Welcome to a series where FoG Staff and Horror Enneagrammarian, Asia (whose own work can be found here), will guide us all into the tragic psyches and wounded souls of the characters we know and love, using the Enneagram as a lens. Unfamiliar with the Enneagram? Asia’s got you covered. She’s written her own take on the “types” here and also recommends The Enneagram Institute as an online resource. Lastly, FoG favorite author Richard Rohr uses the Enneagram in much of his work and co-wrote this book on it. Our goal as ever is finding the holy in the horrific and the Enneagram is a helpful tool to do just that…

Now that we’ve taken a long stroll down anxiety lane… I think it’s time we started to acknowledge how lovely the scenery is. 

And what in the actual heck is a “Counter-Phobic” six? 

Quite literally, a Counter-Phobic six is an Enneagram Type 6 that approaches their fears from the opposite vantage point of a “Phobic 6”. If the most natural inclination when concerned about a potential threat is to quietly prepare so as to avoid that threat from manifesting – the Counter-Phobic 6 does the exact opposite. It’s not that they are any less worried by or concerned about the threat or that they feel any less fear; it’s just that they understand that the sooner a threat is met, the sooner it will be safe again. 

Counter-Phobic 6’s are often the people in our lives bringing up the problems that we wish would just go away. If a person in authority is misusing their status, few people will be willing to shake-up the situation like a Counter-Phobic 6. And it’s not because they like chaos, in fact they hate it. But that’s what makes them such a rare and fascinating creature: a willingness to face the fears they hold so deeply specifically to root them out and be rid of them quickly and thoroughly. 

Sometimes that looks like calling social services on a child you know to be mistreated. 

Sometimes that looks like confronting a friend whose behavior you know to be destructive. 

Sometimes that looks like bothering your local police officer. 

Sometimes that looks like taking out all your Christmas lights, painting the alphabet on your walls and believing in the impossible if it means finding your child. 

More often than not, it looks like Joyce Byers. 

At the start of season one, there may not be a lot that very obviously points us to a certain Type. Joyce is a wonderful mother in a difficult situation, trying to make life work for herself and her sons.

Her house is not spotless. And she is fine with that. Her house is not grand. But it is their home. What she is able to provide for them in her own way, is shelter, food, love, and security. And she does what she needs to do in order to maintain that haven – even if it doesn’t feel like enough most of the time. 

But what happens when life changes? What happens when a beloved child goes missing? What happens when life demands you believe the impossible? 

Joyce Byers is both a woman and a parent – two forces strong enough to color just about any Enneagram a certain shade of passion, but I believe her 6 shows through largely in her absolute thoroughness. If something doesn’t work, she will try it again. And if that fails, too, it’s off to another attempt. And another. And another. And another. 

She is resourceful in a way that few other types might be able to conjure under such stress, keeping her wits about her and manufacturing schemes and plans while everyone else writes her office grief-crazed. Another way that her 6 shines through for me is in a sort of frantic energy – specifically her 6w7-ness. 

The security she has lost with her son energizes her in the exact opposite manner that Hopper’s grief paralyzed him. 

Yet very much like Hopper, she has no patience for the careless. The lazy. The people who write off a loved person as a statistic to be filed in a drawer somewhere. 

Type 6’s are often called “The Immune System” of the Enneagram. And I can’t think of a better way of describing Mother Joyce. 

When people try to give her inadequate answers to the relentless questions of what has happened to her son, she sounds an alarm so loud that no one in Hawkins can sleep without hearing it. She is a nuisance. She is a pest. And she is not going to stop until someone listens to her and tries to heal an infected situation. 

This is where she and Hopper differ. 

Joyce may be afraid of a lot of things. She may be hyper aware of every option. Concerned with what she can do to avoid something like this ever happening again, but nothing is going to scare her away from taking action. Joyce Byers is a small force to be reckoned with.

The difference between a Phobic 6 and a Counter Phobic 6 is that once the danger has been assessed and identified on the other side of the door, one is most likely to drill new locks on it to reinforce their security, whereas the other is more likely to just kick the door down to reclaim the security – be it their own or that of a person they love. 

It’s also very easy to consider Joyce a “Loyalist”.  Once Joyce loves someone, her commitment to them is timeless. We see it with her children. Nothing is too far to save them. We see it with Superhero Bob Newby. His loss is a pain that still remains raw long after he has been torn from her life. The thought of moving on with another man – even an endlessly good man who she cares deeply for and who is obviously mad about her – feels wrong. Her circle is small, but securely fastened to her heart. 

However, once Joyce chooses to commit to something, she jumps in with both feet, willing to kick and scream her way past any threat she encounters in the process, while dragging whoever she loves with her – that is, of course – after she consults the neighborhood physics teacher. 

We see the pattern of integration and disintegration in both Hopper and Joyce. Type 6’s (both Phobic and Counter-Phobic) integrate towards Type 9, shedding their inner stressors and approaching the tasks of their lives with a sense of inner peace and tranquility. This is more easily seen in Joyce, who I would stake is a bit more integrated (healthy) than Hopper by Season 3. She has been vindicated and her efforts to save her son and prove to her small world that she is not crazy have been rewarded. She has a new sense of self-confidence, having survived much. As such, she is able to walk through her life, less concerned and afraid, even while paying attention to the minutia when she senses the unexplainable. 

We see this in Hopper, when he is willing to take some cues from Joyce. When actually allowing himself to sit for long enough with his feelings, he is able to find a path to an internal harmony, both with himself and with Eleven’s inevitable growing up. 

And likewise, the Type 6 disintegrates into Type 3, taking on certain affectations, faking their way through life and wearing a facade of who they feel they are supposed to be because their true selves are so tossed about by fear, they are almost ghost-like. This is best demonstrated by Hopper. It’s easy to hide behind his tough-guy persona. The “bad cop” role. The unbreakable authoritarian who can’t be hurt. But we all know the ruse. 

I’ll be honest when I say, I genuinely don’t know if Joyce ever really falls into this trap in the series, because being such a Counter-Phobic type 6 (and a 6 with a 7 wing at that), she is simply too focused on what lies ahead of her to be too concerned with what anyone else thinks. Her people come first, and that’s all that matters to a healthy Loyalist.   

I think this is why Joyce and Hopper have the kind of relationship they do. They obviously relate to reach other in ways no one else can due to shared trauma. But there is also a kind of synchronicity to their brainwaves that sometimes just bonds them together in moments when they have to think fast. Both think ahead. Both assess any possible threat. Both will never leave someone they love behind. According to one observant individual, both want to rip each other’s clothes off, but that’s neither here nor there. 

The point is, they think both very similarly – yet react to those harmonized thoughts in very different ways sometimes. 

Which is something I’d like for you to think about for yourself – whether you’re a Type 6 or not. 

You have moments of fear and moments of bravery, but I want to ask you Why?

I want to challenge your very core beliefs about what it means to be brave. What it looks like to be brave. Sometimes the bravest thing one can do is to actually think about the danger. To really look it in the face before you even start preparing for or responding to it. So many of us go through life distracted, unwilling to face the rumblings within that we know would blossom in real terrors if we faced them. But that’s what the Type 6 does for us. They remind us that even though “here there be monsters”, they have faced hundreds of monsters in their lives and survived. 

Sometimes being brave looks like not accepting less than what a loved one deserves. Going that full mile with them for no other reason than because you said you would. 

Bravery is often a word that we use to describe what happens when someone loves deeply and knows they are loved in return. 

So, if we set aside all the twists and turns and demagorgons and mind-flayers that stand in the road that leads from Fear Ln. to Bravery Ave., maybe what we need to remember is that staring at the danger, contemplating it with real vigor, preparing for it, then facing it in the end, was always an act of love – and somewhere along that road we started calling that animated love Bravery.