Question: When Should I Consider Type 4 in my Tritype due to Sadness or Strong Emotions?

Katherine: I am sure most of you know that sadness is an attentional style and not a passion or fixation. Anyone can be sad due to painful life experiences.

The more losses we suffer, the deeper the imprints. Although, I can say that 4s and 6s report that they identify with sadness and loneliness more than the other 7 types.

For example, even the upbeat sexual 728 can suffer from chronic sadness. And, it is common for 728 with the sexual instinct that had to endure many painful losses in childhood to identify their core type as a 4.

So when considering your three types and your core type, you have to look at what moves you into action and/or reaction; what arises? This is when content is important because negative experiences are stored in the hindbrain.

So, when you have a current situation that causes you to feel sad, it will remind you of past painful memories. These memories combine and may show up as sadness or dread.

But for typing purposes, you need to get around the superego and see what it leads to when you drill down as with the In-depth Inquiry Process. Then you will see if your sadness is due to fear: fear of abandonment, shame: rejection for saying or doing something, or anger that you were not supported when you were in painful emotions.

When considering your type in each center, it is more complicated. And, Tritype® is richer than just having 3 types. one from each of the centers, with one that is dominant.

Tritype® is a 27-point personality system that identifies key features of the personality that emerge when your dominant Enneagram type in each of the three centers: head (5,6,7), heart (2,3,4), and gut (8,9,1) combines in a repetitive pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving. These three types merge and have a continuous repetitive and oscillating manner and specific stacking order creating a type unto itself.

So each of the 27 Tritype Archetypes has its own worldview that includes: a focus of attention, coping mechanisms, core defense strategies, core triggers, core fears, desires, blindspot, life purpose, and growing edge.

It is important to note that just combining the 3 preferred types, one within each center, is not enough to explain the attentional patterns of each Tritype Archetype.

This is because the characteristics of each of the three types influence one another. Some characteristics are amplified, while other characteristics are minimized or negated by the characteristics of the two other types within the Tritype®.

Tritype® can explain the distinctive ways in which you manage your life using various combinations of ego-strategies and coping mechanisms from each center, yet Tritype (like the Enneagram) still remains a theory of motivation and not one of behavior.

It is easy to misidentify with a type because you see that you have some of the behaviors of the type in question. The keyword is identification. We often identify with a type that may not be what moves us into action.

It can lead you to your personal tracking behaviors. So it is not what you do but why you do it that reveals type.

More on Tritype® here:
Katherine created a test that has been programmed to pick up particular patterns that the types use.
Take the Test here: https://enneagramtritypetest.com
General Information: www.katherinefauvre.com/tritype
YouTube: Katherine Fauvre | Creator of Tritype®