People who need to be strong, to prevail over circumstance. When healthy they often are powerful, protective and committed to a cause. When unhealthy they can be destructive, excessive and sadistic.

Eights, Nines and Ones share a general undercurrent of anger and form another emotional trio. If Twos, Threes and Fours can be confused about who they are and how they feel and Fives, Sixes and Sevens react fearfully and are confused about taking action. Eights, Nines and Ones react from an emotional ground of anger and have trouble with accurate mental conception, that is to say, thinking clearly. This difficulty is often described as a condition of mental sleep.

Healthy Eights are often dynamic, strong and independent. They demonstrate the virtue of power: how to wield influence for constructive purposes. Many Eights are natural leaders who inspire others, protect the weak and strive for justice. They may use their power to shake things up and have the courage and will to implement new ideas. They are generally honest and direct, bringing an energetic, lusty gusto to whatever they attempt.

Healthy Eights are often generous, loyal friends who protect what is soft and vulnerable in others. This is also a metaphor for how Eights relate to themselves. Beneath their strong outer armor is a younger, more vulnerable part of themselves that they shield. This part relates to an innocence of perception that healthy Eights often have. They are able to see the world as if for the first time, through the eyes of a child. They may have a related love of nature that is a source of spirituality and evokes this innocent quality. Unguarded Eights often demonstrate the strength of gentleness; they are strong enough to be kind, open enough to be touched, secure enough to be wrong, rich enough to be generous.

When Eights are less healthy, their preoccupation with power begins to be tainted by self-interest. While still relatively free of self-doubt, Eights begin to cover up their vulnerabilities with aggressive displays of strength. They overidentify with being powerful as a way to deny their softness and survive in a world that they believe is dangerous. They may also tend to excess—staying up late, doing too much, driving too hard, indulging in addictions partly to numb their more vulnerable feelings.

Less healthy Eights enjoy confrontation and try to make contact with others primarily through fighting. They also push against others to assess their motives and measure the degree of external threat. Eights may narcissistically inflate their presence and seem to take up too much space in a room. To protect the tender childlike part of themselves, they can act overbearing, arrogant and insensitive. Beneath this intimidating shell, an Eight could feel sensitive to betrayal, vulnerable to ridicule, or weak in a way that he is ashamed of.

Most Eights don’t quite realize how belligerent they can seem. This is because they defensively deny feedback, especially about ways they might have hurt others. Unhealthy Eights can deny feeling guilty, usually by covering it up with more aggression, while claiming they have nothing to apologize for. In their mind’s eye, they can see people as caricatures, two-dimensional objects that can then be skewered without conscience.

As with Twos, the healthy versus unhealthy expressions of this style are unusually extreme. Very unhealthy Eights can do immense damage, mostly to others in the service of maintaining their grandiose image of an invulnerable self. A "get them before they get me" attitude rules the Eight’s behavior. To this end, they can be suspicious, bullying, vengeful, ruthless and psychopathic. Many of the world’s bloodiest dictators have been very unhealthy Eights, and their brutal excesses reflect how unhealthy people with this style ultimately murder their own humanity. 
 

About the Contributor:

Thomas Condon has worked with the Enneagram since 1980. He has taught classes at schools like Antioch University, and the University of California, Berkeley, as well as hundreds of workshops in the U.S., Asia, and Europe. He is the author of 50 audiotapes, 19 videotapes and two books, soon to be more. You can find more information like this, his books, and his tapes at his wesite here.