Type Two is called “The Helper - The Caring, Interpersonal Type.”

To understand the Two as a “personality type” it is helpful to hold what we learn about Twos within their life story. The story of how the original sensitivity to love and kindness set the life course of the Two from childhood, how even as the personality constricts and distorts through life’s difficulties, it retains the essential orientation to being loving, and how the return journey is one of reconnecting to what was lost at birth- the lost essential quality that is imprinted on the soul.

There are nine of these stories, but they have in common this original “fall” and forgetting, this wounding and recovering, this mysterious pattern- and we hold the personality type with much more understanding and compassion when we remember this story.

“Born” sensitive to loving kindness, the young Two looks around their world and naturally sees a lot of mean and selfish behaviour.

But how can a child sensitive to love and caring do anything about creating this in the world they are born into?

For every type on the Enneagram, it is important to understand that this is the original dilemma – we want to create a certain quality through the personality, and this is mission impossible.

Twos are sweet children, sensitive to feelings. They are tender-hearted and empathetic from a young age. They are particularly aware of how and when they receive the love and attention they need. A common childhood experience of the Two is trying to get their mother’s attention- possibly in a very everyday way. Something may have happened that interrupted the love and care the young Two received, or there might just have been this feeling of attention being elsewhere. Somehow the Two began trying to get the love and attention they needed by becoming the “little helper”. Twos often have early memories of caring for others in their families and being appreciated for this- a painful role reversal in the sense that it is not the job of a child to care for others.

A person cannot create the essence they are sensitive to in the world. The essence already exists, and it is not the job of the person to create it- but we don’t understand this. Because we can’t create this essence at the level of personality, there is a twist or distortion that occurs.

The fundamental distortion of the Two personality is to become the giver of love in hopes of receiving love. Twos take on a strategy of caring for the needs of others, giving and helping, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. The underlying motivation, which may be beneath the Two’s awareness, is to be liked or feel loved in return- they are hoping for recognition. As the Two focuses almost exclusively on the needs of others, they neglect their own needs and feel “selfish” if they take care of themselves.

The next twist is that this distortion is turned inward against themselves. The Two attributes any perceived lack of incoming love and attention to themselves, they must somehow be unlovable or unworthy. The Two’s basic sense of being wanted and naturally lovable is shaken.

This core painful feeling is reflected in the Unconscious Childhood Message “It's not ok to have your own needs” and in the Lost Childhood Message “You are wanted”.

Twos have an Inner Critic that reinforces the need to earn their value from others. The Inner Critic message for Two is “I’m good or ok if I am loved and accepted by others”.

So, the personality becomes organized around the missing love in the world, the belief that it is the Two’s job to fix this, and their sense of themselves as having to earn love – a structure based on meeting others needs and self-sacrifice.

The Two is being dutiful to get value, how does this work? By caring for others and helping, the Two hopes to show their worth. It is a strategy of earning value in the eyes of others. Being an Image type, Twos are promoting an image of being the giver and hoping to see their value reflected in the eyes of others.

This is the inner tension of the Two- they are wired around the need for value, but they can only get it by being dutiful, endlessly giving to others. They are out of touch with their own sense of worth and forbidden to care for themselves. Having difficulty directly knowing their own value, the drive for value surfaces in distorted ways.

Another way of understanding this inner dynamic of the Two is to recall that they are in the Heart or Feeling Center of Intelligence with Shame underneath. Twos feel shame because they have lost touch with knowing they are worthy of love just for being alive and human. Their self-worth is shaken by this feeling that they must earn their value by pleasing others. No matter how much they do for others, it won’t fill this hole because the true source of value is within themselves.