Content area
Full Text
Abstract
The Enneagram and depth psychology inform each other in this analysis of American culture, and together they provide a richer view of the cultural psyche of the U.S. than either field could do alone. Utilizing archival material from depth psychologists and mythologists, the author suggests that the United States operates under a collective "myth of progress," and explores the distinct parallels between how these scholars have assessed the origins and development of this myth in American culture and how the Enneagram describes the type Three pattern. Manifestations of types Six and Nine, the two points connected to Three, are discussed, along with insights from Jungian typology. Bridging the Enneagram with depth psychology allows for a fuller interpretation of the American myth of progress and how the type Three pattern plays out on a cultural level.
In Enneagram literature one finds sporadic but consistent references to United States culture embodying the type Three pattern. Statements like, "America is the land of the Three" (Goldberg, 1999, p. 88) and "North American culture is largely Three" (Palmer, 1995, p. 89) reflect what has in effect become common knowledge in the Enneagram field. The United States' cultural norms of progress, achievement and competition seem to match Enneagram type Three's personality fixation, in which personal feelings are neglected while image, performance and success get priority.
When we participate in a culture, we also participate in its collective myth. The ethos, or collective spirit, of a country can often be identified by a few predominant qualities that motivate and affect its citizens as a collective body. During the 20* century, America reigned as the most prosperous country in the world, full of resources, capital, entrepreneurship, and the prospect of unlimited growth. How do we reconcile this with the fact that Americans today are the most in debt, addicted, busy, obese and medicated society in the world? (Brown, 2010) Taken together, these phenomena illuminate a prevailing psychological pattern that dominates our collective identity in the United States, a pattern that I call the myth of progress.
This American cultural myth has political and economic roots as well as implications, but the focus of this essay is on its psychological aspects. This paper examines the American myth of progress through...