“Born” sensitive to support and guidance, the Six child naturally encounters scary situations and feels fear. The world is full of things to be afraid of, and our imaginations invent more.

But how can a child sensitive to support and guidance 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.

Sixes are warm and friendly children who are well liked by everyone, but there is some underlying anxiety that those close to them may recognize. Whether they openly demonstrate their fear by asking their parent to check under the bed or look in the closet for monsters or just have a general insecurity, Six children seem to have had their development of what is called Basic Trust interrupted. They may have had a traumatic or frightening experience, but this is not necessary- their sensitivity to what is safe inevitably raises issues of trust.

We all experience fear and lack of security. We all try to figure out what to do to feel safe. But our basic sense of trust doesn’t come from our thinking brains. A basic sense of safety precedes rational thought and questioning. It may arise in us because we are reliably held as infants, fed and soothed.

Psychologist Erik Erikson identified trust as the first of eight stages of childhood development. Erikson found that between birth and 18 months of age, “the infant either comes to view other people and himself or herself as trustworthy or comes to develop a fundamental distrust of his or her environment”.

This doesn’t mean that Sixes did not develop fundamental trust as an infant or that their environment was unreliable. But there is probably an inborn sensitivity about trust/mistrust that shows up as they grow.

Insecurity might be seen in the young Six as asking questions, expressing doubts or noticing things that might go wrong. Somehow unsure, the young Six takes on the job of figuring out what can be relied on. They may be reactive around knowing what’s true, for example really wanting to know if there is a Santa and disliking adults lying about this. They may show distrust of certain adults, such as teachers or coaches who misuse their authority, and gravitate to those who seem trustworthy. Needing to check or not easily trusting, the young Six worries when other children (more naively) go their merry way. In this light, the Six child could be seen as having a precocious awareness that the world is not always safe.

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 actually create this essence at the level of personality, there is a twist or distortion that occurs.

The fundamental distortion of the Six personality is that it takes on the job of creating safety in the world and becomes organized around the sense of missing support and guidance. This mission of the personality creates a quality of “vigilance”, the necessity to scan for danger, to know what might go wrong. Focused on safety and alert to danger, the Six personality then works to create a “safety net”. What and who to trust is the mental preoccupation that goes with a core fear that things are not safe, and the Six is looking for security outside of themselves.

The next twist of the personality is the way the thinking of the Six becomes ungrounded. Bouncing around in their heads, Sixes just can’t land - the constant mental testing, doubting, worrying and so on is a kind of not knowing how to know. A Six might say “I don’t know” or “it depends” showing what is going on in their heads as they feel uncertain and aren’t sure- a sort of back and forth doubting mind. This is really because looking for what to trust outside of themselves has cut them off from their grounded inner knowing.

This core painful feeling is reflected in the Unconscious Childhood Message “It's not ok to trust yourself” - and in the Lost Childhood Message “You are safe”.

Sixes have an Inner Critic that demands they focus their attention on what could go wrong and how to stay safe. The Inner Critic message for Six is“I’m good or ok if I do what’s expected of me”.

So, the personality becomes organized around creating safety and being vigilant. Not knowing what to trust creates a mental pattern of doubt, worry and second-guessing.  The Six is looking in the wrong place to know what to trust- outside of themselves. At a deeper level, the issue is knowing how to know, having lost touch with inner guidance.

The Six personality tries to get Security by being Dutiful- how does this work? Sixes try to create a “safety network” for themselves by figuring out who and what can be relied on. Friends, family, organizations, work, belief systems and so on can all be part of the safety network. The Six then gives their loyalty to this network- this is their way of being dutiful. 

The word loyal is defined as “unswerving in support or allegiance”- so we see the Six is giving loyal support to others when support is what they are after. We also know that the Inner Critic message for Six is that they must do “what is expected of them”. This is the indirect strategy of being dutiful to feel secure- meeting the expectations of others.

Another way of understanding this strategy of the Six is to recall that they are in the Head or Thinking Center of Intelligence and they are trying to get Security by using their Head Center. Trying to figure out what might go wrong, being vigilant to danger, is the Six way of dealing with their fears. The mental activity, the worry and vigilance help the Six feel safe or at least prepared. It is understandably difficult to relax the thinking because that feels like letting their guard down.