Whereas, with the people closest to you, you don't have the distance to see them as a whole. And your relationship with them can obscure things as well. When I first got interested in the Enneagram and tried typing my family, my first thought about my mum was "she's loud and bossy - she's an eight". After a while I started to think about her preoccupation with security and paranoia about certain institutions. She relates to me as a mother by worrying about everything that could possibly go wrong for me and any danger I might be in. So for many years I have thought of her as a six. Something was missing though. We've always had communication problems because we see the world in very different ways.
Having recently spent a lot of time with her on the holiday we spent together I've had plenty of opportunities to think about our relationship and where we are both coming from, and I've come to the conclusion that my first impulse was the right one. She is an eight. A lot of the issues with security are from her survival subtype. But the things that wind me up most about her come from her eightness - the being controlling and confrontational and being too busy putting her point across to listen to anyone else's. Don't get me wrong - she does have the eightish virtues as well. She can be extraordinarily generous and I know that if ever I was in real trouble she would fight my corner, whatever our personal differences.
Having this epiphany about her type and what it means in our relationship has come as something of a relief. She is just as infuriating as ever, but knowing where she's coming from makes it easier to deal with. So does recognising that her good points are coming from the same place as her bad ones. And that, I guess, is the beauty of the Enneagram.
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