Working with Type Two in Therapy


Enneagram Type Two, also known as “The Helper” or “The Giver” tends to derive their sense of worth and meet their personal needs by helping and pleasing others. While this makes them empathetic and supportive, they may struggle with boundary issues, self-neglect, a lack of self-awareness, and feelings of resentment, especially when their helpfulness is unacknowledged, under-appreciated, or when others take advantage of them.

Their patterns include being good and serving others, denying themselves to the point of pride, and being outwardly attuned. In unhealth, Twos may find it difficult to know themselves, believe their wants and needs are not important to others, and think they have little to no value outside of what they give or offer to others.

The goals of therapy should include helping Twos own their separate self and lean away from prioritizing the needs of others as a way to be taken care of and feel worthy of love. Growth is indicated when Twos develop the humility that comes from acknowledging their own needs and allowing themselves to be loved and worthy without being needed or needing to help others.

Core Messaging & Key Characteristics

Lost Childhood Message: “You are wanted.”

Wounding Message: “It’s not okay to have your own needs.”

Wounding Message Development: I’m not connected with my own needs, but making sure others are okay is what earns me love and gives me worth in the world. Therefore, I can’t have my own needs.

Grounding Message: “I am valuable to myself and others by who I am.”

Wants/Needs: To be important to others for who they are and to be generous but will settle for being valued for what they offer and do for others.

Basic Fear: Being unwanted and unworthy of love
Basic Desire: To feel loved
Basic Need: To be needed and avoid acknowledging their own needs

Values: Service, Kindness, Compassion, Generosity, Connection, Caring for Others

Motivations: To nurture, to be loved, to belong, to express their feelings for others, to be needed and appreciated, to get others to respond to them, and vindicate their claims about themselves as being loving, thoughtful, and selfless

At Their Best: Unselfish, generous, make good things happen, humble, love others unconditionally

Strengths: Giving, generous, helpful, supportive, sensitive to others’ feelings, thoughtful, popular, appreciative, exuberant, and willing

Challenges: Intrusive, difficulty setting and holding boundaries, unwilling or unable to say No to others, indirect regarding wants and needs, dependent on others, naive, being overly-accommodating or agreeable, pridefulness about being important in relationships, and poor self-esteem when love or approval is not forthcoming

Mental Habit: Attention goes to other people’s thoughts, needs, and feelings

Emotional Habit: Separation distress at not being loved and valued in relationship

Emotional Survival Strategy: I caretake, try to fulfill others’ needs, and please others

Patterns of Behavior

Patterns listed below are based on average to below average levels of functioning within the Type, which is typical for clients entering therapy. Behaviors may vary from client to client, so it’s appropriate not to assume every client displays all of these behaviors.

  • Being good and serving others in order to be helpful
  • Denying themselves to the point of pride (“I don’t have needs”)
  • Being overly attuned to others, preoccupied with others, or overly involved with others
  • Struggle with knowing or loving themselves since their attention goes outward to others
  • Pleasing, flattering, or supporting others oftentimes to earn love or approval and avoid feeling shame
  • Put others’ needs before their own and frequently at personal expense
  • Feel unable to directly express hurt when taken advantage of
  • May try to draw attention to their good deeds, helpfulness, and acts of service
  • May remind others how much they owe them to bolster their importance
  • May try to keep others dependent on them so they don’t leave
  • Unconsciously driven by a need to be needed (source of external validation)
  • Feel frustrated by others who do not intuit or meet their unexpressed needs
  • May “give to get” to garner reciprocity, appreciation, attention, approval, love, favor, power, etc.
  • Tend to feel responsible for other people’s feelings and experiences
  • Get derailed by “helping” that could be considered trying to control others or interfering with others
  • Tend to view self-care, self-love, or self-nurturance as being “selfish”
  • Unwilling or unable to say No or find in incredibly difficult to say No
  • Find it hard to take credit, yet get upset when others don’t recognize or appreciate them
  • Give too much or do more for others than they should, possibly to the point of enabling
  • Typically enjoy entertaining and hosting friends and family
  • Warm, welcoming, friendly, and supportive, yet also strong-willed
  • May struggle with being overly-committed to helping others
  • Openly expressive of their feelings with others

Impact in Relationships

  • Preoccupation with acceptance, approval-seeking, or earning love leads to “lost self”, inauthenticity in relationships, unhealthy codependence, and/or dissatisfaction in relationships
  • Indirect or unspoken wants/needs and lack of boundaries is a common source of conflict
  • Lack of self-assertion and over-accommodation of others culminates in a pattern of unfairly blaming others when wants and needs are not intuited by others, understood, or met
  • Don’t see how their lack of self-assertion could be an abdication of their responsibility for conflicts
  • Over-emphasis on relationships blocks them from developing a separate, integrated self thereby making it difficult for them to know who they are or love themselves or pursue their own aspirations
  • Resist seeing how their people-pleasing and flattery can sometimes feel manipulative to others
  • Giving to get leads to resentment when giving is not reciprocated or or appreciated by others
  • Not asking for help from others leads them to experience unsatisfying one-way relationships
  • Find it difficult to acknowledge how always doing for others adds to their anger and resentment
  • Deny others the rewarding opportunity to give or feel needed when they don’t ask for support
  • Don’t see how their unexpressed needs can come across as neediness or frustrate others

Goal of Therapy: Unworthy to Worthy

Therapeutic Interventions

Therapeutic interventions should focus on fostering self-awareness, self-compassion, self-love, healthy boundaries, and cultivating greater commitment to self-care and knowing themselves as well as inviting Twos to embrace their innate lovability and worthiness while maintaining their gifts of compassion.

Conclusion

By integrating these interventions, Twos can gain self and emotional awareness, cultivate more authentic and rewarding relationships, and balance their need to help and please others with qualities of being that have the potential to not only provide a comforting sense of belonging, but also create fulfilling opportunities to live a meaningful life and apply the gifts of their type.

While this brief collection of themes and therapeutic interventions for Twos is by no means exhaustive, I invite you as the counselor to bring in whatever you think could be helpful to your Type Two client as they are likely to share desires, fears, and challenges that are common to all of us.

Finally, in my work with clients, I also find it helpful to not only consider interventions that are relevant to the client’s primary type, but also interventions that are specific to one or both of the client’s wings, especially the dominate wing.

Trainings

Enneagram for Counselors with Leslie Bley, LPC-S

Resources

Enneagram Institute
The Narrative Enneagram

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