Chuck Degroat on the Nine Fces of Narcissism [S03-043]

[Music] hey folks and welcome to typology the show in which we explore the mystery of the human personality through the lens of the intagram i'm anthony skinner - the producer of the show we're certainly happy to have you here with us today and before we go any further I want to introduce the host of our show Ian cron Ian welcome to the show Anthony thank you very much glad to be here good to see you today listen we've got a great guest today why don't you tell us a little bit about the show and about the guest himself yeah so we're talking today with dr. chuck de grote Chuck is a psychologist he teaches counseling and spiritual formation he is a guy who has just written a terrific new book that's titled when narcissism comes to church healing your community from emotional and spiritual abuse and I'm excited about this conversation and you know that this is a little bit of a thing with me i bristle sometimes when people say oh so-and-so is such a narcissist or I think he's a narcissistic personality disorder you know and they just throw the term narcissism around like it's confetti without really actually knowing what narcissism is right they don't really have at least from a clinical perspective sometimes people will use the word narcissism and what they really meant is that guy's a little too self-interested or he's too into himself or she's you know to self referencing all the time blah blah blah blah blah when narcissism is far more complicated than that mm-hmm and what happens in the show that is so cool he actually has a chapter in the book titled the nine phases of narcissism right and he uses the inia Graham as a way to talk about how narcissism can show up in each of the nine types right yeah and so people know right from the from the get-go right when we talk about narcissism we're talking about a continuum right yes so you everybody all of us are on the continuum of narcissism right some of us are very low some of us are very high we may not meet all the criteria for a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder but we're all kind of on that spectrum and probably moving around upon it from you know as circumstances arise but we're going to talk today about narcissism and I hope it's only the first of two conversations I hope the next time we have Chuck on I want to talk about healing and we are going to talk about the healing path for each of these nine types for their own particular manifestation or expression of narcissism dealing with our own notices of type but I want to get them on to talk about how do we heal from having had a mom or a dad or we have a partner or a friend how do we deal and heal from narcissistic abuse so I mean we're that's down the road but this episode is killer because we're just gonna talk about what is narcissism how does it show up in all nine types and what's the healing path for all nine types to keep narcissism in check right right and anyway it's gonna be fantastic it's a great conversation it's applicable for all nine numbers and it's you know his title includes narcissism and the church but this is for everyone everywhere oh yeah you know this isn't about just pastors and church leaders we're talking specifically today about everybody yes before we get to the show we want to let everyone know if you're listening as you normally have been listening to this show we are now also on YouTube so you can continue to listen as you do with Apple and Spotify and whatever platform you have been listening on but we would like to encourage you to pop over to Ian's YouTube channel Ian Morgan Kron YouTube and check out the video portion side of what we're doing podcasts wise now you can not only just hear but you can actually watch the interview as well as you are introduced to these guests and we want to encourage you just to subscribe to the YouTube channel as well so please do that and then before we go on one other housekeeping thing Ian would you tell everyone about the special we have running on the IEQ nine yes so the IQ 9 is my my Enneagram assessment we're very proud of it it's it's really a great tool for those people who are trying to determine their type I think it's as far as I'm concerned it's the most accurate test available out there and it gives such a robust report on your on your type your subtype etc etc and if people just go to ian's Lordan cron slash assessment they could put in the the passcode typology all in uppercase letters and get 20% off on the IE q 9 so I just want to strongly encourage people to do that and just awesome one last thing for those of you who listen to typology regularly if you would do us the great favor of leaving a note of encouragement or kindness about the podcast giving it five stars or you know just whatever it is that you're supposed to do there it really helps people find us the more reviews we have the more opportunities people have to find the show that would be terrific ly helpful fantastic well let's go ahead and get to our show and our guest Chuck the growth [Music] dr. Chuck DeGroat welcome to typology thank you so much we have been really looking forward to this this conversation about the nine phases of narcissism which is of actually tremendous interest to me and I think it's going to be tremendously interesting to our audience because you know everywhere you go you hear people sprinkling the word narcissism into conversations like as I mean this is a clinical term that they they kind of just sort of throw around as if you know everybody who's self-interested or sell talks about themselves too much they label a narcissist can just take a moment before we jump into the nine phases of narcissism through the lens of the Enneagram would you just maybe help us understand what narcissism actually is yeah I think you're right I mean I think we talked about it we throw it around whether it's in your political figures or athletes or whatever it might be Hollywood actors and there is this caricature of narcissism usually of the grandiose self important person and what we get from the like the Bible of Psychology the dsm-5 is sort of like that I mean things like grandiosity attention seeking a lack of empathy which is I think highly significant when it comes to narcissus yes I mean they talk about impairments in like vocation and relationships and so there's there's always a lot of disruption but but I think it's more complicated than that and that's why I have spent some time looking at these nine phases and narcissism in and through the Enneagram so first of all how did you first learn about the India gram I'm always that interested we have a my friend Kurt Thompson is coming on next who is you know as a psychiatrist and and you know so two two of you both of you highly trained clinicians I'm always interested in how you came to learn about something which is essentially folk psychology in a way and so what was your introduction to the annual grandeur well first of all I love that you're having hurt I mean he's become a friend in the last few years and what a beautiful human being in another for by the way so that's next let's just load up your podcast before that's right you're a four I'm a four and Anthony's of four special podcast ever but yeah so we were just joking about this you know about accepting the anagram into my heart many many years ago actually without in seminary I was as arrogant I was this arrogant seminarian who knew all this theology and you know had it all figured out until I got confronted by a professor who who said man you're gonna be dangerous to the church if you keep this up and so he challenged me to get some counseling and actually I ended up doing the mental health counseling program there in Orlando this is back in the mid 90s and I had a supervisor back then who was interested in in the writings of Richard Rohr and introduced me to the Enneagram through Richard Rohr I read it and you guys know how this goes you start to see overlaps right in time you start to see overlaps between like your clinical clients and people who I was doing pastoral care for and Enneagram types and then I was I was in the church planting world for a long time where I've seen I've done tons of assessments over the year I've probably done fifteen years worth of assessments of church planters and pastors and that's what I really began to see how narcissism was showing up in all these different types so it's just been a growing for me you know just a growing fascination even before it got sexy in the last few years just studying studying the Enneagram and psychology right which brings me to the name of your most recent book which is when narcissism comes to church early healing your community from emotional and spiritual abuse and during this episode we're going to talk more broadly outside the church just about the nine phases of narcissism so that folks can kind of to handle on it and but I'm excited about it because you know I meet so many people including myself who have experienced tremendous abuse and pain from particularly people who have full-blown narcissistic personality disorder I realized today we're going to be talking about people on a continuum is that is that correct I think that's really helpful I mean when I the way I understand narcissism and this is due in part to the work of a guy named Thea normal on psychologist I use a an assessment tool that he developed and he puts us along the spectrum of type style and disorder and so we might see narcissistic traits in me or you or anyone else that doesn't necessarily mean that we're not sadistic personality disorder when we see that happening a bit more when it becomes problematic in relationships that might be narcissistic style but but there again what I like to say is where there's curiosity there's probably not a personality disorder in other words where where someone's willing to say yeah I can see how I impact you in that way right yeah I realized I showed up in that way at work and I hurt you were at bullied you that that's what I say probably not a personality disorder when we're disordered that's when we often say as clinicians it's really hard to see change transformation at that point it's the big word is characterological this has been going on in your life for a long long time and that's where we just try to mitigate some of the damage right yeah usually when I was early early in my practice I don't have a practice now but early early on out of grad school basically if I could spot a narcissist or a borderline in the first one or two sessions which as you know is very difficult usually but it's usually about the eighth session that you realize oh I got a bad fish on my line and then you and then you're like but it's too late to leave them yeah usually I often say it's like the work that one person is like the equivalent of three or four clients a week you know it's it's grueling work it's exhausting work you know yes it is alright let's jump into the nine faces of narcissism and and and I'm just curious what what made you integrate this conversation about narcissism with the angiogram yeah so for folks familiar with the Enneagram we've done any study there there's a couple guys reso and Hudson who did some work early on and their work is really important one of the most significant contributions they make to Enneagram studies is their levels of development so these are like nine levels from you might say health to unhealth and what I noticed pretty early on is when you get down into that range of like seven eight nine of on health you're getting into the territory of some pathology clinical pathology of personality disorders for me it was it was a larger conversation really that so there's that piece right there's that kind of Enneagram piece for me that was really significant the second piece was I'm doing all these assessments I'm doing Church consulting organizational consulting pastoral leadership assessments and like I'm seeing narcissism and this is for your like listeners here in the church I'm seeing narcissism pop up on like a full 75% of my assessments like on the spectrum and but they're not all that grandiose type of narcissism right and and a lot of people nowadays are more more equipped with Enneagram language so they're telling them for I'm a six I'm a nine and I'm like wow I'm seeing narcissism and nine that I didn't think those two went together thus the curiosity over like the last three to five years for me and like how do these two work together so as we talk today and describe these nine types of narcissism we're not to be clear talking about people with full-blown narcissistic personality disorder per se what we're just talking about what does it look like when each of these types is manifesting a narcissistic style or or type and and then also what they can do to begin to grow out of the the danger zone of narcissism I like that and I and I think - I mean the conversation takes us away from Oh God he's an 8 so he's got to be a narcissist right right right he's a 3 she of course the Reiser narcissist you know and it takes us into maybe he takes us into the territory of more humility and curiosity which I think I mean I think we're in good territory with the Enneagram when we're operating out of humility and curiosity with each of the types right so yes yeah absolutely and it's important for everyone to realize that each of us is somewhere on that narcissistic spectrum so it's not limited to a type it makes an appearance in all nine types yeah that's right in all nine types just in different ways with different emphases and so they're there again we can we can sort of look at ourselves and say well how does this show up for me when it's so easy I mean I don't know if this is the case for you guys but it's so easy for me to scapegoat and say oh yeah it's I could see it in him but not in me so me as a four how's it show up in a four right so yeah Wow okay well let's get at it okay let's um let's just sort of jump in we're gonna let's start in the heart triad right let's let's start with two threes and fours because you know we we we know that this is a shame based triad and I noticed in your book by the way that the word shame and narcissism continually came up next to each other yeah yeah I mean shame is really a core feature of narcissism right and you guys know when when you work with folks like this I'm sure you've seen it in your clinical work in I mean when you get down to it when you get to like the pater level when you get you know when you've got the I mean I set in an office of a megachurch pastor and I've said it just feels to me sometimes like you're about eight years old you're just a little boy and I've seen the tears start to come so scared I'm so anxious I don't know what people think and I wonder and you know that's the shame that's the that's the kind of core undergirding emotion but we know for twos threes and fours that that's kind of that's that's the driver that's the fuel for us in that particular triad you know it's so interesting you should say this because often when I talk with threes and particularly male threes I often notice when I look into their eyes that they have this lost boy look yes and and it sort of is a one of those somatic our body triggers for me or indicators to me ah maybe I'm dealing with a three here because they have that kind of lost and forlorn kind of a look in the eyes they could be smiling they could be animated but the eyes are giving them away a little bit I don't know if that's your experience or not but that's been mine oh man that's so I love that it feels so right I've seen that look in the eyes of high achieving three organizational leaders megachurch pastors and and you wonder why they've got such influence they gather so many people and yet they're so lost yes yes okay so we're gonna start in the heart triad let's um I'm gonna leave it up to you to talk us through how narcissism makes an appearance in the lives of every type we're gonna start with the - yeah well yeah let's make this conversational because I'd love to hear how you guys think about this but I I owe a lot for the to a lot to my friend and your friend michael cusack oh gosh yes yeah Michael Mike well you know the two is sometimes called as the Savior right but Michael calls the two the benevolent narcissist I don't know he's trying to be kind to himself or what I mean maybe we should bring him on and have a conversation but but um you know the - there's that kind of element to the - you know there there's some Enneagram theorists that say there's a seductive or even manipulative quality to the two that it's kind of nice when we talked about helpfulness you know they like to be helpful they have the need to be needed right but there is this kind of exaggerated need to be needed for the two and narcissism shows up in this kind of sometimes for for to in this kind of grandiose way I need you to see what I'm doing I need you to see that I'm coming through for you and you guys know this that the the underbelly the two sometimes is a kind of anger they're connected to the eight right there can be this kind of anger like if you don't see me I will make you pay mmm the one hand they look really generous and they look really gracious but if you don't notice you might you might be on the receiving end of their fury I wonder if that's been your experience at all the twos absolutely and twos you know we often in a clinical study might talk about them as being histrionic yeah because there's a lot of emotionality there's a lot of this kind of bubbly you know over-the-top emotional crying and laughing and you know and in seductiveness which is a piece of that history onic thing and I think that too is a kind of narcissistic thing you know it's the it's the look at me piece of the - yeah that's right that's right I mean he's you're on it to be clear that's a word that that's a close cousin of narcissism right what we know from this dsm-5 is that there are this there are these clusters of personality disorders and in cluster B you've got histrionic and borderline and antisocial and narcissists and they all share features you know and so there's this overdramatic type that we see in the - with constant emotionality right but oh that's such an ache inside right and so when we talk about I don't know if it's time for us to sort of talking about the healing path for each one as we go but I know for twos they long to be seen apart from what they contribute right and so I like to say with narcissism that I with each type I want them to invite me offstage back behind the curtain and I want to know what's what's really going on with you you know I I want you to see that there's something more to you then then your capacity to come through for others for instance let me see in the - yeah you know what's interesting here's a question I have for you imagine a - relaxes their personality right it just like the curtain comes down and I um and I ask this of people sometimes and most of the time they don't know how to answer the question and the question is what emotion would you have to feel if you no longer could rely on your personalities strategy to get by Wow what do you think it would be for twos Wow what emotion would you need to feel if you weren't relying on that strategy and I might say delight delight in who they are apart from how they come through for you that's that's a first instinct in mine what do you think I you know I I think that there's probably a positive and quote-unquote negative although it's not always a negative right I think yes delight which is frightening right because now you have to own your delightfulness yes that's a scary idea but I also think grief is in there and I think I think that's there for twos threes and fours that grief is a very powerful underlying emotion for those three types yes yes yeah I remember years ago there was a man who felt he was absolutely essential he was running a v4 in a church setting actually to off-the-charts and I remember it was costing him time with his family and and real health with his family and so I didn't fire him but I said hey you gotta step away for six months and just get tuned in your family and I think what you're saying resonates a lot because there was just this sense for him of like Who am I if I'm not the AV guy right who am i if I'm not helping yes and and and having a setting in which I am recognized as the helper or as you call it the benevolent narcissist right and so yeah so what's the healing path for that - again yeah so I mean I think I think there's a wound right there are wounds that that we could talk about I mean the we all probably in some ways share share all these same wounds right we try to nail down particular wounds for each type but I think they're shared in large part but there is this deep longing to be to be seen I mean I when I think about twos I think they're often parentis eyed when they were young meaning that they were they were made to grow up too early you know and so sometimes for me it's sort of like you know you get to be you get to receive you get to be a need you don't have to help here you don't have to come through for me you don't have to come through for the organization for the church for the team you get for this season you get to just maybe grieve the loss as you say of always having to be on and coming through for people and and to just receive and that's so hard as you guys know it's so hard for twos to just relax in my clinical work you know it can take six months a year for them to finally say I came here today not thinking the question that I could ask you you know right right okay so moving on to threes yeah okay and you have different names for these types than I use and so we call them the achieve the performer what do you call them achiever performer winner yeah names are i mean names can be helpful at times but achiever performer winner person who loves to be on stage when you ask folks you know what I'm been doing so speaking on the book I'll ask people what are the classic Enneagram narcissistic types and three will come up inevitably like first or second place right because these are folks who seem seem to need to be on stage at some level they need to win they need some some approval right there's probably some sort of wound around like do you see me do you notice me do you see how good I'm doing you see that I you know I started the play or I got the good grade or I you know I made the touchdown pass or whatever it might be what's really what's really tragic when when I think about threes is when that doesn't work anymore yeah I remember working with a guy who was probably closing in on 50 years old who is like the star of the football team so now you know now he's out of shade he doesn't look that great he's over drinking and he's just so sad and again it's sort of like with the - who am i if I'm not the guy on the football field he's pastoring a church this is this isn't a church context - of like 70 people and for him it should be 7,000 right because I'm only successful to the degree that lots of people are approving of me sometimes with narcissism we talk about a leader being a mere hungry leader young politician an influencer being mere hungry and the crowd is the mirror and so you know to the extent that you reflect back to me that I'm doing a good job I'm okay and without that threes can feel pretty dang empty yes they all have two threes and fours all have issues around identity all three project images in order to mask what they fear is no identity behind the mask yeah yeah Who am I I mean so when we talk about the healing path the question becomes like Who am I then if I'm not on stage and and I remember years ago working with a guy who and I use this metaphor a lot of come come backstage with me let's go back behind the curtain right I use this a lot with threes in particular and there was a sense of life that I don't know who I am apart from the lights the camera the applause you know I think that there and I'd be interested you know you just raised that question for the two but I do think that for two threes and fours there is a kind of brief when the strategy isn't working anymore right there's a there's a deep and profound sense of loss and and there's a I think maybe a befriending of solitude you know Henri Nouwen talks about the journey from loneliness to solitude and they're so lonely when they I mean I've worked in organizations where the narcissist has had to step away for a time and it's sort of like if I'm not in charge if I'm not leading then there's no identity anymore and I've got to sort of befriend myself I've got to be okay with me and man that's that's hard that's really painful like when we set them up in like a retreat centre for a week and it's like I don't know what to do in the room all right yes I'm gonna I'm just bringing up something here that was a quote about that I give to 3s a lot that that comes from Parker Palmer okay and Palmer writes our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self hood whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be as we do so we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks you will also find our path of authentic service in the world yeah and and by the way Parker is a self-identified three oh wow I didn't know that about him yeah mm-hmm that's fantastic yeah and and you know in in in a culture that sort of elevates threes do we do we allow space we create spaces for them to step away and like when I was a pastor in San Francisco I would lead silent retreats like 48-hour silent retreats and my threes my extroverted threes after about 12 hours they come to me for spiritual direction they say I can't do this after 24 hours of 36 hours they said this saved my life yeah right yeah yeah well that's because when the projection comes down the green shoots if their authentic self start to come up out of the earth and they go wait a minute there really is someone here behind the mask yeah yeah look at that who is there little boy growing up like I like him yeah yeah yeah I love the green shoots beautiful metaphor let's move on to the best number on the anagram fours and since we're all fours let's I want to know what does narcissism how does it make its appearance in the life of a four and what's the healing path oh gosh well we long to be special right it's where sometimes called the individualist the romantic the poet depending on who you're talking to now one one quick distinction I'll make that we haven't talked about yet is there is often a distinction made among psychologists between grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism interests and grandiose being the kind of staged narcissism and vulnerable narcissism being a kind of offstage more smug version of I called a smug superiority it's like the shadow side of narcissism here's here's the distinction I make the distinction between the pastor or the leader of an organization of 7,000 verses seventy and and I was working with Enneagram for who is the leader of a small church in rural Iowa and I remember him saying he even use the language of a for we are special we're chosen we're pure we have the right theology we have the right beliefs you know and this could be for an organ organization too like we we create the right product we're doing it the right way right in the sense of special not the one sense of right but like we we've got the most special the most unique thing that we have to offer here that no one else has and and so perforce there really is this sense that you get sometimes from them of a kind of smug superiority an emotional manipulation here either for me or against me this is where we sometimes see the borderline personality manifested as a sort of narcissistic type a real sense of the question of do you love me if you love me you'll you'll remain profoundly loyal to me and you'll show it you'll recognize what a gift I am and how special I am so so it's really really painful it can be really painful to be a narcissistic for yes it's in it I like what you said leave me because I think that the feelings of deprivation actually desolation would be a better word for sevens it would be deprivation but for but really four fours of desolation and abandonment these are children in childhood these are people who have either had a real or perceived experience of profound abandonment either as literal or emotional abandonment and thus the need to be special and unique to recapture the missing piece that led to the abandonment yeah yeah yeah and really working so hard for group right I think one of the myths sometimes about fours is that we're just so authentic and I was just having a conversation with a guy this morning where where I I was talking to him about this you know and I said I wonder if your authenticity is not just another mask you know and there's sometimes for you a word that I use in the book a phoner ability not a vulnerability but an F a UX of vulnerability like he's so honest you know and sometimes when you're with him he's like oh man I'm just I'm struggling with such deep stuff man and it doesn't feel like you're connected it doesn't feel like he's there it feels like it's a it's an act of sorts right and so so there I mean the the healing path for a four can be murkier you know I mean it feels so clear in some ways for a three because there's a stage self you know we talk about the false self and the true self but sometimes it can be a bit deceptive for the for because they can come back to you and I know I've done this with well I'm being honest I'm being real with you this is who I am how come you can't accept Who I am does that make sense yes it does and I and one of the things that I've noticed about fours is that their addiction to suffering whatever the event was the inciting event that they're addicted to that they're always thinking about my alcoholic father that terrible move we made from San Diego to Panama you know or whatever it is actually there yep sometimes I've said this to a four and it's gotten different results but you say can you tell me the real suffering that you're reported suffering is actually hiding yeah Wow that's good yeah and you know sometimes you know they can get it usually they have to think about it a while because it's a fairly dis equilibrate in question yeah right another oh I love your vulnerability yeah we we use the word transparency and vulnerability and transparency is when you sort of project just the right image of the word people think you're being vulnerable but you're not actually being vulnerable to differentiate between the two but I love that word that's that's great and it works right and I mean and it's working more and more now I mean when I first got into the work that I do there there was a sense that you can't really be honest about your stuff you know there's a stage self and you're really but now people feel a whole lot more comfortable being like man I'm unbroken we use words like that so broken man I got so much crap in my life you know but it's not really it's not really an honest kind of authenticity if you want to call it that right right it's another it's another way of distancing oneself and protecting oneself and so that the healing journey I mean I I think sometimes it takes a really adept and skillful therapist or spiritual director to really call that particular aspect of the four out and the unique version of narcissism call that unique version of narcissism out and invite them to to the true self hmm and and of course we're all afraid that there's nothing underneath there right that we're completely empty that if we get there we're not gonna find anything ultimately yeah right if I'm not special and unique then I'm nobody nobody yeah exactly I think that's incredibly helpful so the healing path for the four then as I understand it for you would be well I'll just ask you the question what is the healing path I know you said it's murky but as you try to explain it what what's your best explanation yeah that's good I sometimes use a metaphor in the metaphor is the metaphor of a hurricane you know I was in Florida for 14 years we had a lot of hurricanes come through and you get caught up in the winds and sometimes I'll even say when when people I'm working with get comfortable with this language and I'm getting tugged in again I'm in the drama again you know I'm in that will I approve of you're a woman I approve of you I'm getting the tug of war again and I often I often talk about it as an invitation to the quiet eye of the store you know every so often when a hurricane would come through we get to that eye where you see above to the clear blue sky and the winds would just stop and folks who are willing to do the work are able to see how this strategy plays out for them to say I I'm tired I'm exhausted I want that quiet I okay so I'm gonna stop Chuck and I'm just gonna show up now so they kind of catch themselves in the act yeah exactly and if they can learn to dis identify who they are from the storm yeah and and live into their true self I think that's an indication that they are on a good path okay let's move into the head triad okay how narcissism shows up in the life of a flip start with a five okay then we call the investigators what do you call well I caught the distance er the investigator the distance rats and that's a fine word now when we talk about the head triad I I think that we I like to say that anxiety is at the core right so what shame is at the core of the the heart triad anxieties at the court of the head triad and and what I want to say I won't honor our longing for security but I also want to say that this is kind of an exaggerated disconnection from vulnerability that you see in the head trap triad right so there there there's an incapacity to be really vulnerable there's probably some wound around relationship where it was like I'm gonna go up in the in the case of the five the distance or in the investigation I'm gonna go up to the fortress of my own head and and in so doing I can keep a distance from you know the chaos in mom and dad's marriage for instance you know I I was loved - it's funny you guys probably have done things like this you use a particular metaphor story and and fives resonate with it - like they were the ones reading Tolkien in the closet in their bedroom by flashlight right and that was a safe place for them right so yeah so fives are intellectually distant and and the narcissism can come out as a kind of condescension assume some work in marriage counseling with a couple and she's looking at him like just give me something and he'd write down on on you know yellow pad in ink she just said just give me something no but like she's begging it she's right there and I'm like I have to call attention to the reality that like where are you right now I just wrote it down he says you know I just wrote it down and just I'm just recording the data well you come out from the tower and look at her and show up for the relationship um but you know he sort of defends himself by saying ah I'm paying attention Arnie you know I'm trying to figure out what to do just give me a chance to figure out what to do and I'll do it you know and so there can be I think it worse that that's kind of a fun story but I think it worse there could be kind of an arrogant condescension where they never come out of the tower in fact they use their their extraordinarily brilliant minds to kind of drop mind bombs on people you know yes well bombs on people and in so doing they they really destroy the the opportunity for relationship and intimacy yes I think at their worst I remember I had a college professor from was a five and I guess academia would attract its share of fives right and I remember he was an English professor I was an English major and he he said well he was talking about John Milton and I said gosh I've never read John Milton and you could see him begin to look down his nose there's a pull down his glasses and go you've never read Milton yeah and and of course you could tell it was kind of a delicious experience for him right and I think that's an example of a five they can be a little bit elitist set apart by their own intelligence but of course that is a defense against deep-seated feelings of ineptitudes and inadequacy yeah I love that deep-seated feelings of ineptitude and inadequacy yeah right and I mean it feels like miles away to cross that chasm to the floor to the heart right and and I think when we talk about the healing path there's a sense in which I you know I'll use the metaphor I'll bite them out of the fortress out of the tower you know come down from the tower and just give me a half hour in our counseling session you know give me a half hour it you know right here in the flesh and then you can go back up there and you know so I don't want it I don't want them I don't need them to take it too too quickly but I remember years ago I was working with a guy where say I'll take you up on that I'll play that game with you he'd come down and eats you know he'd spent a good half-hour 45 minutes with me and with his wife and then he began to like it he's like wow it's safer down here than I thought it was you know I kind of liked it my heart I'm starting to feel something in here and that's a really beautiful moment but you know that anxiety that fear will send them right back up to the top of the tower and scare them away hmm so it sounds like the healing path for five is to just begin to take short forays you know into the heart right and and be self compassionate when you make a run you back up to the mind but maybe next time it's an hour rather than half an hour or you know you just begin to almost you know it's like when you're trying to get an agoraphobic out of the house okay we're just gonna go to the front doorstep and then come back in the house and then we're gonna go to the sidewalk come back into the house and maybe that's true of every type right we just say make little strips yeah and I think you know just to kind of show show our cards second the work that we do sometimes I mean we I think it's good to honor people's strategies at times like this that's worked for them for a long time and I remember when I was a new clinician I just wanted and on a like seek-and-destroy mission like that's that's bad that's sinful that's hurting people that's a bad strategy then whatever I you know whatever language I used you shouldn't live like that there's no way to invite people to new life do whole presents all these good things right so yeah just step down for a half hour forty minutes with us and boy yeah to watch a five connect you know come online I like the language of coming online is a really beautiful thing yeah that's great okay moving on to one of my favorite numbers legitimately on the intagram which is sixes we call them the loyalists you call them the Hawkeye the hyper-vigilant one you know I mean I when I think of what I think of sixes I'd be curious to get your perspective on this yeah I think of Jason Bourne um you know some people would say Jason Bourne is an AI don't by the way I don't like to watch movies and like type all like friends characters or Seinfeld character stuff but but I think of Jason Bourne as a six like Jason Bourne just sees the room he walks in you know and he sees the exits he knows what's going on he sees the danger he walks outside like he's memorized 17 license plates around him you know so I mean six is see everything and I think unhealthy six is narcissistic sixes are so so self protective and really that's kind of that's what's going on underneath any kind of narcissistic persona right there's there's an element of self-protection that um they're sort of like always identifying what what could go wrong or what you're doing wrong I remember working in an organization where this wasn't a leader of an organization this was an accountant in the organization who was a six and when you walked by her desk inevitably you felt like you've done something like you just made a comment about her husband or kids or something you felt like you've done something wrong she look you look at you the hot guy with the eagle eye you know she's sort of look at you out of the right inevitably as a four I feel like I did do something wrong and I probably right but you know it was probably something like I didn't I forgot to like report my McDonald's receipt or something that week you know but but you know their their rule keepers rule followers and rule keepers and and you feel when you're around them you you can sort of feel like you've done something wrong like you're always on your tiptoes you know tiptoeing around them like i-i-i I want to get on their radar because they'll notice me and they'll recognize that I've really screwed up this time and so this might not be see this is not a grandiose narcissist necessarily this might be another one of those more vulnerable narcissists that operate the shadows a little bit more behind the scenes and yet why am i tiptoeing around her how come she or how come he has so much power in my life hmm you know it's interesting in the world of intelligence right and the intelligence services they talk about training for situational awareness yeah and situational awareness is like when you walk into a restaurant the first thing you do is you you especially if I say if you're a bodyguard you're a Secret Service man you walk in you know where the exits are you look at every single person in the restaurant and you do an assessment you you you know what am I going to do if someone comes from the right or from the left they can tell I mean you know they're so deeply trained and which is almost a six is self trained in situational awareness and I think again I want to remind people what we're describing here is is not a six in their normal operating pattern and let's say the average to healthy space this is how what when we're talking about sixes who are at the very least in the in the style of the narcissist right a little higher on the spectrum than normal they were all the types we're talking about is that is that true yeah that's right that's right I remember you know sixes we know are very dutiful right and I remember I was meeting regularly with a guy he loved he showed up on time was a cop maybe you know it showed up on time and when he knew that when we had our times they're at the 15-minute mark we were done and you know so it's like 49 49 minutes 30 seconds he'd be like okay okay well I gotta get going you gotta get going and and here again you know there with five sixes and sevens there's this basic anxiety and they are kind of disconnecting from vulnerability and you know I remember saying to this guy what what if we broke the rules like what if you stayed five minutes longer he's like well really could we do that yeah so you called these folks the hyper vigilant narcissist right and I think that that really captures a lot of what what it is that you're saying yeah and so what the healing path would be what yeah right so that's it I think I just sort of hinted it with this guy's say hey what if there's life what if there's life beyond your hyper anxiety hyper vigilance the rules like what if what if you and I could be present to one another in a way that didn't require us to have to worry so much you know like and III think that it's sort of you have to notice a strategy of rule keeping and you have to sort of undermine it for them you know and so this is where it's weak it depends on the person right so I'm talking very generally right now but for like for this guy it was such an honor for him to stay for that extra five or seven minutes like he's breaking the rules for me because all I've known since I was a little boy is if I don't keep the rules there's chaos in my home and Chuck's inviting me out you know Ruby has this quote I'm not gonna be coated exactly but come out to the field beyond right doing and wrong doing right yes the field and I'll meet you there and guess what we might actually be able to experience some sense of delight or wonder with one another and so I want to find that field beyond right doing or wrong doing hmm thank you so much okay moving down to sevens yeah I know if I got to speed it up right so 7-7 you might call the optimist I mean with leaders of sevens okay well so Naranjo Claudia Naranjo the great psychologist Enneagram psychologists called the seven the archetype of narcissus yes and and I think this is because the seven is always ahead of everyone else right the seven the optimist the visionary is always kind of seventeen steps ahead of everyone else in the organization right I've got a vision I didn't you just have a vision last week no but I have a new vision if anxiety is operating for the fives and sixes and sevens they're operating out of anxiety too but you might not see it because they've got very compelling personalities right you want to follow them they're inspiring like oh yeah that sounds great I'd love to go there I'd love to try that I'd love to eat that food I'd love to but I remember I learned a lot about sevens when I was in the Bay Area I had a good friend who is a seven whenever we got together it was like there was always the anticipation of the event more than the event you know when we get together next time we're not fillet I'm gonna bring this incredible wine from Napa and we and then we get there and it was sort of like oh but next time when we get together we're gonna have halibut never got this other wine paired with it and I think with five sixes and sevens it's about inviting each and every one of them into vulnerability into the liminality right and I think for a seven they're they're so fearful of limitation I think this is where I like the liturgy right I love Ash Wednesday and I think lint can be a great gift to seventh you are dust and to dust you shall return yes turn to the own being because you're always like you're always kind of hovering five ten fifty feet above the ground yes which Aurora likes to say that sevens want to believe that we live in a world where there's no good Friday and it's Easter all the time yes that's good that's so right right and so I think the healing path for sevens is an introduction to liminality to futility to the present moment to the you know to the uncertainty of the present moment like they they're in their head for a reason their future scheming for a reason right so I remember when I go and I meet my buddy out at a fancy restaurant usually he's one of made in the Bay Area so that was nice but uh I'd say what would it look like for us to not be planning for the next time together but to enjoy the right here and the right now I remember and what it took for him was it took some grief to go back to MIDI grief significant for all D Z and but on this it took losing his mother and sister within the span of about six weeks and then the tears started to come there though there was no capacity to like plan away from the the immediate feelings of extraordinary grief of paint yes yes I have seen that personally as well and it's a it's a hard moment for sevens when when that happens and you it's almost like having a puppy on a leash you have to say stay you stay don't don't don't make a joke out of what you're doing out of your tears don't don't stay just stay with it you know I think four sevens to wear sometimes narcissism shows up is it's a the lack of empathy for what they're because they hate limitations yeah they may say well I'm gonna go do this and then another person says well that's gonna be really inconvenient for me or that's something I'm not comfortable with and the seven may say yeah I really don't care because it's something I want to do it's it's it's my next fun thing and it's like there's the lack of empathy ya know that you see come through in the seven yeah and you know I've seen it in organizations where you know seven is leading the charge we're gonna do this and this I've got a new vision and the six is saying I just I just got the rules down for the last vision like I just figured out what what we had to do and you know and so it can be exhausting really really exhausting particularly if they don't have empathy for others for saying like I'm just not there with you yet I'm still trying to get my head around the last thing yeah exactly okay so I think you mentioned the healing path already let's let's go on to the gut triad listen let's head into eights okay so you know with gut types I think if we've got shame at the core two threes and fours and anxieties for five sixes and sevens anger might just be at the core of eights nines and ones and I think there's a really beautiful longing for justice and righteousness but I might often say that for these folks there's a kind of addiction to conviction and the gut is so certain and I just know that this is the right thing Chuck and so help me God I'm gonna go in this direction and I've got to put that on Facebook I just have to because it's in my gut you know and so when we talk about eights well eights HR usually up their number one two or three on the list of what when I ask people what do you think the narcissistic type is on the inia Graham because eights can come off as bullies I call the eighth the Challenger and there can be kind of this command and control style for eights oftentimes when I worked with eights there's some experience of feeling small insignificant when they were young small and significant maybe bullied and there was maybe a moment or a sequence of moments where they decided consciously unconsciously that I will never be in the one down position again I will be in control and so they'll move into a room with great certainty to be a certainty about what we should do or what we should become and what the purpose of the organization is and at times very little empathy and I think one of the things would be he aids if we put them in that with the dsm-5 calls the cluster B personality disorders narcissism yes your honor borderline sociopaths there are times when aids can become dangerous when they don't know their own power and they can become verbally abusive maybe even physically abusive out of that kind of narcissistic and they don't even know they're doing it like I just thought I remember an eighth said when I said to an eighth I reflected back and I said it seems like you're angry right now and he said to me I'm not angry I'm passionate I doesn't even know his strength and so and so I think the healing path is again to get behind that curtain and to recognize that underneath there's that little boy that little girl who's really just kind of scared really just wants to be loved and it's tired of exerting force into the world all the time I mean it can just be exhausting does that resonate security yes and I've seen again we're talking about types that are probably higher on the No statistics spectrum right then people is sort of in that average space but we work with them we live with them and so it's good to know what it's like and how we can lower the curtain on them and try and get behind what's going on I think part of the healing path for eights is learning how to be open-hearted without cynicism you know I think that there's an element of cynicism about the world that eights have you know like the world is a mean place where you know it's hostile and if you don't take control someone's going to take control of you and so if you can teach them how can you be open-hearted without that cynicism yeah about the world that that's a that's a healing path not an easy one but it is a path nonetheless you know all right nine I'm married I'm married to a nine and I've got a nine daughter tell me tell me what's going on there I'm married tonight to you what about you Anthony okay to force it you're married either but yeah yeah so yeah well I mean in some ways you've never known quiet rage until you've experienced it with a nine with an unhealthy night right and so I mean we're talking about narcissistic types of each one of them nines can make you pay not in a kind of eight direct way or a one self-righteous kind of way but in a kind of passive and subtle way again this is that vulnerable narcissism that we were talking about earlier and one I forget who it was one Enneagram writer I read it one time a B it was you in who talks about storing up arrows and the quiver it's sort of like you you know you've got you've got you've got a full armoury behind you you know and you're just waiting for the arrow to come out but I I like to say that the arrows don't come out directly with the nine they come out sideways there's like what was that it doesn't hit you between the eyes like a two-by-four it's like what was that it just hit me in the tailbone you know it hit me on the side not knives will never come at you directly or rarely come at you directly but they will there's a force to them and you guys have probably experienced element of this where it's like I will I will exert my force by disappearing or becoming silent or not responding to your phone calls and and that's how I'll maintain power in the relationship and so there is that kind of narcissistic power manipulation lack of empathy then that we see in nine sted may may not be as obvious like when we're talking about the nine phases like the nine is the last when people talk about narcissism but the healing path really is like nines are lost right at some level like nine nines really struggle to figure out who they are and they're constantly sort of ordering emotions of others and and I think the the anger - the passive-aggressive anger is something that just sort of comes out sideways but I do think that there's a sense in which rather than pushing back against it I want to say you're you're asking me to notice you like I remember a nine client of mine and my counseling practice didn't show up for a session or two and she was pissed off at me and instead of charging her for sessions or instead of saying well what was that about you know I was like oh I think you're trying to get my attention and and we we began to discover the strategy and so doing she she was able to have a voice with me I created a space for her to begin to have a voice to say okay so I instead of making you pay by missing sessions I'll tell you I really am angry at you chuck it it feels like last time we were together fill the blank you know you didn't show up or you weren't there for me so I'm nines are really fun to work with but but sometimes tricky and subtle when it comes to narcissism makes sense it really does we like to say when an eight is married to a nine that it's a an unstoppable force meets an immovable object oh wow and that really I think describes a little bit of that nine stubbornness that kind of comes out you know so you may get a nine in therapy and in marriage therapy and you've got the four talking in a million miles an hour about what they're feeling and the nine just cries and eventually you just have to say to the nine I appreciate your tears but let's get behind what but I also recognize that this is a defense against saying what you're really feeling right now and it's also your way of making the four or the two or whoever the other client is look bad for being a mean yeah yeah I was gonna say I love the quote in your book from the desert father talking about the nine where they seem to be silent but they're really talking all the time that's so good that is so good so the healing path for the night I think you just described with your client right which is that they they need a space in which they can be called out of their passive aggressiveness and saying I wonder if that passive aggressive behavior is really just your way of asking me to notice you yeah yeah what are you really trying to say because you're saying it in a thousand different ways other than the way I really need you to say it directly right to me sure with me yeah and what's so beautiful you know in my in my own marriage we've had a lot of healing around this my wife has done a lot of work and it has been so beautiful to watch and you know when a nine actually does get angry at you directly all of a sudden you go there you are yes yes yeah that's it there you are and I love it yes keep that coming keep that coming because you've now moved from this blurry kind of atmospheric presence to a defined individuated human being yeah yeah and that's very powerful I don't if your wife does this but Sarah my wife she'll it's almost like she perks up and she gets kind of up on a seat okay here we go now I'm gonna bring it all I like I'm gonna get it out I'll get more in an hour then I will in the next three weeks right but all right like here we go and I love that that's beautiful and that's you know that that's that's all nines on a healthy journey end up in a place like that where they honestly yeah we have we have a joke around here when Annie gets mad at me directly she'll she'll get angry and up honor what she's saying and listen to it but eventually at the end of it I'll go you know that's very sexy right okay moving on to our last one let's start out one the narcissistic expression in once everyone's been waiting for this one right the the perfectionist right so when I think about the one I mean sometimes it's helpful we're not even getting into subtypes here in this conversation right but you know that with the social one there's this area of moral superiority with the one one one or the sexual one there's more of a direct kind of confrontational anger that you see I mean of course there's anger behind the eights nines and ones but the ones are there's a narcissism that manifests in perfecting you and perfecting others there's a kind of moral superiority and righteousness when you're around them you just don't feel like you measure up you know like what I'm I'm a four around ones I just I feel like this the instruction manual I'm you know they they know you know I'm on a faculty now which is by the way kind of silly but I sit around a faculty table with people with degrees from Harvard and Yale and Duke and all these places that often don't feel like I measure up but like the ones around the table there are lots of ones in fives it's the ones they know the polity they know the rules they know the handbook you know and I'm always like oh god I don't know what was I supposed to do but they'll bring it up I'm in a way in a way where sometimes feel like I'm walking on eggshells around them right it's like all you know is the handbook all you know are the rules and come out and show me who you really are I remember back in the day when I was the Presbyterian I was introducing I was introducing a candidate in a large group assembly and I said something like this is a good man this is a really good man I like him a lot and a guy stood up and this is like Presbyterian language but he's like point of order can we call anyone good Reverend to grow can we call anyone good like what is going on here I make a point of order to you know to correct my you know my state so I mean I think that I love ones because I think ones have deep sense of justice and righteousness they've been long for the world to be put to rights right they see things that the rest of us need to see but ones also need to know their impact you know and I and I think that part of the work that I've done over the years with Wands is to reflect back their impact like on the one hand I love I love love love you're longing for for for righteousness and for justice for a world that is is good and right and pure just at the same time sometimes it just feels like you're pushing me away with that you know like I'm not invited into the conversation like like maybe maybe it's more messy than you think you know and maybe let's maybe we can get good and honest about the messiness not only in the world but in you as well the brokenness well you know of course one's learned from a very early age to do it right as so as to avoid the messiness and their own lives in their own hearts right so to to walk down road with them and to be let in to that messiness is a real honor a real privilege yeah alright so we've walked through all these numbers we've talked about how narcissism shows its face in each of these nine types chances are depending on our level of health we can float around from extreme narcissism to low levels of narcissism in any given day yeah and we just we have to but but knowing those healing paths how do we how do we move away from narcissism as it presents itself in our in our particular type is really really helpful so I have just a few more questions and we got a split so one is do you think you know we hear this language about childhood ballooned and you know we use it so here's the childhood wound that led to the creation of this personality style or this personality type of this personality type and I wonder if we could actually call it a narcissistic wound yeah okay you think that's is that a fair thing to say or am i yeah I think it's fair and I think it gets back to I mean I I think what's behind that is the the deep need each and every one of us have for security for soothing to be seen you know to be held to be known to be special right I mean the force don't just need to be special we all long to be special in mom's eyes and a dad's eyes and you know and and and and that's we know from good attachment psychology that right in those first minutes hours days of a child's life or just longed to be seen we looked at to be mirrored right and so yes my daughter when she was five and she was doing cartwheels and she said daddy daddy daddy look at me look at how good I'm doing a cartwheel listen that's like good healthy confidence esteem narcissism like you can do it girl I love you what I like to say though it's like if you're the leader of an organization and you're 45 or 55 down you're still saying look at me look at me I'm so great that's a problem right yeah now you're trying to get those wounds healed in a way that is profoundly unhealthy and and so there's lots of work to be done in the story of one who is trying to heal those wounds through narcissism at fifty five that were inflicted when he was five yeah and I think that's a great place to end and I think it's a great place to end because I think all of the types right are engaging strategies that to get needs met that because of some kind of a disturbance or disruption in that process of mirroring yeah of not being seen and for those you don't know what I'm talking about mirroring is this gaze between the mother and the child if you will it's put in that language where the child and the mother the child recognizes the mother eventually as other but the but the it is seeing and its own existence is being validated by the mother yes and and it's it's beauty isn't being validated by the mother and of course is you know pretty much every time you meet somebody with a personality disorder it's because there has been a profound disruption in that mirroring yet some family sits on some developmental damage has taken place well this has been an amazing conversation and the next time you're on and I bet you I'm gonna get a ton of email about this what I want to talk to you about is what is it like if you grow up with an arse a truly narcissistic narcissistic full-blown personality disordered mother father if you have a brother or a sister a partner who is a narcissist what's the journey to healing and freedom like for those folks because I just hear from them all the time yeah well let's do it again sometime I love to have that would be so great thanks again everybody I want you to remember to go out and get your hands on Chuck's a new book which is when narcissism comes to church healing your community from emotional and spiritual abuse thanks for being with us Chuck and things everybody remember the words of the great Oscar Wilde be yourself everybody else is already taken until next time [Music] you

Channel: Ian Morgan Cron

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Keywords: Typology Insitute, iancron, Ian Morgan Cron, personality, typologypodcast, Typology, enneagram, Typology Podcast, chuckdegroat, narcissism, Anthony Skinner

Id: 1YxdWIalVh4

Length: 72min 2sec (4322 seconds)

Published: Thu May 21 2020