APT Article by Jack Falt
I just finished Pat Wyman’s book Three Techniques to Self-Understanding (CAPT 2001). She is a therapist who uses the MBTI® assessment tool, the Enneagram, and Inner-Child Healing affective techniques in her work with women who have suffered abuse in some form as children. She uses the MBTI® to determine the true inner self, and the Enneagram to determine the main defence mechanisms used by the client. Then she uses Inner-Child Healing techniques with the client to bring about some resolution for the client. Wyman finds that current situations similar to past abuse situations in the lives of her clients tend to trigger their use of these defence mechanisms. These behaviours are usually destructive to their lives.
I have also been interested in Linda Berens’s Dynamics of Personality Type (Telos 1999) booklet that lists the primary (the top four in the hierarchy) and the shadow (the lowest four) cognitive processes. She includes a chart that compares Jung, Myers, Beebe and her own hierarchy of processes and the names given to them by each of these people. Each of Berens eight processes can have a positive or negative way of expressing itself, but the four shadow processes are usually negative. The Berens names are: Primary: 1st – + Leading/- Dominating; 2nd – + Supportive/- Overprotective; 3rd – + Relief/- Unsettling; 4th – + Aspirational/ - Projective; and Shadow: 5th – - Opposing/+ Backup; 6th – - Critical/+ Discovery; 7th – - Deceiving/+ Comedic; and 8th – -Devilish/+ Transformative. When two dissimilar hierarchies are compared, e.g. INTP with ISFP, Ti is the Leading (1st) process for INTP, and the lowest, Devilish (8th), for ISFP, at the bottom of its shadow hierarchy. This can trigger a negative response since the ISFP has difficulty understanding what the INFP is talking about. Leona Haas also makes significant use of these concepts in her theory of communication.
Last year at the OAAPT November 2001 Conference, I asked Naomi Quenk why she only considered the top four cognitive processes when considering triggers for in-the-grip experiences. Her response was that she found that using the inferior function to understand in-the-grip situations worked for her in her therapy practice. In her revision of her book Beside Ourselves (CPP 1993) called Was That Really Me? (Davis-Black, 2002) she indicates that the trigger for in-the-grip responses is caused by stress. In her latest book she describes how chronic stress is a reality for many people.
At this year’s OAAPT November 2002 Conference, Leon Haas with Todd Wilhelm led a workshop called “Using Type to Increase Personal & Organizational Effectiveness.” They led us through a set of exercises to help us have a clearer concept of each of the eight cognitive processes. When asked about what triggered negative responses and which process would it be in, she said that a response could come from any of the eight, including the dominant which she had personally experienced. Triggers could come from the environment or internally. She used Beebe’s archetypal names for the hierarchy of the eight processes. Because of the limitations of time, this topic was only touched on briefly.
What puzzles me is: What are the triggers for negative responses? Are they caused by stress or deep seated childhood trauma, or both. If triggered, does one ‘flip out’ using negative aspects of one of the cognitive processes, or as Pat Wyman suggests it triggers an Enneagram defence mechanism? When we look at a model of all eight processes placed on a diagram of the ‘Self,’ each process has at least a portion that is in the unconscious. Are all negative responses from the unconscious? If they are from the unconscious, are they also to be considered from the shadow?
As I understand Quenk’s model, when we get into a situation that is beyond our capability to cope with, we use our dominant and that doesn’t work. This could be a negative response or at least a non productive one. Then we move through the auxiliary, tertiary and then to the inferior functions. Sometimes we seem to jump directly to the inferior. We are said to be in-the-grip. When this occurs, the shadow often appears. As an example, projection can be one manifestation of the shadow. We accuse others of what we have repressed about ourselves. The inferior function is the form and the shadow is our personal content. The shadow is our unexamined dark side that we have stuffed into our unconscious out of our awareness. Jung tried to understand the unconscious and had some perceptive insights that have proved very useful; but I think he realized himself that at best he only had a vague notion of what was really in the unconscious.
This makes it more difficult to come up with a comprehensive theory of triggers and reactions. Several theories seem to work, at least for some practitioners. Perhaps people are just too complex to put it down to one cause. It may be too simplistic to say that situation A will trigger a negative response B from the Xth cognitive process in a hierarchy.
John Beebe would seemed to be the authority on the subject. He has written very little up to now but promises that he will soon. The plans are in the works for Career/LifeSkills to have him come and lead a two-day event on Jungian Processes this coming spring. Both Haas and Berens place great credence of his work. Perhaps Beebe can shed some light on the situation and bring some clarity to this confusing topic.