Counterphobic Six vs Eight

Parsing the fine distinctions

Many need help distinguishing the Counterphobic (cp) Six from the Eight. Sixes and Eights can be bombastic, reactive, assertive, and skeptical of others’ motives. However, understanding the differences arising from their respective centers of intelligence and core motivations will help to demystify the confusion between these two dynamic types.

The Motivations Behind Counterphobic Behavior

Sixes are motivated by a need to avoid anxiety and seek certainty. They primarily achieve this by testing the world around them for stability, trustworthiness, and consistency. However, because Sixes recognize their inherent fickleness, fluctuating motives, and doubts, they project (sometimes correctly) their motivations onto the world around them.

The Counterphobic Six deals with anxiety by becoming self-assured, strong, and intellectually confident. They may gather copious amounts of information or data about what scares them (whether a person, concept, idea, group, or object). They then conquer their anxiety or avoidance by moving toward their fear. This “moving toward” often appears to others as fearless and, depending on their Trifix and instinct, full of bravado. However, underneath their sometimes dauntless or courageous behavior belies anxiety that others will discover their insecurities, doubts, or cowardice, and they will ultimately be attacked.