Fixation (Enneagram)
In Naranjo’s Enneagram, the fixation is the recurring mental pattern that keeps each type inside its own logic: the automatic thought twinned with the emotional passion. Each type has its own: resentment for the 1, flattery for the 2, vanity for the 3, melancholy for the 4, retention for the 5, doubt or blame for the 6, anticipation for the 7, vengeance or justice for the 8, indolence for the 9. The fixation spins in the head, the passion burns in the heart.
Watching it spin in you
Your fixation is the skipping record of your mind: the 6 doubts and suspects, the 7 plans what is next before finishing, the 4 compares and regrets. You do not decide these thoughts, they return. Catching them in the act, without judging yourself, already loosens their grip a little.
Passion and fixation, the engine pair
Naranjo described passion and fixation as two faces of one knot: the vice-emotion and the fixed idea feed each other. The 5 hoards resources (avarice) because it believes the world impoverishing (mental retention). Seeing both together helps you understand why a line of reasoning and a feeling always return as a pair in you.
Sources
- , Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View (1994)