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Idealization, Avoidance, and Defense Mechanisms | An Interview with Peter O'Hanrahan

— An Interview by Matt Ahrens | January 2012

Matt Ahrens: What I thought we might talk about today is to follow on the presentation you made at the last EANT Conference along with Terry and Marion. I got a lot out of your presentation, I took a lot of notes, and have read through the document you put on the EANT website. (visit this article online or download a PDF) I thought that was really good.

It seems like it is work that has been in your repertoire for quite a while, how did you get interested in this specific topic of the Enneagram?

Peter O - teachingPeter O'Hanrahan: Well, it seems to me there are two major "handles" – and I said this in the presentation – two major ways we can apply the Enneagram in daily life. One is with subtypes and the other is with defenses. Understanding the defenses is such an important key to unlocking the value of the Enneagram for our own development since it is the defenses that keeps everything "locked" into place. Being a therapist for so many years and working with people, I encountered that. Well, with myself too, and with the people I've worked with. It's the "bad news." It gives us trouble.

fixation couple

At some point, it was quite a while ago, I realized there were these three parts that work together. I had the information from charts I had received early on, way back in the 70s. These charts must have come from either Oscar Ichazo or Claudio Naranjo, in his interpretation of Oscar's work. Of course Ichazo has so much stuff, a lot of which is not real practical or comprehensive to most of us; it's pretty out there. Claudio brought it to a psychological, workable system.

I learned these three things, the idealization and the avoidance and the defense mechanisms. Then at some point I realized they all work together in a this three-part way. If we can keep our attention on these three elements it really helps us work on our type structure.

Matt: We're talking about idealization, avoidance, and the defense mechanisms, how do these three things work together?

Peter: The idealization is where we want to be and where we identify our value. It's really close to something that's true and innate for us. It's tricky. It can fool us. Type 9 says, "well, I'm harmonious." And it's true. And that's a great thing. Except when it is put into the idealization. The quality becomes a trap when it get put into this "have to live up to" expectation we call the idealization.

Matt: Continuing with Type 9, my type, for illustrative purposes, when 9s aren't experiencing harmony, the defense mechanism might kick in to numb out because it seems like a good substitute for harmonious.

Peter: Yes, narcotization is kind of a way to get to a low-level harmonious state.

Matt: This just popped into my head as were' talking... it seems like it's when the avoidance is unavoidable, we can't experience the idealization, so we substitute with the defense mechanism.

Peter: Of course without the benefit of this information it could be very confusing. A Type 9 could say, "But I don't want to be angry, that's not a peaceful thing, that's not a kind thing. I really want to stay harmonious. That's where my value is, that's my value in life. So, it sets up this dichotomy and there is this split away from one's self that happens – that's true for all of the types, there's this internal split that happens - something goes into the shadow and is enforced by the defense mechanism. When things go into shadow and we're spit off from what's really going on inside, we've got trouble. It limits our functioning. It comes up in personal relationships – it comes up at work too – but we certainly know about it in our personal, close relationships.

Matt: I suppose it comes up in all of the three instinctual areas. In my self-preservation, my narc-ing out is not healthy or health promoting. It doesn't add to my well-being, it takes away from it. That's certainly true in my personal relationships too as well as my social relationships too.

What do you do when you find yourself in the grips of your defense mechanism?

The Weight of our Defense Mechanisms

Peter: Well, that's a huge step in itself because it's really hard to pin down since it is so automatic, such a part of us, and it feels so intuitively correct, I have to do this or I have a right to do this or this is what works. To be able to identify it is a huge step. We start to learn it, well, oft-ntimes from external feedback; sometimes because of the consequences of our behavior, we hear about it afterwards. Then we start to recognize it in ourselves, we feel it in the moment. That's why the somatic, the body part of this, is so important. To understand, what is the "felt sense" of this? What does it feel like inside when the defense system has got us.

What we can do is work with all three of our centers with whatever practices we have. To breathe down and in, stay present, and find out what is going on. How are we feeling threatened? How are we feeling hurt? Use our awareness to locate this. Use whatever good techniques we have: self-awareness, embodied presence, probably emotional attunement is part of this too.

The problem is that we want to go for the good stuff. I think the Law of Three is very important in this process. We want to have our awareness, we want to have our embodied awareness, we want to have an open heart. So we're going for that and then the resistance comes up in the type structure. It's habit but it's more than habit because it is being powered and enforced by the defense mechanism.

Unless we can engage and get a good dialogue, and hold both sides. I want to be openhearted but I'm really shut down because my defense mechanism is strong right now. What do I do with that? I try to hold it in the larger space and have some compassion for myself. Stay there. Be present to it.

Matt: Where does the Law of Three come in to it?

Peter: The defense mechanism is the resistant force, the active force is that we want to be more open and more whole and more self-aware.

We learn about the Enneagram and we then practice in that direction to be more open and aware, but we need to acknowledge the resistance in the type structure. The resistance is mainly described in the defense mechanisms.

Matt: As you were describing the Law of Three a different angle to it occurred to me and I'd like to run it by you. Perhaps the defense mechanism is the "active force" and our job of staying present is the "receptive force" and then through our conscious awareness we become the "reconciling force" between the two – or to use the metaphor of the sail boat: The defense mechanism is the wind, our presence is the sail, and our conscious awareness is the helmsman – and that can guide us to a new place. What do you think?

Peter: Well, that's interesting, Matt, yes, you could turn it around, I suppose, looking at it from the view point of the type structure, the defenses are active and trying to protect us. Our job is to somehow resist those or at least try to stay present with our receptivity and awareness, there is some reconciliation needed there.

Mr. ResistanceMatt: Well, for me anyway, when my defense mechanism kicks in, my first reaction is aversion – I want to resist it. I find that's exhausting and I tend to lose that battle. When I do the counter-intuitive thing of opening up to it and explore what's behind it, creating the space for it, then I can work "with" it. I'm no longer indulging but I'm also not pushing it away. I'm exploring for what is going on and that can create some momentum for moving forward instead of trying to do it out of brute force.

Peter LecturingPeter: This stuff is psychological knowledge; it's there and available to us. The Enneagram shows us how these character structures are put together with a particular configuration of defenses. As an 8, I can use narcotization, sure, it's my wing point but my primary one is denial. It's all part and parcel of understanding the nine character structures. Psychology doesn't quite get that far without the Enneagram. I've learned a lot of psychology over the last 40 years but I've never seen anything like the Enneagram that even comes close in terms of naming things and how they function. There is congruence to it. They work and they work for a reason.

Peter: it's interesting to me how many people are involved in the Enneagram but they don't necessarily know about the defense mechanisms.

Matt: It seems like it's a pretty big gap if they don't know about it.

Peter: Of course we want to engage this with acceptance too. Valuing types or devaluing the types, appreciating the personality or thinking personality is crap, there is this whole range of how people view these things with working with the Enneagram. When we first started our Enneagram, we had an assumption that personality was bad. The new-age spiritual movement stressed that ego was bad and we needed to do a lot of work to transcend our ego.

The pendulum is swinging – I hope – to a more balanced place where we can appreciate the wonderful varieties of people and recognize that personalities are fine, in fact, they are better than fine. They are necessary and beautiful ways of participating in the world. The ego is fine, it's how defended we become that's the issue.

People confuse that and think the personality is bad. What they are really saying is the stuck-ness, the rigidity, the shutting down, the attachment, the fear…. all that stuff… is the problem, not the personality per se.

Matt: If we can understand how we get stuck, then we can understand how we can get unstuck. And that keep ourselves out of trouble.

Matt: Anything else you'd like to add?

Peter: The question that comes up that we were referring to earlier is how do we stay present to the inner conflict, to the inner obstacles? It's about developing our capacity to stay there and be present and to deal with all of the scary feelings that are why our defenses are so strong in the first place. It's tough work; it's not simple stuff. It requires a lot of effort and a lot of support. If I'm going to take away my defenses that have been there for so long, I could feel pretty scared and defenseless. How am I going to reform myself? How am I going to have my reactions be more flexible and appropriate?

These defenses are there every day. They aren't always terrible but it is an obstacle to our development. We aren't going to get very far unless we deal with these things.

Matt: This has been very helpful, Peter, thank you very much.

Peter: I have an article on this topic on my website (click here) available for people to read.

Matt: Thanks again, Peter.

Peter: Thank you too, I enjoyed it.

 

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Peter O'HanrahanFor more than 33 years, Peter O'Hanrahan has been working with the Enneagram system. He teaches in the United States, Europe, and China. He is a training associate with Enneagram Studies in the Narrative Tradition and the Enneagram Professional Training Program with Helen Palmer and David Daniels, MD, and is a senior associate with The Enneagram in Business founded by Ginger Lapid-Bogda, PhD. Since 1994 he has been a professional member of the International Enneagram Association. Contact Peter for more information: pohanrahan@aol.comor read more about Peter's work by visiting his website at www.enneagramworks.com.

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Matt AhrensMatt Ahrens is past president of the EANT, current TALK JOURNAL editor, and continues to serve the EANT as head of the technical committee, as an ongoing advisor. With an MBA in Supply Chain Management and an undergrad degree in Economics, Matt owns his own consulting practice, "The Matt Ahrens Group," whose work in both organization consulting and training and personal development is deeply rooted in his deep understanding and practical applications of the Enneagram.

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January 2012

This Month's Feature:
In Our Own Good Time,
Teaching the Enneagram in Prison, Susan Olesek

Interview with Peter O"Hanrahan, Idealization, Avoidance, and Defense Mechanisms

EANT Scholarship Program - 2011 Recap

2012 EANT Conference Announcement - Venue Decided!

Writer Wanted for Wikipedia Updates

Enneagram Cocktails!
A Good Laugh

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