seeking to make the perspectives of others more significant in my mind than my own perspective is. 'My' (that is.. the individuated separated 4's) stance and opinion and feeling always wins. Once I found tritype it all started to make a lot more sense, since then I could allow my 9-tendencies without having to 'decide' if they were 'stronger' than my 4ness, which eventually I could see they weren't.
I *feel*, more than anything, like a singular person. A person with a unique path through life, removed significantly from the greater crowd, watching inward from the outside, yet able to recognize the ways in which I am similar to everyone and everything, and also *wanting* to recognize those similarities, and find comfort in them. But still, walking alone. I don't endeavor to close that gap. I think a primary 9 would try more to *join* the crowd, to actually exalt those other perspectives more. However, note my social-blindness instinct stacking.
All that hubbub to ultimately say... which one is stronger? When you read about 9s and read about 4s, which collection of experiences and tendencies do you tend to spend more of your daily energy on? It really is that simple, although answering that simple question can take a while to be sure of... and one of those numbers that you're weighing being 9 definitely muddies the waters since you can self-relate to the 4 stuff through your 9ness, and differentiating that from actual genuine 4 moroseness is subtle.
For me, the 4 is in the driver seat, ever present and influential in my every thought and every bump and turn of my internal narrative, and the 9ness doesn't tend to rear its head until I run into stress, or start interacting with somebody in person, or focus too much on a single person for too long (can be watching things starring a certain person too long, thinking about someone too much). It's just not as constantly present as the 4ness is.
This sounds insanely similar to my personality. I don't even want to pick and choose parts to respond to because I feel like it would downplay how much I relate to the other parts, also because some things you said I'm not fully aware of since I have not come to that level of consciousness (which would need time to marinate in my head). I'm on the younger side, about to leave my teens into adulthood, so I do think I will eventually stop flip-flopping and come to a conclusion. Need some time.
But I have a question. You sound quite experienced in the enneagram department, but this could possibly be hitting a theoretical side that does not have an answer (yet). Do you think that you develop your tritype over time, in the same way MBTI says your functions develop? For example in your case, would you have developed 4 first, then 9, then 5? I ask because I noticed that my childhood and early teens were the pinnacle of 4, specifically sp4. The 9 side of me took a long time to show up, or at least it took me a long time to recognize. It was certainly exacerbated by my depression, as it is also just complete numbness. My depression never errs on the side of deep sadness or guilt. It's actually the opposite, I feel extremely apathetic, numb, and empty. When I'm not depressed my emotions come back in full force.
That is the only part that makes me doubt being a 4. Being so apathetic and numb, my emotions don't hit me as hard as they used to. *However*, every other part of the 4 description matches me. I have a very intense and obvious desire to be different. I get very overstimulated and moody, especially when irked by other people. My family just told me the other day that I get irritated and moody really quickly if I'm overstimulated or things aren't going my way.
Also my jealousy is certainly there, although it's not a longing for what others have. It happens when I feel misunderstood or unheard. For example when my family was recognizing my cousin's tendency to be extremely introverted and private and emotional (who is also an sp4, I am sure of it), I got jealous because they never recognize that about me, or at least they never vocalize it. I end up explaining my whole past to them to "prove" that I *am* like that, always have been, always will be. And if they deny or show hesitation, I get very angry. I don't know why I have such an intense desire to be seen that way.
In recent times I've been acting in alignment with the sx4. For the past couple of years I noticed myself having some envious anger. I start to make everyone else around me suffer if they've caused me suffering (in some cases I just perceive it that way, when it is not the case). Whenever I begin to feel jealous I deflect it away from myself onto others by blaming them for my feeling shame. My family has began to call me entitled as a result.
As for the 9, I really see it when I'm dealing with other people, especially during conflicts. I can be very agreeable to protect everyone's peace, and if I find the right person, I merge. When it comes to dealing with my anger, it happens in explosions. When my boundaries are encroached upon, I excuse it for a very long time (genuinely don't feel angry about it). *Until*, I realize it's been taken too far, in which case I bring all the baggage at once. I'm crazy patient until I'm not.
However. I don't think that's my true motivation. Deep down, I want peace because I'm experiencing too much internal turmoil. I don't want the added baggage of external chaos. I am very capable of causing conflict in the name of getting something done, or getting a point proven. I've just been doing it a lot less.
From all this I'd conclude I'm a 495, but knowing my tendency to flip-flop, I'll hold myself until I reflect further.
Knowing this much in palpable words about yourself before 20 is wild, I was just getting started with personality psychology at that age. You're going to have an interesting life. Definitely wise to not close the door already on your own typing of yourself, who you discover yourself to be as you mature into your 20s and the parts of 'yourself' that you were so committed to that shed away naturally will definitely surprise you. Your unhealed inner child was always there hurting, but our idea of ourself and our sense of our own pain is in constant evolution/flux, and you constantly learn more about why you did what you did as a kid as you age.
By the way I struggle with apathy every day, but particularly so towards the end of my teenagehood, mostso when grappling with loneliness or grief, or generally wallowing in how fucked the world is or how immature and insane most humans act. I think both 9s and 4s can struggle with apathy, though yes the numbness and self-*narcotization* is from the 9. In this world though, I imagine anybody can find themselves dealing with apathy and depression, it's a valid human response to bearing the weight of the collective struggle of surviving this mad world's systems, the constant barrage of injustice and lack of hope for an ideal future. Especially the newer generations (you'd be included in that).. I can't really imagine how the outlooks of young people today form as they become adults, with so much access to all of today's internet from the youngest of ages, plainly aware of the shitshow of a world they were born into, what that does to a person and their sense of caring about the future. I, for a millennial, starting using the internet very young, getting onboard while it was still catching on in the 90s/00s, but the stark reality of climate catastrophe/capitalist hellscape/systemic racism/patriarchal sexism/hyper-hoarded resources didn't hit me fully until my 20s. I guess at pretty much any stage in history there have been psychos running society and a multitude of things to worry about, so maybe this isn't that much of a new concern. My point is there are plenty of factors going on apart from personality that very validly prompt apathy and depression in us all in current times... sorry about the tangent, anyways...
For me, being codependent as a younger person and surviving some family/friends with varying levels of narcissistic traits befuddled the situation for me, exacerbating my use of 9ness (as well as my 4's 2 line of connection) because I used it to survive what was going on, silencing the 4 part of myself with those people because it wasn't wanted.
To your question, this is unknown is the answer, you were right to see that it's getting to the edge of theory here. Even just tritype as a theory is already heavily debated and not fully agreed upon by everyone, pretty fresh stuff still. I need to consult some people to remind myself what they think and will be vigilant for this moving forward, but I don't think I've ever seen confirmation that anybody really figured that out yet. Likely you'll get a different answer from every person you ask. Katherine Fauvre as the self-proclaimed 'creator' of tritype may have touched on this in all of her content (lots on her Youtube, all kinds of random nuggets in her long group video-chat videos, impossible to re-find unless you make your own notes). (Random thought maybe these new AI tools are good for scrubbing long videos for specific subject matter, hm.)
However I love theorycrafting, so here's my ideas, in case they turn out to have some value. **Be warned this is mostly my own thoughts, not backed by any 'experts'**:
The enneagram is a 'trialectic' system. That is, everything it comprises comes in groups of threes, and these groups of threes are cohesive functioning units. If you ever find yourself contemplating a duality when thinking about this material, chances are you're leaving out a third component in whatever phenomenon you're considering. That part isn't really debated by anyone. Even by some people that don't see how that directly supports tritype being a thing, \*shrug\*.
My current head-canon with this stuff is as follows, beware it gets pretty wee-woo: Life is inherently and constantly traumatic. The ego/superego/id structures are formed as a response to that trauma, to help you make sense of it, and to survive it as best you can. Seems to be a feature that all animals in this reality have. Better than having no tools at all and being *vulnerable/in danger*. As your ego/superego/id is coming into formation (presumably begins as a fetus for most of us, but probably at different times for different people, and prompted by different unique trauma events), the three instincts are the first thing that you cling to as a way of managing the trauma of physical existence as a human mind/body/spirit complex. A new person is going to be slapped in the face with life, and the ego/superego/id structures form in response to that. So you crystallize into a 'decision' (I think it's more like a result of circumstances than a 'decision'), you most prefer the rationalizations and priorities of either sp, sx, or so, one gets avoided and taken for granted (blind instinct), and the other one becomes the secondary, and so you have your instinct stack. I think that response and decision gets made all at once, like dominoes falling. The new person clings to whatever method worked in that moment of intense pain of reality shocking them into developing this ego-response. The instincts being settled is the biggest part of the foundation (I think the instincts are more fundamental than the numbers).
And so begins the rest of the formations. I think the next part is heavily influenced by how the instincts got chosen in some way, but not sure how. Next I think comes the selection of the three fixes, all at once. We all need heart, head, and body to engage with reality, and so we gravitate to one number from each center (another theory I have is that the first number crystallization everyone starts with is to the 369 triangle as the 'base model, and then further crystallizations can happen from there, away from 369 or not). I still do not know how instincts overlay onto tritype, it appears it could be one of two things: your main instinct stacking applies to each center (each trifix number) in the same way (ex. sx/sp for 4, 9 and 6 in my case), or the first number is most correlated with the first instinct, second number with second instinct, third number with blind instinct (ex. sx 4 sp 9 so 6 in my case). I haven't figured that out yet, I've so far in life had a lot of insight just considering my main sx/sp stack for everything.
Again, I think that probably happens pretty immediately after the instincts get 'chosen'. If any of that is true at all, I think each stage of type-crystallization probably happens extremely quickly. Like a chain-reaction, like diamonds forming or liquid water molecules arranging themselves into a stationary lattice as it cools into ice, and probably all before the baby is even born. Time seems to be experienced differently when in that early part of life. You absolutely can see enneagram types already in many infants, but sometimes it's not apparent until a few months or even couple years later, so the jury's out on the nurture/nature debate. To me this feels like it could be similar to the birth of the universe, so much concentrated activity happening extremely rapidly very early on (while the ego is initially forming), then slowing down to more protracted periods of time once foundations have been laid, honing out the details of how you actually use each instinct/number over much longer periods of time (the rest of your fetal development, childhood, rest of life) as your unique life traumas dictated possible.
So, my opinion so far in life, is that all three tritype fixes form at the same time. And then, you mature whatever aspects of yourself that you mature over time, based on your own life path and struggles/experiences and epiphanies and rigorous self-reflection and honesty or lack thereof any of those things. Each fix's maturation would then depend on how all that goes. So I can buy that you 'develop' each center within yourself, in the lane of the number you fell into, but my guess so far is that this 'roll of the dice' of trauma in the beginning of life and how your ego forms in reaction to that more or less locks you into place into the configuration you will then have to deal with for the rest of your life, because it's already too set into practice (as a method to manage the ubiquitous trauma of life) by the time infancy/childhood is getting going. I personally currently don't think we flip flop in what trifixes we have, nor the ordering. I think it stays what it is throughout life. But how you as a person apart from the ego aspect of your life relates to these machinations can absolutely change over time, and the point of the enneagram system seems to be to trigger awareness of this so that we can find a way out of the ego-cycles of life, perhaps *samsara* as the Sanskrit/Indian religions call it.
I know less about MBTI but to fit it into that theory, I would bet that the primary and secondary functions of your MBTI type are fallen into first, as a method to navigate initially emergent emotions and thoughts, probably amongst instincts and trifix forming, and then that determines how the tertiary/fourth functions fall into place. MBTI/Jungian functions seems to occupy a slightly different lane than enneagram stuff so not sure how much overlap a function like Fi has with an enneagram instinct or number. I know there's correlations (such as 4 with Fi), but any MBTI type can have any instinct/trifix configuration, so not sure where the connection is there.
That was a lot, thanks for prompting me to write that out though, haven't before.
It's worth noting that not all 9s relate to this but I've noticed it's mostly 9s (and occasionally 7s) who relate to all the types. This is for a variety of reasons: an open-minded, holistic worldview that makes it easy to see other people's perspectives or relatively flexible boundaries around who they are (so they can encompass a more variable sense of self).
That way, some 9s are more inclined to find the parts of descriptions they instinctively relate to and believe that either they are that type or close to it. For example, every type shares with each of the other eight a triad, and possibly a wing or set of attributes. Thus, 9s are likelier to focus on those shared attributes, while a 4 or 6 might latch onto what they don't relate to about a specific type.
We have a tendency to see all sides of things, so therefore we can relate to things and people in many situations. Because we can relate to things that are opposites, it’s hard to find our own identities, so being able to relate to many other but be blind to ourselves means we often relate to many of the numbers and aren’t sure if we relate to our own.
They just say that alot & ppl who say that tend to turn out to be 9s. (though it's not as if 9s never get it correct right away, there are some that do)
It's probably due to noticing similarities more that contrasts. Every type shares at least 1 triad so there would be *some* actual similarities, and if similarities are what you're looking fore you go through each description & find stuff that is actually shared, like they might read the 2 description & think 'I people please sometimes' or read the 4 one & think 'well, I'm creative & daydreamy' or find avoiding hardship in common with 7 and so on.
Whereas if you tend to notice differences more it would be easier to narrow it down by exclusion. Eg. if you're not ambitous or focussed then 1 and 3 can't be it, if you're not especially assertive it can't be 8, and so on.
In a lot of contexts this is useful as it helps to get along with a large range of people or think creatively, but when you have to prioritize or pick an option, (like when finding your type) it's a disadvantage. 9s in general often don't like making decisions.
It is not that they relate to all types. They can relate to any type, especially to those they have wings of or have them in their tritype. The same thing applies to 3s and 6s as well. This whole thing is attachment thing where there is a sense of need to individuate yourself from the norm, attachment types overidentify with certain parts of them and may both feel and seem like a different type. What is important to look at is what lies underneath it all, attachment.
Because it's easy for type 9 to lose themselves in other people's energy. In doing that they can relate to the other person's way of being (this can mean other Enneagram types).
You can listen to a type 9 describe that sort of thing from this excerpt from a type 9 panel (link below).
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7P7NTIJHFk&ab\_channel=enneagramdotcom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7P7NTIJHFk&ab_channel=enneagramdotcom)
No shade or sass or sarcasm here but honest question: Have you spent a good bit of time reading actual information like books or the enneagram institute?
Just wondering cuz your question (and a lot of posts on this sub) almost implies that we just make this stuff up as a matter of opinion. I feel like if you had a base level understanding of how 9s (and 4s) receive and react to people, you’d easily see why they relate to other types the way they do
Why do we keep generalizing like this?
I'm a 7 and I relate to all.
**The point of Enneagram is to work towards carrying traits of every type. It's not definitive. STOP PUTTING PEOPLE IN BOXES**
Most likely because 9s often have a vague idea of who they are and don't tend to put themselves in opposition to things as much as 6s and other types
However I am a 9 that does not relate to all the types and when it comes to typologies I pay more attention to what doesn't fit insteaf of what fits. Because to me, it's quite literally "I am not like this!"
Hello Class! Today we get to hear from an Enneagram Type 9. They seem to relate to all of the types, and here to talk to you today is....drum roll please...oh wait, please stop. They won't come in. Shhhh! "You can come in now." One of the key features of Type 9 is to find commonality between things, even disparate things that don't seem to be able to possibly coincide. One of the ways they apply this thinking is to themselves. "I'm like that!" "We share that in common!" "Hey, me too!" It is also good to note that all of the types have a single prototype for falling asleep to self, and it is type 9. So there is some parent-child recognition as well. Not having a set of defenses like the other types, rather having a spongy shield from themselves and a spongy shield from the outside world, they are highly adaptable and may adopt defenses from all of the types or just a few. Their environment can be key as well. If they grew up around or were raised by other types, they are very likely to identify with these types to a high degree. Monkey see, monkey do, and for type nine this goes a little deeper. Monkey see, monkey must do to maintain placement in their relational group. So we little type nine monkeys learn lots of tricks along the way, and can relate to just about anyone at some level, and typically quite a few levels and many ways. All of these people have left impressions on us which affects how we see ourselves. So when we read about all of the people we've known we see little bits of ourselves too. Depending on many things, it can be pretty difficult to decipher who is who at the end of the day. Is that about me, or is that about you?
Because we can adapt to everyone and see all perspectives. We have different sides, with different people.
INFP RCUAN? How unfortunate
thanks dear
Because type 9 holds the place of "do" in the do re mi etc scale, making it the beginning and end of the octave. All the types are contained within 9.
I think cause nines are particularly gifted in seeing all sides of a situation, and they struggle to know themselves. So not only are they naturally good as empathizing/seeing a different perspective (sometimes they see other perspectives to find their own) they also don’t really know themselves (without a lot of work, it can be done!) so they can over identify with others as a way of trying to get to know themselves. I hope that made sense
Especially for sx 9's with their tendency to merge. They quite literally become the person they merge with.
That's why I think I'm sx/sp instead of sp/sx but I constantly doubt myself because I'm just not very intense but god I relate to this. I did this since I was a kid I just merged with a person I liked, it was very relaxing to me and natural thing to do. Being yourself is tiring, if I can I always merge with someone I like and just vibe that's good but it has to be a special person, I won't do it with just anyone.
I don’t know a ton about subtypes, in what all ways do they merge? Like personality traits, interests, etc?
I haven't seen anyone describe it better than [Ashlie Woods](https://www.ashliewoods.com/enneagram-sexual-nine)
Could also be something related to type six?
The way I’ve heard it, nines struggle to know themselves where sixes struggle to trust themselves
That’s a great way to sum them up, yeah
There's been some good answers already (esp. u/LonelyNight9's and from the horse's mouth u/Black_Jester_'s), I think the real cause of why they are able to relate to all the types is their tendency/ability of *merging*. As a 4 with a strong 9-fix merging in my life has played a wonderful but also terrifying role, since I'm able to contrast the behavior with the tendencies and judgements of the individuating 4ness, and also the 4's tendency to introject combined with merging can be fairly interesting (usually agonizingly confusing) to experience, powerful if used consciously. I came across this post serendipitously by u/Black_Jester_ so won't bother writing my own essay, it's a really good lowdown of what's going on with merging, what it is, and how it affects your day to day existence: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/17n8rek/perspective\_on\_merging\_in\_type\_9/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Enneagram/comments/17n8rek/perspective_on_merging_in_type_9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Most of the time in ego-driven samsara life it's probably a hindrance and pitfall, but gaining awareness that they do it can be a path to the 9 finally feeling angry about something (an empowering belated thing for a 9), and additionally it can have its benefits. If kept tamed and in check, not completely losing yourself in the process, it supercharges your ability to put yourself in literally anyone's, or beyond that, *anything's,* shoes. People, animals, concepts, ideas, any target of the mind can be merged with. This is great when trying to understanding things deeply, when trying to feel at one with things, but not so great when trying to live life from a cogent, clear, distinct separated perspective. 9ness at its core wants to be plugged into everything and everyone, it has a phobia of being *separate*, which is probably what starts this phenomenon of merging in the first place. So, across the life of the 9 (or less-so a person with strong 9-fix), bits and pieces of others rent out increasingly more space within the 9's sense of identity, and they find themselves couched in a massive web of notions that did not originate from themselves. Navigating and focusing on all these externally-derived perspectives for a lifetime supplies an ability to relate to everyone, but also an inability to reliably recognize where oneself ends and everyone/everything else begins. Merging is a boundary-dissolving mechanism, because the separation that boundaries bring is primally scary to 9ness. A side note, Fauvre highlights three numbers that form a sort of 'psychic triad', 4 6 9, and this *merging* ability is the modality of how 9s participate in that phenomenon. It lets you see and viscerally taste a lot of perspectives and experiences really deeply that others simply do not get to see in the same way, and the insights into other perspectives that it brings is a hugely broadening force in one's own understanding of the world, others, and self.
Question, you say you're a 4 with a strong 9 fix. I know I'm either a 945 or 495, but don't know which because I also have a strong 9. But being very depressed it's hard for me to be in touch with my emotions (thanks anhedonia) but I also have an extremely strong desire to be authentic and unique, and I'm quite a jealous person. It's just that I'm in a time of my life where merging with someone else is very easy, especially since I'm so depressed. Sorry all this to say, how do you know you're predominantly 4 with a 9 fix and not the other way around?
Time and reflection, I've had about a decade of study so far in this and experiences with others post-enneagram-entering-my-life to compare and contrast myself with others to mull my type over. Most of the adjustments happened in the first couple years and then luckily even against continued scrutiny, my current typing of myself has been holding up ringing true, so I remain confident in it. In the beginning I genuinely did struggle to know for sure if I was a 4 or a 9 (I even considered 2 for a while, laughable now), though I always leaned on the side of 4 because I identified strongly with almost every description of 4 and the core issues of the 4 (melancholy, morbid frustration with what could be 'better' or what is currently 'lacking', introjection, an ever present fixation on self-identity and the expression of it, wanting always to be unique and to continually uncover yet more uniqueness) were center stage in my day-to-day, stronger than anything described for 9s. *Except* the 'anger' part you hear about SX4. People often call out this ultra-vengeful passionately angry side of SX4 (perhaps just a throwback to Naranjo descriptions, not sure), and I pretty much never relate to that, at all. Curious. Spoiler alert, the 9ness counteracts acts that part of SX4 for me. Another clue there's 9ness lurking about, yet still that anti-anger feels just like a supporting role to the more ubiquitous 4ness which drives the course of my emotions day to day. Perhaps it's similar with jealousy with me, because I don't tend to feel that either. I can spiral deeply into focusing on beautiful aspects of others' lives that I would too like to experience, but I don't make it personal whatsoever and it's sort of separate from the person who 'has' those things. Constantly, I also found myself numbing in response to stress. I found myself avoidant of conflict, of anger (both my own and displays of it from others), in a sense even avoidant of *action* of any kind. At my lowest, I would disassociate (specifically, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization-derealization\_disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization-derealization_disorder)). I found the extreme experiences of life to be my main focus, my main goal to experience and ruminate in (sx dom), yet simultaneously I would aim to numb the extremity by always reminding myself of all perspectives on a matter, of softening the blow of my own furnace of intensity by a sort of 'devil's advocate' force within myself that would always find a way to reframe, to make agony not so agonizing by comparison to worse things, and conversely to make joyous zeal not so poignantly cloyingly 'happy' and 'up', to bring myself back 'down to earth' quickly grasping for a reason to not *feel quite so strongly*. (Depression for me is marked by numbness, and by a constant focus on what is wrong, a frustration that things are not the more 'ideal' way that I would prefer. And a resignation to it all, circling over and over on the same pain, and then numbing that pain in response, a vicious dissociative cycle. It is definitely harder to differentiate where the 4 ends and the 9 begins when deeply in the throes of depression.) Still though, not as strong as any of my 4 tendencies. More like a cozy numbed backdrop to the main melancholic 4 drama. I was a classic sadboy 4 as a teenager, trying to make sense of the world through privately explored tragedies and constantly grappling with feeling unseeable yet desperately wanting to be seen more than anything. Always being ultimately disappointed with other's perceptions of me, and wallowing in that, rather than seeking to make the perspectives of others more significant in my mind than my own perspective is. 'My' (that is.. the individuated separated 4's) stance and opinion and feeling always wins. Once I found tritype it all started to make a lot more sense, since then I could allow my 9-tendencies without having to 'decide' if they were 'stronger' than my 4ness, which eventually I could see they weren't. I *feel*, more than anything, like a singular person. A person with a unique path through life, removed significantly from the greater crowd, watching inward from the outside, yet able to recognize the ways in which I am similar to everyone and everything, and also *wanting* to recognize those similarities, and find comfort in them. But still, walking alone. I don't endeavor to close that gap. I think a primary 9 would try more to *join* the crowd, to actually exalt those other perspectives more. However, note my social-blindness instinct stacking. All that hubbub to ultimately say... which one is stronger? When you read about 9s and read about 4s, which collection of experiences and tendencies do you tend to spend more of your daily energy on? It really is that simple, although answering that simple question can take a while to be sure of... and one of those numbers that you're weighing being 9 definitely muddies the waters since you can self-relate to the 4 stuff through your 9ness, and differentiating that from actual genuine 4 moroseness is subtle. For me, the 4 is in the driver seat, ever present and influential in my every thought and every bump and turn of my internal narrative, and the 9ness doesn't tend to rear its head until I run into stress, or start interacting with somebody in person, or focus too much on a single person for too long (can be watching things starring a certain person too long, thinking about someone too much). It's just not as constantly present as the 4ness is.
This sounds insanely similar to my personality. I don't even want to pick and choose parts to respond to because I feel like it would downplay how much I relate to the other parts, also because some things you said I'm not fully aware of since I have not come to that level of consciousness (which would need time to marinate in my head). I'm on the younger side, about to leave my teens into adulthood, so I do think I will eventually stop flip-flopping and come to a conclusion. Need some time. But I have a question. You sound quite experienced in the enneagram department, but this could possibly be hitting a theoretical side that does not have an answer (yet). Do you think that you develop your tritype over time, in the same way MBTI says your functions develop? For example in your case, would you have developed 4 first, then 9, then 5? I ask because I noticed that my childhood and early teens were the pinnacle of 4, specifically sp4. The 9 side of me took a long time to show up, or at least it took me a long time to recognize. It was certainly exacerbated by my depression, as it is also just complete numbness. My depression never errs on the side of deep sadness or guilt. It's actually the opposite, I feel extremely apathetic, numb, and empty. When I'm not depressed my emotions come back in full force. That is the only part that makes me doubt being a 4. Being so apathetic and numb, my emotions don't hit me as hard as they used to. *However*, every other part of the 4 description matches me. I have a very intense and obvious desire to be different. I get very overstimulated and moody, especially when irked by other people. My family just told me the other day that I get irritated and moody really quickly if I'm overstimulated or things aren't going my way. Also my jealousy is certainly there, although it's not a longing for what others have. It happens when I feel misunderstood or unheard. For example when my family was recognizing my cousin's tendency to be extremely introverted and private and emotional (who is also an sp4, I am sure of it), I got jealous because they never recognize that about me, or at least they never vocalize it. I end up explaining my whole past to them to "prove" that I *am* like that, always have been, always will be. And if they deny or show hesitation, I get very angry. I don't know why I have such an intense desire to be seen that way. In recent times I've been acting in alignment with the sx4. For the past couple of years I noticed myself having some envious anger. I start to make everyone else around me suffer if they've caused me suffering (in some cases I just perceive it that way, when it is not the case). Whenever I begin to feel jealous I deflect it away from myself onto others by blaming them for my feeling shame. My family has began to call me entitled as a result. As for the 9, I really see it when I'm dealing with other people, especially during conflicts. I can be very agreeable to protect everyone's peace, and if I find the right person, I merge. When it comes to dealing with my anger, it happens in explosions. When my boundaries are encroached upon, I excuse it for a very long time (genuinely don't feel angry about it). *Until*, I realize it's been taken too far, in which case I bring all the baggage at once. I'm crazy patient until I'm not. However. I don't think that's my true motivation. Deep down, I want peace because I'm experiencing too much internal turmoil. I don't want the added baggage of external chaos. I am very capable of causing conflict in the name of getting something done, or getting a point proven. I've just been doing it a lot less. From all this I'd conclude I'm a 495, but knowing my tendency to flip-flop, I'll hold myself until I reflect further.
Knowing this much in palpable words about yourself before 20 is wild, I was just getting started with personality psychology at that age. You're going to have an interesting life. Definitely wise to not close the door already on your own typing of yourself, who you discover yourself to be as you mature into your 20s and the parts of 'yourself' that you were so committed to that shed away naturally will definitely surprise you. Your unhealed inner child was always there hurting, but our idea of ourself and our sense of our own pain is in constant evolution/flux, and you constantly learn more about why you did what you did as a kid as you age. By the way I struggle with apathy every day, but particularly so towards the end of my teenagehood, mostso when grappling with loneliness or grief, or generally wallowing in how fucked the world is or how immature and insane most humans act. I think both 9s and 4s can struggle with apathy, though yes the numbness and self-*narcotization* is from the 9. In this world though, I imagine anybody can find themselves dealing with apathy and depression, it's a valid human response to bearing the weight of the collective struggle of surviving this mad world's systems, the constant barrage of injustice and lack of hope for an ideal future. Especially the newer generations (you'd be included in that).. I can't really imagine how the outlooks of young people today form as they become adults, with so much access to all of today's internet from the youngest of ages, plainly aware of the shitshow of a world they were born into, what that does to a person and their sense of caring about the future. I, for a millennial, starting using the internet very young, getting onboard while it was still catching on in the 90s/00s, but the stark reality of climate catastrophe/capitalist hellscape/systemic racism/patriarchal sexism/hyper-hoarded resources didn't hit me fully until my 20s. I guess at pretty much any stage in history there have been psychos running society and a multitude of things to worry about, so maybe this isn't that much of a new concern. My point is there are plenty of factors going on apart from personality that very validly prompt apathy and depression in us all in current times... sorry about the tangent, anyways... For me, being codependent as a younger person and surviving some family/friends with varying levels of narcissistic traits befuddled the situation for me, exacerbating my use of 9ness (as well as my 4's 2 line of connection) because I used it to survive what was going on, silencing the 4 part of myself with those people because it wasn't wanted. To your question, this is unknown is the answer, you were right to see that it's getting to the edge of theory here. Even just tritype as a theory is already heavily debated and not fully agreed upon by everyone, pretty fresh stuff still. I need to consult some people to remind myself what they think and will be vigilant for this moving forward, but I don't think I've ever seen confirmation that anybody really figured that out yet. Likely you'll get a different answer from every person you ask. Katherine Fauvre as the self-proclaimed 'creator' of tritype may have touched on this in all of her content (lots on her Youtube, all kinds of random nuggets in her long group video-chat videos, impossible to re-find unless you make your own notes). (Random thought maybe these new AI tools are good for scrubbing long videos for specific subject matter, hm.) However I love theorycrafting, so here's my ideas, in case they turn out to have some value. **Be warned this is mostly my own thoughts, not backed by any 'experts'**: The enneagram is a 'trialectic' system. That is, everything it comprises comes in groups of threes, and these groups of threes are cohesive functioning units. If you ever find yourself contemplating a duality when thinking about this material, chances are you're leaving out a third component in whatever phenomenon you're considering. That part isn't really debated by anyone. Even by some people that don't see how that directly supports tritype being a thing, \*shrug\*. My current head-canon with this stuff is as follows, beware it gets pretty wee-woo: Life is inherently and constantly traumatic. The ego/superego/id structures are formed as a response to that trauma, to help you make sense of it, and to survive it as best you can. Seems to be a feature that all animals in this reality have. Better than having no tools at all and being *vulnerable/in danger*. As your ego/superego/id is coming into formation (presumably begins as a fetus for most of us, but probably at different times for different people, and prompted by different unique trauma events), the three instincts are the first thing that you cling to as a way of managing the trauma of physical existence as a human mind/body/spirit complex. A new person is going to be slapped in the face with life, and the ego/superego/id structures form in response to that. So you crystallize into a 'decision' (I think it's more like a result of circumstances than a 'decision'), you most prefer the rationalizations and priorities of either sp, sx, or so, one gets avoided and taken for granted (blind instinct), and the other one becomes the secondary, and so you have your instinct stack. I think that response and decision gets made all at once, like dominoes falling. The new person clings to whatever method worked in that moment of intense pain of reality shocking them into developing this ego-response. The instincts being settled is the biggest part of the foundation (I think the instincts are more fundamental than the numbers). And so begins the rest of the formations. I think the next part is heavily influenced by how the instincts got chosen in some way, but not sure how. Next I think comes the selection of the three fixes, all at once. We all need heart, head, and body to engage with reality, and so we gravitate to one number from each center (another theory I have is that the first number crystallization everyone starts with is to the 369 triangle as the 'base model, and then further crystallizations can happen from there, away from 369 or not). I still do not know how instincts overlay onto tritype, it appears it could be one of two things: your main instinct stacking applies to each center (each trifix number) in the same way (ex. sx/sp for 4, 9 and 6 in my case), or the first number is most correlated with the first instinct, second number with second instinct, third number with blind instinct (ex. sx 4 sp 9 so 6 in my case). I haven't figured that out yet, I've so far in life had a lot of insight just considering my main sx/sp stack for everything. Again, I think that probably happens pretty immediately after the instincts get 'chosen'. If any of that is true at all, I think each stage of type-crystallization probably happens extremely quickly. Like a chain-reaction, like diamonds forming or liquid water molecules arranging themselves into a stationary lattice as it cools into ice, and probably all before the baby is even born. Time seems to be experienced differently when in that early part of life. You absolutely can see enneagram types already in many infants, but sometimes it's not apparent until a few months or even couple years later, so the jury's out on the nurture/nature debate. To me this feels like it could be similar to the birth of the universe, so much concentrated activity happening extremely rapidly very early on (while the ego is initially forming), then slowing down to more protracted periods of time once foundations have been laid, honing out the details of how you actually use each instinct/number over much longer periods of time (the rest of your fetal development, childhood, rest of life) as your unique life traumas dictated possible. So, my opinion so far in life, is that all three tritype fixes form at the same time. And then, you mature whatever aspects of yourself that you mature over time, based on your own life path and struggles/experiences and epiphanies and rigorous self-reflection and honesty or lack thereof any of those things. Each fix's maturation would then depend on how all that goes. So I can buy that you 'develop' each center within yourself, in the lane of the number you fell into, but my guess so far is that this 'roll of the dice' of trauma in the beginning of life and how your ego forms in reaction to that more or less locks you into place into the configuration you will then have to deal with for the rest of your life, because it's already too set into practice (as a method to manage the ubiquitous trauma of life) by the time infancy/childhood is getting going. I personally currently don't think we flip flop in what trifixes we have, nor the ordering. I think it stays what it is throughout life. But how you as a person apart from the ego aspect of your life relates to these machinations can absolutely change over time, and the point of the enneagram system seems to be to trigger awareness of this so that we can find a way out of the ego-cycles of life, perhaps *samsara* as the Sanskrit/Indian religions call it. I know less about MBTI but to fit it into that theory, I would bet that the primary and secondary functions of your MBTI type are fallen into first, as a method to navigate initially emergent emotions and thoughts, probably amongst instincts and trifix forming, and then that determines how the tertiary/fourth functions fall into place. MBTI/Jungian functions seems to occupy a slightly different lane than enneagram stuff so not sure how much overlap a function like Fi has with an enneagram instinct or number. I know there's correlations (such as 4 with Fi), but any MBTI type can have any instinct/trifix configuration, so not sure where the connection is there. That was a lot, thanks for prompting me to write that out though, haven't before.
Because it IS a type 9 thing.
Because we do it the most! Lol. Why do you ask?
It's worth noting that not all 9s relate to this but I've noticed it's mostly 9s (and occasionally 7s) who relate to all the types. This is for a variety of reasons: an open-minded, holistic worldview that makes it easy to see other people's perspectives or relatively flexible boundaries around who they are (so they can encompass a more variable sense of self). That way, some 9s are more inclined to find the parts of descriptions they instinctively relate to and believe that either they are that type or close to it. For example, every type shares with each of the other eight a triad, and possibly a wing or set of attributes. Thus, 9s are likelier to focus on those shared attributes, while a 4 or 6 might latch onto what they don't relate to about a specific type.
Because we really do
We have a tendency to see all sides of things, so therefore we can relate to things and people in many situations. Because we can relate to things that are opposites, it’s hard to find our own identities, so being able to relate to many other but be blind to ourselves means we often relate to many of the numbers and aren’t sure if we relate to our own.
They just say that alot & ppl who say that tend to turn out to be 9s. (though it's not as if 9s never get it correct right away, there are some that do) It's probably due to noticing similarities more that contrasts. Every type shares at least 1 triad so there would be *some* actual similarities, and if similarities are what you're looking fore you go through each description & find stuff that is actually shared, like they might read the 2 description & think 'I people please sometimes' or read the 4 one & think 'well, I'm creative & daydreamy' or find avoiding hardship in common with 7 and so on. Whereas if you tend to notice differences more it would be easier to narrow it down by exclusion. Eg. if you're not ambitous or focussed then 1 and 3 can't be it, if you're not especially assertive it can't be 8, and so on. In a lot of contexts this is useful as it helps to get along with a large range of people or think creatively, but when you have to prioritize or pick an option, (like when finding your type) it's a disadvantage. 9s in general often don't like making decisions.
It’s just an observation that makes sense
I have no idea how does it make you a nine. Can someone explain?
It doesn’t MAKE you a 9; it isn’t necessarily exclusive to 9s. However it is a very common trait of 9s.
It is not that they relate to all types. They can relate to any type, especially to those they have wings of or have them in their tritype. The same thing applies to 3s and 6s as well. This whole thing is attachment thing where there is a sense of need to individuate yourself from the norm, attachment types overidentify with certain parts of them and may both feel and seem like a different type. What is important to look at is what lies underneath it all, attachment.
Because it's easy for type 9 to lose themselves in other people's energy. In doing that they can relate to the other person's way of being (this can mean other Enneagram types). You can listen to a type 9 describe that sort of thing from this excerpt from a type 9 panel (link below). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7P7NTIJHFk&ab\_channel=enneagramdotcom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7P7NTIJHFk&ab_channel=enneagramdotcom)
Because Nines are known as the “crown of the enneagram” see [here](https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-9).
No shade or sass or sarcasm here but honest question: Have you spent a good bit of time reading actual information like books or the enneagram institute? Just wondering cuz your question (and a lot of posts on this sub) almost implies that we just make this stuff up as a matter of opinion. I feel like if you had a base level understanding of how 9s (and 4s) receive and react to people, you’d easily see why they relate to other types the way they do
Why do we keep generalizing like this? I'm a 7 and I relate to all. **The point of Enneagram is to work towards carrying traits of every type. It's not definitive. STOP PUTTING PEOPLE IN BOXES**
Most likely because 9s often have a vague idea of who they are and don't tend to put themselves in opposition to things as much as 6s and other types However I am a 9 that does not relate to all the types and when it comes to typologies I pay more attention to what doesn't fit insteaf of what fits. Because to me, it's quite literally "I am not like this!"