Working with Type Six in Therapy

Enneagram Type 6, often referred to as “Loyal Skeptic”, “The Trooper”, or “Loyalist” tend to be loyal, security-oriented individuals who often demonstrate a natural ability to bring people together, guide others, and serve as the glue for their families, teams, and communities, yet also struggle with anxiety and self-doubt and have a deep desire for safety and support. They are prone to worry, will typically spend a lot of time planning so they can be prepared for any outcome, tend to overly rely on authorities, and frequently seek reassurance from others.

Since Sixes see the world as unpredictable, their patterns include planning for worst case scenarios, hyper-vigilance, aligning with authorities, quieting their rebellion, and focusing on negative potentialities or negative “certainty” to ground themselves. In unhealth, fear destabilizes their inner sense of security as well as their trust in their own authority leading them to overly plan for events to reduce their fear and feel protected.

The goals of therapy should include encouraging Sixes not to deny their fears or difficulties, yet also accept the potential for positive outcomes, notice what could go right, appreciate their own strengths, agency, and authority, manage their worry and regulate their anxiety, and take courageous action despite their fear and anxiety. Growth is indicated when they reclaim trust in themselves, others, and the world and live comfortably with uncertainty.

Core Messaging & Key Characteristics

Lost Childhood Message: “You are safe.”

Wounding Message: “I am not safe.”

Wounding Message Development: The world is not safe, there’s not enough support, and I don’t have what I need to overcome what might happen.

Grounding Message: “I will be okay even in life’s unknowns.”

Wants/Needs: Peace and good in the world, life-giving and supportive relationships, but will settle for certainty.

Basic Fear: Of being without support and guidance
Basic Desire: To have security and support from others
Basic Need: To be certain, avoid unpreparedness, and resist their own authority

Values: Trustworthiness, Loyalty, Security, Predictability, Preparedness, Support

Motivations: To serve, have security, certitude, and reassurance; to feel supported by others; to test the attitudes of others towards them; and fight against anxiety and uncertainty

At Their Best: Stable, self-reliant, dependable, self-trusting, able to sense life’s benevolence based on an inner knowing, courageously championing themselves and others, building effective teams, and providing constancy through loyalty

Strengths: Thoughtful, loyal to work and people, responsible, dutiful, attentive to people and problems, good at trouble-shooting and problem-solving, organized, funny, effective at securing protection for themselves and others, caring for others, and strategic thinking

Challenges: self-doubting, distrustful of others, skeptical, suspicious, pessimistic, indecisive, worrying, hyper-vigilant, overly-cautious, unceasingly questioning, excessively planning for events and tasks, procrastination, and overly-seeking reassurance from others

Mental Habit:  Attention goes to what can go wrong, planning, and being prepared

Emotional Habit: Fear with worry or fear with aggression

Emotional Survival Strategy: I scan the environment for danger, stay anxious, and compulsively try to figure things out

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 these patterns.

  • Tends to engage in excessive worst-case scenario planning and forecasting
  • Frequent reassurance-seeking when navigating challenges and making decisions
  • Often tests or seeks clarity about others’ feelings towards them
  • Quiet their rebellion to stay compliant; they don’t want to take unnecessary risks
  • Attracted to and align with authority figures, yet resist them at the same time
  • Fear getting into trouble or being attacked by the wrath of others if they make a mistake
  • Tend to do what’s expected and seek safety with others, rather than go out on their own
  • Don’t always agree with or follow the rules, but want to know what they are
  • Tend to have first impressions of others that are difficult to change
  • Present with a persistent pattern of ambivalence or states of indecision or inaction
  • Tend to be suspicious of what others may be up to
  • Want to trust others, but often question others’ motives and trustworthiness
  • Take pride in being a hard worker and working until the job is done
  • Struggle with decision-making due to an “inner committee” that includes many voices
  • Dislike surprises since they prefer to know about and be prepared for any experience
  • Find change difficult as it entails tolerating uncertainty and trust in themselves to adjust
  • Often identify as an anxious person and are regularly consumed by worry
  • Prefer well-defined structure and guidelines so they are clear on expectations
  • Display a pattern of generalized worry about many things
  • Prone to complain and blame others, especially if they feel helpless or powerless
  • May project their fears onto others and expect change from others to assuage their fears
  • Cling to certain people or established activities or routines for security
  • Often provide “glue” for teams and show loyalty to their people

Impact in Relationships

  • Their opposing feelings and paradoxes are unsettling, confusing, or tiring to others
  • Distrust in themselves, life, and their relationships leads others to feel burdened by needing to offer constant reassurance, prove their trustworthiness, take charge, or over-function in the relationship
  • Fail to consider past successes in relationships that can support balanced and positive thinking
  • Fear of conflict leads them to resist expressing their wants, needs, and boundaries clearly
  • Find it difficult to choose trust (self, other, relationship), which is needed for healthy bonds
  • Doubt others’ motives, intentions, or future behavior thereby eroding their own trust in the relationship and compromising the strength of the relationship
  • May trust too early or too soon leading to misplaced trust that gets unfairly applied to future relationships and a pattern of hypervigilance in their relationships, especially if they have experienced breaches of trust in prior relationships or they have been with former untrustworthy partners
  • Tend to “test” others to establish their trustworthiness. Some examples can include:
    • Asking a partner for information that would be a violation of another person’s trust
    • Sharing something they want their partner to respond to in a “certain way”, yet not being forthcoming about that expectation causing their partners to fail the test
  • May find themselves in codependent relationships due to an over-reliance on others for support, guidance, emotional regulation, or reassurance
  • May find it difficult to achieve independence by way of pursuing their own interests, activities, hobbies, friends, etc. or resist their own or their partner’s independence in their relationships due to a preoccupation with or over-reliance on their partner
  • Tend to project or unconsciously attribute their disowned thoughts, fears, or attributes onto others and expect others to make changes that they, themselves, need to make
  • Display a fear of abandonment that may be connected with an unconscious pattern of “testing others” or reassurance-seeking to know others’ feelings about them causing their partners to feel inadequate or exacerbated by being unable to earn their trust

Goal of Therapy: Self-Doubt to Self-Trust

Therapeutic Interventions

Therapeutic interventions should focus on addressing primary issues related to anxiety, fear, and trust. These could include helping Sixes build trust in themselves and others, question their worry and worst-case thinking, build confidence in their ability to navigate anxiety, and strengthen their decision-making skills as well as support self-assertion and boundary-setting, address any authority issues, teach grounding practices for emotional regulation, and help them foster faith, hope, and resilience.

Conclusion

By integrating these interventions, Sixes can gain self and emotional awareness, cultivate more rewarding relationships, and balance their drive for safety and security 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 Sixes is by no means exhaustive, I invite you as the counselor to bring in whatever you think could be helpful to your Type Six 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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