5. The Investigator / Observer. *

Gautama Buddha

Famous 5’s: Gautama Buddha, Emily Dickinson, Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Franz Kafka.
Blog 5’s: ?

Focal Point of Attention: What others want from me
Emotional Centre: Greed
Higher Emotional Virtue: Detachment
Mental Centre: Stinginess
Higher Mental Virtue: Omniscience
Sexual Focus: Confidence
Social Focus: Totems
Pathology: Obsessive Schizoid / avoidant

Family History.
Two kinds of family can make children withdraw. The first is where the child felt utterly abandoned and accepted this fate by learning to detach from their feelings in order to survive. The second and more common scenario is where the family was so psychically intrusive that they child closed down emotionally in order to escape. As children, 5’s found ways of distancing themselves by closing themselves into their rooms or removing themselves from their feelings to the extent that they could stand directly under the gaze of someone trying to pry into their life while feeling absolutely no reaction to this intrusiveness. They were the children who walked either some distance ahead or way behind their parents in an attempt to increase the space between them.

Habitual preoccupations:

General.
The ego of a 5 is like a castle; high and impenetrable, with tiny windows at the top. The occupant rarely leaves and secretly watches those who come to the door, making sure that he or she is not observed. 5s are very private people who like to live in secluded places away from emotional strain. They will often be at home with the phone unplugged and tend to watch the action from the edge of the crowd, making little or no effort to join in. Because they felt intruded upon as children and the sense that their privacy was stolen, 5s withdrew as a strategic defence and tend to minimise contact, simplify their needs and protect their private space at all costs. They will invent elaborate ways to create a safe distance between themselves and others because if someone gets too close they feel that they have lost their primary defence.

5s can be hermits leading a reclusive and usually mental life within the confines of a small house and venturing out only as far as the library and the shop. If they do play a public role it will probably be from a position of remote control where frontline interactions will be handled by others who will probably report to the 5 by phone. When 5s appear in public they will often hide behind a pose, minimising their feelings and blending into the background. 5s prefer not to get involved. Financial interactions feel dangerous and obligations coercive. Anger and competition need to be controlled and emotional attachments are felt to be a drain. 5s often feel that they are being coerced by people’s positive expectations and they will seldom approach intimacy and affection unless there are guarantees that their independence can be maintained. 5s will find ways to hide or to isolate their intimate contact into one compartment of their life.

5s are very sensitive to interactions that make them visible to others. Self-promotion, competition and demonstrations of love or hate make 5s feel as though they are playing into other people’s hands and they tend to remain aloof from interactions where they could be judged. Many 5s will feel superior over those who crave recognition and success, believing that desires and intense emotionality indicate a lack of control. When feelings become painful, 5s are apt to let go and they feel a sense of accomplishment in being able to detach so easily from the needs that dominate other people’s lives. 5s are very independent although this independence is based on the ability to detach attention from their emotional and instinctual life. This in turn has the effect of forcing them to live in their minds. 5s can live happily alone. They have modest needs, take great delight in their own fantasy life and don’t get sidetracked into spending time and energy on trivial concerns. The 5s love of privacy can turn into loneliness when they become isolated and unable to reach out. When their hunger for contact is aroused, 5s realise how difficult it is for them to move toward people and how they tend to watch as their own life goes by. They live in an atmosphere of scarcity and prefer “independence” to “satisfaction”, afraid that their own desires might cause them to become attached to others.

Having centered their existence in the mind, 5s seek connection through special knowledge. They are strongly attracted to models and systems that explain universal principles of interaction, especially human behaviour. By mastering systems such as psychoanalysis, they can form a mental concept of the way that interactions take place and locate themselves within the system in an emotionally detached way. Their interest is rarely attracted to wealth or material things and money is only good for the privacy it buys or the independence it brings in terms of having free time to study or pursue their other interests. 5s will not spend their limited energy in acquiring quantities of worldly things and if they inherit money they are likely to hoard it for the independence it guarantees and continue living in modest luxury. If they are born without money they will not work for others in order to accumulate it. They will however put endless time and effort towards study and other mental pursuits.

5s often find that their feelings are more accessible when no one is around and that it is difficult for them to let their real self out with other people in the room. Solitude is their staging ground for a private fantasy life and when they are alone they are able to sort things out and find out what they really feel. 5s will tend to feel more connected to people when they are alone, remembering what was said. They are able to retroactively savour what was left unfelt during the course of the day. A short meeting can mean a lot to a 5 who is going to enjoy the interaction over again later, in the privacy of his or her home. 5s get attached to sharing an interest or a special bond of understanding with each of their different friends. The friends may never be introduced to one another, or be informed about what else is happening in the 5s life, but their presence will be treasured within the limits of the special bond of trust. 5s can feel closely connected in a nonverbal way, needing only minimal contact to keep a relationship alive. Small rituals of friendship are honoured and if the 5's friends are wise, they will make a 5 their observer-adviser rather than expect demonstrations of emotion or hoping that the 5 will be the initiator in the relationship.

Attractive Environments.
5s are often scholars of obscure but important fields of study, members of the inner circle of the “ones that know” - for example the psychologist’s psychologist. The computer programmer who prefers to work night shift is likely to be a 5.

Unattractive Environments.
Any job that requires open competition or direct confrontation such as salesperson or public debater will not be attractive to a 5.

What 5’s should be aware of:

* All information taken from The Enneagram by Helen Palmer.