Attachment to Attachment: group comment by Czander Tan

Czander Tan from the Enneagrammer Universe Facebook group made a concise and insightful comment about the nature of attachment types (3, 6, 9) and the term “attachment.” I wanted to make sure this didn't get lost in the comments because it’s wonderfully explained.

I think there is some vagueness with the term "attachment" in object relations which leads to confusion about how it plays out, because technically, "frustration" types are attached to frustration and "rejection" types are attached to rejection. What "attached" means in this latter sense is that there is an ego-investment in replaying relational circumstances such that one, say, gets frustrated because the ego is built on a foundation of frustration -- e.g. if I am not frustrated, something is wrong, because from childhood, the habituated survival state is one of frustration. Same goes for "rejection."

When we get to "attachment," however, it translates to: "attachment" types are attached to attachment. This is true in a surface sense, but quite confusing. The question to specify this dynamic, then, is "what relational circumstances are replayed such that the ego maintains itself?" More specifically, "what relational circumstances must I replay so that I can attach to an object over and over and over again?"

From the podcast episodes, Courtney's example for these triangle types is that the child did not feel seen/supported, so they asked themselves "yesterday I felt seen/supported, but today I don't; what can I do to feel seen/supported?" Thus comes adaptation. As an object relations pattern, however, what relational circumstance must be played out for the ego to adapt over and over and over again? -- The dynamic of not being seen/supported, i.e. being disconnected from the object. In other words, triangle types actually play out the circumstance of feeling disconnected *so that* they can adapt and maintain an ego that is invested in adaptation. Simply speaking, I will continually make it such that I am not seen/supported so that I can adapt and then feel seen/supported.

Furthermore, seeking and feeling this disconnect makes me feel individuated, which is actually false individuation and another way the ego maintains itself because I'm just replaying an object relation, a past trauma. In this sense, just as types 147 are attached to frustration and 258 to rejection, 369 could be said to be attached to disconnect: I make sure I am eventually unseen/unsupported so that I can *feel* like an individual and then adapt.

We see examples of this where triangle types are often the most heavily invested in saying things like "I relate to this, I don't relate to that!" or "You don't know who I am! You don't see me!" or "I'm so misunderstood! I'm too nuanced to be put in a box!" -- while these things might be true, there is often a lot of emotional attachment because the ego is invested in replaying this habituated survival state: if someone actually saw/supported me, and I don't have to adapt, then what am I?