Type 5: Investigator

Lee Bladon 11:06 am

Enneatype 5: The Investigator

Observer, Thinker, Innovator, Expert, Specialist

Key Characteristics of Enneatype 5

Perceptive, Insightful, Cerebral, Objective, Inquisitive, Innovative, Visionary, Knowledgeable, Intellectual, Focused, Rational, Detached, Private, Secretive, Reclusive, Insecure, Vulnerable, Untrusting, Low-Key, Easily Overwhelmed, Eccentric, Stingy, Hoarder.

General Description

Fives believe that they need to understand life in order to make sense of it, so they observe life from a distance and mentally analyse everything. Fives like the solitude of their mental bubble because it protects them from direct engagement with the real-world, which they fear. Their excessive mental focus makes their emotions and will feel insubstantial, so they refrain from engaging with life, choosing to live simply and prudently.

Enneatype 5

The Three Sub-Types (or variants)

Self-Preservation Fives

  • Shy and detached collectors of information and objects, who prefer to observe rather than participate.
  • They retreat from life into the privacy and security of their own mentally-created version of the world.
  • They need to create, maintain and control their physical, emotional and social boundaries in order to feel safe.
  • Their need to remain ‘hidden’ creates difficulties with communication, expressing themselves (especially anger) and getting their needs and desires met.
  • They would benefit from relaxing their boundaries more often, and making efforts to connect with their feelings and other people.

Sexual Fives

  • Countertype – can look like Fours or Sixes.
  • Mysterious, secretive and perceptive, they tend to have one or two close friends or confidants.
  • Unlike other Fives, this countertype is romantic, passionate, intense and emotionally sensitive.
  • They are generally closed, but have a deep need for openness and intimacy with the right person under the right circumstances.
  • They hold other people to very high standards and are easily disappointed.
  • They seek their one great love who can give them the ultimate relationship, which combines absolute trust and divine mystical union.
  • They would benefit from relaxing their tendency to hold people to high standards in order to avoid intimacy, and feel into their fear around emotions and relationships.

Social Fives

  • Quirky, intellectual and insightful, they enjoy social and intellectual recognition but tend to avoid intimacy.
  • They are more out-going and social than other Fives, but their desire for connection is completely outweighed by their intense thirst for knowledge.
  • They do not relate directly to people, but relate to their outstanding characteristics – an idealised version of them.
  • They seek meaning by searching for the extraordinary, but their focus on the exceptional and the spiritual leaves them disinterested with ordinary people and ordinary life.
  • They would benefit from expanding their interest from knowledge and ideals to emotions and people, then they may discover more meaning in actual relationships than idealised ones.

Further Information About Enneatype 5

Evolutionary Behaviours
(when safe and relaxed)

  • Fives become more self-confident and decisive, like healthy Eights.
  • Fives become more outgoing and positive, like healthy Sevens.
Enneatype 5

Devolutionary Behaviours
(when stressed)

  • Fives become hyperactive and scattered, like unhealthy Sevens.
  • Fives become more antisocial and hostile, like unhealthy Eights.

Fives with a Four Wing

Expressive, Creative, Kind, Ambitious, Passionate, Energetic, Sociable, Image-Conscious, Seek Recognition, Grandiose, Glamourous, Sophisticated.

Fives with a Six Wing

Curious, Perceptive, Imaginative, Introspective, Whimsical, Artistic, Understated, Intuitive, Inquisitive, Cerebral, Quiet, Surreal, Independent, Impractical, Dark.

General Advice for Fives

  • Acknowledge your tendency to detach from your feelings and go into your head.
  • Talk about your emotions with a trusted friend or therapist, especially those related to insecurity, inadequacy, incompetency and rejection.
  • Connecting with your body (through awareness or exercise) will settle your mind and allow you to be more at ease and function better in the world.
  • Go out into the world and become an active part of it – you can begin by simply sharing your knowledge and wisdom with other people.

Core Beliefs & Strategies of Enneatype 5

Lost Essential Quality: Higher Guidance

Higher Guidance is an inherent knowingness that comes from being attuned to the living unity of life. It is the ability to intuitively and objectively analyse and synthesise information, resulting in complete understanding.

Mental Ideal (Holy Idea): Omniscience

The mind’s sense of the lost essential quality – the direct knowingness that comes from being an integral aspect of the one universal mind.

Emotional Ideal (Virtue): Non-Attachment

The heart’s sense of the lost essential quality – the sense of non-attachment that comes from the objectivity and transparency (non-clinginess) of true nature.

Core Belief: I am Inadequate / Incapable

The loss of the essential quality (higher guidance), the mental ideal (omniscience) and the emotional ideal (non-attachment) contribute to the development a core belief of being inadequate.

Core Motivation (to disprove the core belief): To be Capable and Competent

In an attempt to correct the core belief (inadequate) and to reconnect with the essential quality (higher guidance), the mental ideal (omniscience) and the emotional ideal (non-attachment), Fives develop a strong desire to be capable and competent. They need to understand everything to enable them to feel more competent.

Mental Strategy (Fixation): Accumulation

The ego-mind doesn’t feel all-knowing, so it collects and retains information in order to build up a repository of knowledge.

Emotional Strategy (Passion): Averice (Hoarding)

The sense of inadequacy and lack leads to the hoarding of resources that the ego feels are required to function competently in the world.

Ego Ideal (what we aspire to be): To be Knowledgeable

The ego-ideal (to be knowledgeable) is an aspirational idealised idea of ourself that incorporates the lost essential quality (Higher Guidance).