If you are also a type 5 you likely landed on this site because you were looking for information about type 5s. So I watched this YouTube video a while back and was a bit, hmm, disconcerted by it? Fr. Richard Rohr doesn’t seem to have the most favorable view of the Enneagram type 5. I have to agree with a lot of the things that he says about us type 5s, but not all of them, at least as far as my personality and interests are concerned. At any rate, I decided to watch his video and take notes, because that’s what we type 5s do, gather lots of information. And for some reason I totally love taking notes. I was even trying to become a court reporter at one point, which sounds like the ultimate job for a type 5 – objective observer. But if you’re a type 5 you’ve probably already seen this video? Anyway, perhaps seeing it in written form will prove helpful in some way. My notes are a bit crude but hopefully you can figure out most of what I’m trying to say.
How does Fr. Rohr see the Enneagram Type 5???
- Absent minded professors
- Live whole life behind poker eyes with compulsive observation of the data
- Can never get enough data – always more to be known
- Very few 5s beyond the age of 20 without glasses
- Take in any kind of ideology description etc
- Sit in the back of the room – never want to sit in the front – too much energy up there
- Very controlled – like to control themselves
- Don’t want to be observed – but like to observe
- Just want to gather information – they have a compulsion to know
- Level of soul – too much heat in the kitchen – going into my head – live in my head
- EX) Level 5s would always try to get a room on the 3rd floor in the corner – the farthest away from everyone that they could get
- Like to live alone, natural hermits, natural celibates – sexual encounters are too emotional, sexual engagement is too engaging
- Don’t have a strong need compared to the rest of people for sexual encounters -“I’d rather maintain myself and maintain my boundaries”
- They are always maintaining their boundaries and they overdo it
- Spirit animal – barn owl – big wide owl eyes watching you from the corner of the barn
- From all of their watching they come up with universal theories – many philosophers were type 5s – theories explain everything
- This way I don’t have to emotionally engage with people/life/naked bodies – I’ll just think my way through life – plan my way through life – organize my way in a mental sense through life
- They sever the connections as much as they can with everything and everybody
- Can become loners and dangerous people if they don’t have some healthy community and some healthy relationship in their life
- There is no reference point for them – there is no outer critic
- FLIPSIDE: – sometimes when they start telling you their theories – they won’t shut up, keep talking until people are annoyed – they have been living too long inside of their head and need to tell someone about their universal field theory
- Because they have cut themselves off from human relationship – 2s 3s and 4s know how to read people’s eyes when they are bored with you, 5s don’t read eyes, they just keep talking
- Classic college professors with permission to stand behind a pulpit and just talk ad nauseum
- Fives can be very boring because they have have no reality check for the meaningfulness of their ideas or the helpfulness of their ideas
- Their ideas just bounce back and forth inside their minds – brilliant in some ways but stupid unless he/she connects with his/her 4 wing and gets his heart and his sensitivity in shape
- 5 is the typical boring professor – has nothing to say but sometimes does have something to say – but you have to wait around for the second semester before you’ll hear it – first semester is just build up to 2nd semester
- You will be subjected to their internal monologue
- Stingy – not for money – stingy for information – they love books – they give them a rush of excitement – they love their books and their ideas
- Don’t spend a lot of money on themselves – except for books
- Most common phrase they say after you talk – “that’s interesting” – a noncommittal statement – good interesting or bad interesting? They have to think more about it.
- Have a hard time making commitments. They are so withheld – requires a certain degree of emotional engagement with the other
- Don’t always want to engage with other’s ideas or relationship
- Positive side: if you need a good objective counselor – get a 5
- If you want power behind the thrown – someone who can give you an objective detached viewpoint – they are usually right in their analysis
- Detachment is their sin and is also their gift – it’s the only number – you can use the same word for both their sin and their gift
- Detachment is a virtue when you need objectivity and calm evaluation – that’s probably why they make more objective philosophers, engineers, librarians
- Thank God for 5s who will be comfortable sitting in the back office – they love computers – they are addicted to computers
- Instead of a wife – they have a computer and I can just relate to this nonstop
- Many of his best advisors have been 5s and especially in difficult, demanding situations where everybody is taking sides and everybody is throwing around blame and making it totally good or totally bad – 5 can very often see it objectively precisely because of their withheld-ness
- He is told that the 5 feels empty – and the information is an endless attempt to filll up that emptiness – some have described a great big hole – that is their primordial soul experience – there is nothing there
- They don’t have a lot of need for personal feedback – we all need people to love us and to like us – but they live in their heads
- They can do without people the most
- Speaking of marriages – he’s probably met more 2 and 5 marriages than he would ever expect – it’s a classic example of marrying your exact opposite – 2 is the compulsive giver – giving for the wrong reasons – but still giving. But the 5 is the compulsive taker. Natural attraction when young – he’s calm and collected and she’s bubbly and fun. Woman is 2 and man is 5. This works for about 3 years.
- But then all marriages face the shadow at a certain point – 5 starts wondering when you’re going to just let me stay at home and avoid parties, etc. She starts to resent him because he just wants to stay home all the time and she wants to interact with others. People are often attracted to their opposites.
- What country represents the 5? He uses Scotland – the stingy Scotsman and the aloof Anglo Saxon gentleman. Also the UK – the English and the Scots – that stiff upper lip stuff that we like to make fun of from the English. Intellectualism, superiority complex, etc. Public image of being reserved and standing back from.
- 5s need to pull back – find my own ground – my own understanding and perhaps re-enter. Far too often they stay in the withdrawn position
- They are classic avoiders
- Buddhism is very 5ish – makes an art form out of detachment and observation
- Christian religion – is more from the 2 space – a naked bleeding man on a cross – that’s the compassionate lover – Sufi’s did call Jesus a 2 – great perfect lover who loved sacrificially for the right reasons.
- When they find the freedom to give it out before they have taken it in – instead of collecting energy – once in a while take a risk and give energy before they take it from you – then you know they are growing up
- When they can get involved in various forms of volunteerism – he knew one who became a massage therapist – this is very much acting against the 5 nature – touching other bodies and serving other bodies – she learned how to balance herself out – that was a heavy price for her to be – not her natural mode to be massaging other people’s bodies. It took a major giving a major risk taking. A major moving against the withholding and the collecting instinct.
- When you are around unhealthy 5 – you may feel like you’re having your energy drained – they will wear you out after spending 15 minutes in a room with someone – they are always wanting
- Maybe that’s what he feels because he is a knowledgeable person – so 5 want more knowledge from him – 5 and the 6 are questioners – that’s one shape they can take
- Animal that may represent – the burrowing fox – spends most of day in its burrow – looks out to see if there is any risk or threat – if no emotional risk or emotional threat – then they will come out
- Some say that 5 lives their entire life behind a one way mirror – they can look out – but you can’t look back at them – if you say the word share – they will head for the quickest door – especially hate sharing feelings
- Don’t like touching – they are not tactile people
- They are objective people that somehow ground the flights of fancy and the flights of emotion that many of the rest of us can get lost in
- There is a big space between the 4 and the 5 on the enneagram. If you can bridge the distance between being fully in your heart and fully in your head. Balanced – difficult.
I am wondering if I should try to connect with more type 5s? I don’t think I know any other type 5s. We are not known for being very social. But then are we all so hopelessly lost in our ideas and theories that it’s impossible for us to connect to one another. What do you think? Leave me a comment so I can feel like I still exist.
