Instinctual Variants in Relationships

[subwayrider]

As far as the whole attempting to predict interpersonal compatibility based on personality theory thing goes, has anyone considered the monumental importance of the Enneagram Instincts? I was thinking about this the other day, then I realized other people had beat me to it.

In short, Sexual types will have very different needs than Self-preservation types, especially where romance and things are concerned. It's worth thinking about. The same is true for the other type combinations not meshing well.

It's just interesting to me that people use MB, and sometimes Enneagram, for (experimental) match-ups and forget about the Instincts, which seem to be monumental as they apparently encompass much of our baser, animal energy.

http://www.enneagram.net/instsub.html

 

[TinyBubbles]

in my experience sexual variants have a streak of sensuality and passion for intense experiences, like skydiving, that the other two don't. they typically attract others without even trying, too, and usually have a lot of friends.

 

[Gaze]

This makes good sense. I think I'm the sexual subtype. And the person who I am dating is a self pres. And I think it's our differences in this area which causes the most friction or tension in our relationship. While I'm focused on developing connection, closeness, building the relationship, while he's more focused on personal development and self protection, dedicating more attention to personal needs and desires. This difference actually explains quite a bit. Thanks for posting this. It never clicked before that this could be the real issue between us.

 

[Lexika]

They are more important for relationship compatibility than MBTI and Socionics type matches IME.

However, it seems that there are more people mistyped in Enneagram than in MBTI, just because Enneagram is more complex and less structured than jungian typologies, and this plethora of mistypes presents a problem for figuring out instinct compatibility. This was transcribed from an Enneagram Institute workshop event that many people with Social (SOC) instinct often mistype into SO-last stackings SP/SX and SX/SP and from this point it becomes complicated to trace any compatibilities and figure out their true significance.