The 9 P's of Protection: How We Armour Against Vulnerability

In her groundbreaking research on vulnerability and courage, Brené Brown reveals how we develop "armouring behaviours", unconscious strategies to shield ourselves from emotional pain, shame, and fear. While these protective mechanisms begin as survival strategies, over time they become habitual patterns that mask our true nature and get in the way of our growth and development.

The Enneagram, an archetypal framework mapping nine personality patterns, shows us that each “type” develops a distinctive reactive "P" strategy in response to their core wound. These strategies form our psychological armour, temporarily soothing our discomfort while paradoxically reinforcing the very patterns that keep us stuck.

Here's how each Enneagram typing pattern armours itself through its reactive "P":

Type 1: Perfecting

Ones react to their inner critic and fear of being flawed by striving for perfection. They police themselves and others, prescribing exact standards to follow. Their armour? Controlling through morality and righteousness. In teams, this manifests as difficulty delegating and criticizing others' methods, creating environments where innovation stalls under the weight of correctness.

Type 2: Pleasing

Twos, fearing rejection or being unwanted, protect themselves by becoming indispensable. They please others while proving their worth through helpfulness. Their armour is earning worth through approval and service. In workplace settings, this can show ups as boundary violations and resentment when their generosity goes unacknowledged, ultimately undermining the authentic relationships they crave.

Type 3: Performing

Threes defend against feelings of worthlessness by performing, producing results, and persuading others of their value. They armour up with image and achievement, identifying completely with their work and the roles they play. This protection comes at the cost of burnout and disconnection from their authentic selves, creating workplace environments that value metrics over meaning and presence.

Type 4: Personalizing

Fours protect themselves from feeling ordinary or misunderstood by personalizing experiences through an emotional lens. They poeticize their internal world, making it part of their identity. Their armour is their uniqueness and emotional complexity, which pre-empts potential rejection and abandonment.  This can come at the expense of progress, creating interpersonal friction when their emotional truth is treated as the only truth.

Type 5: Preserving

Fives fear depletion of their energy, knowledge, and privacy. They preserve their resources by becoming islands unto themselves, protecting their boundaries through intellectual detachment and partitioning emotions from analysis. Their armour is self-sufficiency and observation from a distance. In teams, their wealth of knowledge remains untapped when their self-protection becomes an over-focus on individual interests at the expense of collective success.

Type 6: Projecting

Sixes deal with anxiety by projecting their unconscious fears onto people and situations through questioning, probing and challenging. Their armour is hypervigilance and alertness, a fear response disguised as pragmatism. Their caution strengthens crtical thinking and risk assessment but can erode team cohesion when their questioning undermines collective confidence or stalls momentum with endless what-ifs.

Type 7: Pivoting

Sevens fear being trapped in pain or limitation. They pivot away from discomfort, pursuing stimulation and fresh options. Their armour is escapism: by moving swiftly along and reframing difficulties as opportunities, they avoid the discomfort of hard truths. In professional contexts, this resistance to negativity can lead to glossing over people and problems that require acknowledgment before resolution.

Type 8: Powering (up)

Eights, avoidant of betrayal or vulnerability, push through life with intensity and sometimes provoke confrontation to establish firmer boundaries. They armour themselves with strength and control by powering up in the face of challenges. While their forceful approach provides clarity, directness and momentum to teams, it can silence essential perspectives through dominance and the denial of other’s experiences.

Type 9: Pacifying

Nines avoid conflict and discomfort by pacifying tense situations and placating others, often at the expense of their own voice. Their armour is numbing and shrinking themselves, using their own invisibility as a way of keeping the peace. In workplace dynamics, their conflict avoidance creates a superficial harmony that sacrifices the healthy debate needed for growth.

These "P" behaviours likely served a helpful purpose for us when we were young: they kept us safe. But as Brené Brown reminds us, "we can't selectively numb emotions." When we armour against pain, we also block our capacity for joy, connection, and transformation.

Self-awareness is the first step toward change. Recognising your protective "P" isn't about self-judgement, it's about getting curious about the wound it's shielding and finding the courage to engage authentically, both with ourselves and with others.