"Attachment to Disconnect"
Our sense of personality is informed and shaped through our earliest interactions with our caregivers and our environment in a dynamic that can be understood through the lens of Object Relations. Object Relations is one of the most important and useful lenses for understanding the Enneagram. Pairing it with the Centers of Intelligence essentially unlocks the blueprint of all nine types. Each Enneagram type is basically an object relations strategy “run through” each of the Centers.
There are three dominant object relational affects, called Attachment, Rejection, and Frustration. These are not emotions per se. They describe emotional fixations that serve as identity convictions from which our typical emotional responses stem from. They are a more structural and psychological way of describing the Passions.
Types Nine, Three, and Six have the dominant affect of Attachment, which you’ll notice composes up the types of the Enneagram’s inner triangle.
In my experience, Attachment Types make up a significantly high proportion of the population relative to hexad types, so special emphasis in understanding them is important. In this article, we will focus on a highly complex and influential part of the Attachment Type’s psychology: the Attachment to “disconnect”.
Object Relations
Object Relations Theory is a term describing many interrelated models of ego dynamics in psychoanalytic psychology, but there is no one, singular “object relations theory”. It was originally pioneered by Melanie Klein, but psychologists such as Donald Winnicott, Harry Guntrip, Ronald Fairbairn, and many others have contributed greatly. Enneagram theorists like Claudio Naranjo, A.H. Almaas, Don Riso, Russ Hudson, and Josh Lavine have demonstrated the influence of object relations within the Enneagram Types albeit with somewhat different interpretations. Don Riso, in particular, drew on interpretations by A.H. Almaas to bridge Object Relations with the Enneagram in a way that was useful and direct.
An object relation is an internalized psychological representation of the relationship dynamic an individual had with their parents early in life. This representation persists and is unconsciously replayed throughout our entire life as the basic template underlying our experience of ourselves and of reality.
An object relationship has three basic parts: a subject-image (self image), an object-image, and an affect which is an emotional pattern that emotionally binds the subject to the object. The subject-image is our default and automatic impression of ourselves. It’s not a visual image, but an emotional overall self-sense that is part of an internalized dyad between the subject, ourselves, and object, which is a psychological representation of our caregivers.
The Object image stems from our internalized impression of our parents, which then becomes more elaborate and projected onto other people and our overall sense of reality. The object image becomes more nuanced, layered, and elaborated as we experience more life, but nonetheless, the core impression of the object remains relatively fixed.
Given that we internalize the object image and project it everywhere, our sense of self is constantly, though unconsciously, experienced as re-enacting elements of our very first relationships. In other words, we are constantly reenacting the emotional dynamics of the earliest months of life at all times, entirely unconsciously. Our personality is always unconsciously replaying a relational dynamic from our past in the present moment and all its accompanying emotions. Moreover, we regard ourselves through the emotional lens of these early life dynamics. Thus, object relations represent a way that we keep past wounds alive in the present.
No matter how good and loving our parents were, we inevitably experienced profound misses, failures, and mistakes that produced profound suffering throughout infancy. Coping with these failures is the core of all three Object Relational Affects.
Attachment Object Relation
An infant losing faith in their caregiver could mean a catastrophic giving up on life itself. Therefore, this object relational affect represents the powerful psychological effort to stay connected to one's caregivers, and by extension one’s environment, even when the interpersonal environment is unable to adequately meet the child's needs. To foster this link, Attachment Types unconsciously adapt their own sense of what they need and desire to the implicit and explicit expectations of their social environment because they hold an unconscious conviction that what they’re needing - a good holding environment for Type Nine, mirroring and validation for Type Three, and support and guidance for Type Six - lies outside themselves, originally in their parents. The personality constellating around the Attachment Affect produces a psychological openness to their environment, and as a consequence, the inner life of an attachment type is greatly impacted by others.
This psychological investment in the outside means that, unconsciously, Attachment Types will “make due” with the quality of holding, attunement, or orientation that is available in their interpersonal environment in order to make the connection sustainable which can come at the cost of disconnecting from what they truly need and want. Thus, psychologically, this stance comes with the conviction that the “good things” (good holding environment, good attunement, good orientation) are sourced from outside themselves. An Attachment type’s personality structure, then, constellates around this psychological openness to their interpersonal environment.
The wisdom in this affect is the recognition that no one is psychologically isolated from their interpersonal environment. All psyches are “open” to some extent, impacted by others feelings, beliefs, and attention, but some personalities try to defend themselves against this reality more than others. Because of this, Attachment Types have a natural adaptability that helps them meet others “where they’re at”. They tend to be psychologically sensitive and open to others, but they are often more attuned to others' energy than their own.
Attachment Types have a pro-relationship bias that leads them to put forward the parts of themselves that are adaptable and to “reach for” likeness in others, to offer validation, and to meet others “halfway”. Once a secure connection is established, Attachment Types are able to relax and express their individualistic, idiosyncratic sides that they may usually fear are “too much” for the casual connection. This is in contrast to the other two object relational types who tend to put forward their individuality and clear emotional location, and once it is acknowledged and accepted, they relax and become more adaptable “on the backend”.
When an Attachment type is grounded in themselves, their adaptability can be a conscious and embodied self-extension that invites connection and understanding, but from a fixated place, it can be a compulsive way of losing connection to themselves for the (unconscious) sake of sourcing aspects of themselves from another.
A major pitfall of Attachment Affect is that these types can adapt themselves to excess in a bid to form a connection, but in doing so, may lose sight of aspects of themselves. They may unconsciously view giving their own needs and preferences serious investment as being at odds with creating bonds and connections.
Attachment to Disconnect
Attachment Types often have a deep sense of being misunderstood, of being not really known, or lonely. Attachment Types want to be known, seen, and have their needs met, but they often do this without fully revealing or locating their own needs and desires. Czander Tan has coined the phrase “attachment to disconnect” to describe this dynamic. Often, others do not know how to give them what they want or that there is something more they want in the first place.
“Attachment to disconnect” happens in all three types. Type Nine wants to feel seen and supported, but they settle for what is offered while refusing to articulate what would make them feel seen and supported. Type Three wants to feel seen, and they make efforts to be seen for their achievements and talents but will not actually reveal themselves in or lack personal connection to those efforts, ensuring they remain feeling unseen. Type Six wants to feel supported, and tries to earn support by doing and taking on what they think is the responsible thing to do. In all three cases, there’s an unconscious but real refusal to fully reveal and advocate for their own needs, to themselves and others, that results in a commitment to feeling unmet and continuing to feel the need to adapt and attach.
“Attachment to disconnect”, then, means that Attachment Types are prone to seek connection by disconnecting from themselves. However, disconnecting from themselves means they cannot satisfyingly locate their own needs and emotional location, especially as they evolve and change. By either not putting their emotional location forward or not being connected to it themselves, authentic connection can never truly come. In so doing, they refuse to locate, reveal, and follow their own agenda, thereby continuing to feel unsupported.
This frustration motivates the personality to double down on adapting themselves which results in further losing their own inner location, and the cycle repeats. In other words, the personality gets caught up in trying to create and reinforce further attachments, adapting more of themselves, in the hopes of gaining reciprocation that can never come. In many cases, this dynamic is sustained because the Attachment Type is unconsciously waiting for someone to put in the effort to locate them without putting themselves forward, which would serve as “proof” to the ego of being wanted or loved. This is a replay of the desire of the child towards the parent, hoping if they are good and open, the parent will “wake up” and give the child the love and support they craved.
It is common for Attachment to Disconnect to play out at two ends of a spectrum. The first is in settling for relationships, jobs, and circumstances that are “good enough”, but ultimately unsatisfying and frustrating. The second is the opposite pattern, of intensely idealizing individuals, relationships, or circumstances that might be “it” from a distance, only to be disappointed or not feel quite right when the fantasy comes true. The hope is that this new fantasy person or situation might hold the key to the perfect relationship, the right kind of chemistry, a new sense of family, or a group with an important sense of purpose all while the Attachment Types compass for their own standards, needs, or specific desire is murky. This is often expressed as triangulation. They can have a powerful capacity to see potential in individuals and relationships that clouds or overrides their own feelings about the person or circumstances.
While this second pattern can be very similar to a Frustration Types’, what makes this different from a Frustration Type going through idealizations and denigrations is that the attachment type will adapt their sense of self, desires, or even their recollection of prior events to temporarily fit a new vision. It is often framed as if they are discovering an entirely new, but highly central, facet of their identity or purpose they just hadn’t been aware of before, and it's only thanks to those new circumstances or relationships that they’re finding it out, even decades into life. For example, “wow, I realized I’ve actually been polyamorous my whole life!”, only to discover they never fit that lifestyle a year into it. It is common in Enneagram spaces to see an Attachment Type go through journeys where they can spend years identifying as one type, then, suddenly, one new insight or one special impression reveals how they’ve been a different type the whole time, and now their entire history and sense of self is now understood via the lens of this new, entirely different, type.
Unconsciously, Attachment Types are keeping parts of themselves in a state of potential and unclearly defined - where “life force” wants to go (autonomy) in Nine, self-generated identity in Three, and personal discernment in Six - which is a way that the ego resists individuation, and is a way that the inner child maintains an emotional connection to the parental image. Individuation requires bringing potential into actuality via the friction brought about by the contact between our hopes, yearnings, and undefined energies with practical realities and limitations. It’s the same principle, for example, that a painter’s idea for an artwork is an entirely different reality versus an actual, finished painting.
On a very unconscious level, each Enneagram Type is a kind of “campaign” to find healing for wounds, “misses”, and traumas from the earliest parts of life. This is partially why we all maintain toxic and self-sabotaging behaviors and patterns instead of simply letting go of what doesn’t serve us, because there is an inner child in all of us that hopes that the parental figure will “wake up”, that they will care enough to love us more powerfully than our defenses. To let go of certain patterns feels like giving up hope of parental love to our inner child. As children and adolescents, we tested our parents' love for us in various ways in the hopes that their love of us would be proven and demonstrated, but as adults, these tests become more psychological and hidden to ourselves. We play them out against our intimate loved ones without anyone really understanding what’s going on. Because the Attachment Object Relation is a kind of bid for connection that comes about by abandoning parts of oneself, the fixated Attachment Type is unconsciously holding onto the hope and expectation that their adapting and accommodating will earn them the love and investment of someone who will seek out their deeper, authentic self as both proof of love and as a restitution for the self-abandonment that comes from outside themselves. Due to Attachment Types’ very own struggle to know their location directly, there is hope that someone from the outside will hold, see, and guide them to integrating the parts of self that feel missing or underdeveloped.
Thus, Attachment Types must recognize when they are unconsciously making choices and commitments to not receiving what they want as a way to maintain a psychological status quo. If the ego got the attachment it wanted, it would have nothing to do. If their emotional location or agenda was fully revealed and advocated for, then the secret hope of being “sought out” (originally by a parent) wouldn’t be fulfilled. They may gravitate toward relationships and dynamics in which their authentic self is not really known, sought for, or welcomed, which, while frustrating, gives the ego “something to do”.
At some point, Attachment Types on a journey of growth have to grieve for the energy they’ve spent trying to meet others halfway or adapt to them while expecting, but not receiving, reciprocation. They may view themselves as open minded and accepting of others while also not seeing how much offense, anger, anxiety, or judgment they can feel for someone who isn’t willing to get on the same page as them.