Enneagram Type 6w7 Childhood (A complete guide)

In this article, we will discuss Enneagram Type 6w7 i.e. type six-wing seven ‘The Buddy’ and the role of their childhood in their personality development. We will do that by initially giving an introduction to enneagrams, their structure, and wings. This will follow up by describing the dominant type six personality and its triad. We will move on to giving an overview of its subtype i.e. type 6w7. Finally, we will discuss the detailed role of childhood in their development.  

Enneagram Type 6w7: Childhood

Enneagram type 6w7 has the primary characteristics of type 6 and secondary characteristics of type 7 personality. These people are hard-working, social, and friendly. Their core childhood conflict that makes them the way they are is ‘Apprehension and Distrust’. This means that they find it hard to trust people and worry all the time due to it. They strive to look for answers or an authority figure that can give them a sense of stability or guidance.

Introduction to Enneagrams

Enneagrams are a map or typology of human personalities. It has its roots in spirituality, philosophy, and psychology. Multiple people contributed to its development among which George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, Oscar Ichazo, and Claudio Naranjo are the most prominent. 

It is divided into nine personality types that are spread across 3 triads i.e. Feeling triad, Thinking Triad, or Instinctive Triad. It describes a person’s fundamental psychological orientation in the form of good or bad traits and sees which triad quality i.e. emotion, intellect or instincts is most characteristic of his or her personality. 

An enneagram gives a personality type that is fluid and explains its change across time i.e. personality integration (during health, self-actualization) or disintegration (during ill health, neurosis). In other words,  a personality can become more healthy or unhealthy as it moves in different directions from its basic type. Enneagram also links one personality type with other personality types.

The structure of Enneagram

Enneagram symbol is a circle that has 9 points (each point is a personality type) present on the circumference. Each type is related to another as represented by the connected lines. Points 3,6, 9 forms a triangle. They are primary personality types that are blocked in some way from feelings, thoughts, or instincts. Whereas 4,2,8,5,7,1 form an irregular hexagram and are secondary personality types since they are mixed and not blocked from feelings, thoughts, or instincts. Each type is the result of a dialectic. In every triad, one type over-expresses its characteristic quality, another under-expresses it, and the third is mostly out of touch with it. 

Wings in Enneagrams 

The Basic Personality Type is the most characteristic of a person. Whereas wings add elements to the overall personality i.e. it is the second side of it. 

Example: If you are a personality type 6, you can have wing 5 or wing 7. So, such a personality can be understood by knowing the traits of the basic or main type and the secondary types. Usually, each personality has two wings, and both influence a person. However, at times people have one dominant wing along with their basic personality type.

The Thinking Triad: Personality Types Five, Six, Seven

• The positive and negative traits of these personalities are dominated by thinking.

• When these types are healthy, their thoughts make them distinct and admirable for their introspective qualities, insights, and ideas that have scientific, creative, and practical applications.

• When they are unhealthy, they are out of balance with respect to their thoughts and are difficult to interact with.

• All three personality types have common problems linked with insecurity and anxiety.

Enneagram Type 6: The Loyalist’

Key traits:  engaging, committed, defensive, and paranoid. They are mostly out of touch with their thinking i.e. they either seek reassurance/confirmation for their thoughts or get trapped in circular thinking that is not grounded. It has two subtypes:

• The six with wing 5 (Type 6w5)

• The six with wing 7 (Type 6w7)

Type 6w7: ‘The Buddy’

Type 6w7 has basic traits of type 6 and secondary traits of type 7 personality. Type 6 and 7 reinforce each other and push type 6w7 to be extroverted, social, and focused on the environment. Such people want to be liked and accepted. So, they analyze their actions and compare them with others’ reactions to know whether they are behaving acceptably or not. 

Healthy versions of this subtype want to be accepted, happy and financially settled. They have many hobbies and interests. Their approach to life is to have fun. 6w7 are attracted to acting, music energy, advertising, and marketing as that can help them channel their energy and also be admired. At times, they may doubt themself and seek reassurance from others. Usually, they use humor to cope with challenges in life. 

Average versions of this subtype are hardworking, loyal but struggle with procrastination since they are dependent on the approval and advice of others on every step of their work. If the advice is conflicting, they get indecisive and have difficulty handling anxiety and pressure. They may use humor, distractions and overcompensatory actions like drinking, overeating, drug abuse, etc. to cope. They have strong opinions are vocal about what they like and dislike. 

Unhealthy versions of this subtype are more prone to becoming dependent and emotionally needy. Addiction is fairly common among them. With increasing anxiety, they become emotionally erratic, hysterical, and exhibit manic behavior. They can act in a reckless, unpredictable manner and may even turn to suicide attempts as a way to seek help.

Examples of Type 6w7: Tom Hanks, Princess Diana, Jay Leno, Marilyn Monroe

Strengths of Type 6w7

• Caring
• Uphold commitments
• Social and free-spirited
• Dedicated to good causes

Weaknesses of Type 6w7

• Indecisive
• Engage in self-doubt
• Care a lot about material possessions
• Difficulty with negative emotions

Workplace and job 

Type 6w7 are positive, reliable, and helps others to reach a common goal. They prefer to work in jobs that include social interaction and stability e.g.actor, author, nurse, professor, etc.

Source of Stress for type 6w7

• Negativity from others
• Feelings of rejection
• Losing trust in loved ones
• Facing internal conflicts

Basic fear 

Type 6w7 fear loss of their support system which is exhibited by their affirmation and reassurance-seeking behavior.

Basic desire 

Type 6w7 desire to feel secure and safe. This is exhibited by their love and support for others and loyalty. They often defend themself by projecting their feelings on other people which may lead to misunderstandings in relationships.

Type 6w7 Childhood/development

We become any personality depending on how we have learned to respond to the world growing up. Our early childhood particularly our relationship with our parents governs how we unconsciously adapt to our family and the world. Genetics and temperament have their role as well. A person remains one personality type throughout life but may change and grow to develop healthy or unhealthy traits.  

During their childhood, Type six children wanted approval from the parental figure occupying the protective role in charge of providing discipline, structure, and rules (in most cases it’s the father but not always). They would feel anxious upon not getting approval. As they grew up, they started to substitute this figure with other authorities e.g. civil authority or a belief system, etc. that could give them approval and the same sense of security. 

Basically, the role of the protective figure is to help the child function independently from the mother. So as adults, sixes look for people or structures that could help them get that independence which ironically increases their dependence. 

If the father provided support and direction, sixes would expect the same from other figures in their life as adults. They would observe rules and work to please the authority figure or institution. Whereas, if their father were abusive or controlling or unfair, they would feel they are in ‘trouble’ and act rebellious and disobey rules. In case, the early environment was too dysfunctional,  sixes would become self-destructive as they continue to play out the image of the bad child their father perceived of them in their childhood. 

Sixes continue to seek approval from the protective figure, as they think it would help them become independent. They seek reassurance and approval from others and don’t feel confident in themselves as they have been taught to not trust their judgment.

They spend most of their time trying to figure out the right thing to do. They question their choices and compare it with what their protective figure would have done. Even if they do not agree with the authority system, they continue to rely on it as they cannot risk being without guidance. Seeking reassurance becomes ingrained in them.

FAQs: Type 6w7-Childhood

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed enneagram type 6w7 in detail and the role of childhood in their development. We found that enneagram type 6w7 has the primary characteristics of type 6 and secondary characteristics of type 7 personality. These people are hard-working, social, and friendly. Their core childhood conflict that makes them the way they are is ‘Apprehension and Distrust’. This means that they find it hard to trust people and worry all the time due to it. They strive to look for answers or an authority figure that can give them a sense of stability or guidance.

 I hope you found this article interesting. If you have any queries or comments, please state them in the comment section 😊

Citations

https://www.crystalknows.com/enneagram/type-6-wing-7

https://www.psychologyjunkie.com/2020/03/10/the-childhood-wounds-of-every-enneagram-type/#

Personality Types – Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery by Don Richard Riso with Russ Hudson

The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson