The Fear and Behaviour of the One

In my last post I talked about how the Enneagram recognises that our primary fear - what we are most afraid of - resurfaces in our behaviour towards others when we are in the lower levels of development and less present to ourselves. In short, we treat others as we most fear to be treated. The primary fear of the One is of being bad, corrupt, wrong. As a result the One is very concerned with correctness, doing the right thing, with being responsible and morally upstanding. In short, they work hard to be beyond reproach. When the One is less healthy, however, this translates into a perfectionism and judgement of others which can deteriorate into constant criticism and a pedantic fault-finding which gives the impression to others that nothing they do is ever good enough. Thus the One makes others feel bad, corrupt and wrong as their fear of reproach is off-loaded in their behaviour as they reproach others for what they see as failings and an inability to live up to their standards.