The Slippery Slope from Anger to Rage
Young Greeks Attending a Cock Fight, 1846. Jean-Léon Gérôme.
Suzanne Stabile May 6, 2025
The Wisdom of the Enneagram informs how I see the world and spurs my desire to have an offering for those searching for greater understanding and peace. After more than thirty years of learning and teaching, I am more aware than ever of our need to accept that there are nine distinctly different ways of seeing and interpreting the world around us. None are right or wrong; they are expansive rather than limiting, and they are nuanced beyond our imagination.
In my offerings for Tetragrammaton, I’ve spent some time focused on the idea that we each have a default emotion, waiting to take up space in our lives if we aren’t clear about what we’re feeling. And recently I’ve felt we are living in a moment when anxiety and anger are falling on all of us unbidden and often hidden from our awareness.
Anger is the dominant emotion for Enneagram Eights, Nines, and Ones, and it is a hard emotion to define. One source called it “a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility,” but I think we can agree that we use those words now as stand-alone emotions. The other two default emotions for Enneagram Triads are shame—for Twos, Threes, and Fours—and fear—for Fives, Sixes, and Sevens. Anger and rage are more observable and therefore easier to identify than the other two. However, all of these emotional responses are both comforting and destructive in equal measure as they influence the behavior of the nine personality types.
Enneagram Eights, Nines, and Ones are in the Anger Triad, which is often referred to as the Gut Triad or the Body-Centered Triad. They receive information from the environment first in their core, or gut, which often causes a reactive rather than a measured response. All three numbers or personality types build “walls” between what they consider self and not-self, and each is built for the distinct purpose of providing the most personal safety.
For Enneagram Eights, the ego-boundary is primarily focused outward, against the environment, and their focus of attention is also outside of themselves. Eights put out a wall of energy so that nothing can get too close, shutting themselves off from vulnerability. They keep their guard up most of the time, and the more wounded they are, the tougher they make it for others to get through.
Type Ones also hold a boundary against the outside world, but they are far more interested in maintaining an internal boundary. They are vigilant about protecting themselves. We all have parts of ourselves that we don’t want to look at or that we don’t trust or approve of—parts of ourselves that make us feel anxious and unprotected. Unlike other numbers, Ones spend a lot of energy trying to hold back unconscious impulses that arise in themselves. “I hate that feeling, and I don’t want it!” they say, or “I have to find a way to stop reacting to everyone and every wrong thing that seems to surround me.” It requires a lot of energy to maintain such strong inner boundaries.
Nines invest lots of energy in protecting their ego boundaries. Internally, they are trying to keep in anything that would cause trouble, and they maintain a strong external boundary trying to keep out anything that would steal their peace. This requires a significant amount of effort, and it is the primary reason Nines have the least energy of all the types. It also explains why they don’t have as much energy as they would like for living and engaging more fully with the world.
There is so much to say about anger because it touches our lives in memorable and altogether different ways. It can be helpful, then, to identify the different ways of expressing these feelings for each of the three numbers.
Eight anger is straight-up, and then it’s over. Everyone involved, and even outside observers, know when an Eight is angry. Once it is expressed, it is finished—except for the lingering effect it has on the other person.
For Nines, anger is a more passive emotion. The peacemakers believe it is in their best interest to protect themselves by expressing anger indirectly. They choose behavior that lets others know they are angry, then hope for the impossible. They want the target of their anger to figure out the reason for their disapproval, apologize for it, and hopefully never do it again—whatever “it” is.
Enneagram Ones don’t believe anger is an acceptable response, so they rename their angry feelings as impatience, anxiety, or frustration. In choosing a substitute, they usually feel better despite it not helping to negotiate a lasting understanding in relationships.
“Will I have the humility to avoid the temptation to defend myself, trying to prove that I’m right?”
Anger is something that happens to your whole body. It’s an emotional response that you consciously feel. At its core, anger is an internal awareness of specific thoughts, feelings, and desires, and yet it is often described in other ways: “I can’t handle much more of this!” or “I obviously thought he was a better person than he is!” For all three personality types, knowing who is to blame is very important, and once the responsibility for the bad behavior is assigned, there is a tendency to simply move on.
Think about these expressions of anger and how they show up in your life. Do you yell, scream, argue, use sarcasm and cynicism, or slam things? As is true with fear and shame, at times we all spiral into behaviors that don’t serve us well. Thankfully, everything contains its opposite. Father Richard Rohr says, “Anger is good and very necessary to protect the appropriate boundaries of self and others. On the other hand, anger becomes self-defeating and egocentric when it hangs around too long after we have received its message.”
Considering that anger has a message for us, the question becomes: can we hear it if we have limited our options by reacting rather than listening? Anger tells us that something is significantly wrong, and it gives us the energy to try to make things right. At its best, anger reveals our concern for fairness, rightness, and justice. There are many times when being angry has motivated me to make changes in my life or to face problems that I have been avoiding, and I know the same is true for others.
Anger has the potential to be redirected toward greater understanding and mutually agreeable solutions. We can even use the energy it offers to move toward transformation, but we have to slow down enough to notice what is happening around us. These questions can be helpful: Are people moving toward me or away from me? In listening to the story I’m telling myself, fueled by my anger, do I pause long enough to ask myself if it’s true? Or is it just fiction that exacerbates my feelings and justifies my bad behavior? And finally, will I have the humility to avoid the temptation to defend myself, trying to prove that I’m right?
Rage is an instinctive reaction to the feeling that we must suppress ourselves in one way or another. When we are feeling judged, misunderstood, justified in our behavior, and empowered to protect ourselves, it’s hard to recognize the slippery slope that awaits us, where the space between anger and rage can be obscured by a lack of awareness. It is helpful to remember that rage is an intensified, growing anger that will be difficult to control. It is wise, therefore, to make every effort to manage anger before we become aware that anger is managing us.
Now, more than ever, we need to be mindful of the energy that accompanies anger. For all that can go wrong—and there is plenty—anger almost always increases and then regenerates the amount of energy we feel. The wisdom that comes from exploring, and perhaps limiting, our options is easily ignored when we are invigorated by a charged exchange, without stopping long enough to consider the consequences.
One of my favorite stories begins with a second-grade boy running down a long hallway in the Sunday School building, trying to catch the Pastor.
“Pastor Joe, please wait! We need your help.”
“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you in Sunday School?”
“I ran out to try to catch up with you. We really need you to come to our class right away.”
“Okay. But why?”
“Because we are all behaving badly and we don’t know how to stop ourselves!”
The distance from anger to rage is not very far, and in the absence of an intervention, our ability to stop ourselves before it’s too late is unlikely. Anger can be a powerful and positive motivator, but it can also become a raging, uncontrolled force that hurts us and others. It is helpful to remember this: regardless of how painful our experiences are or may be, they are just painful experiences—until we add the response of anger or rage.
Suzanne Stabile is a speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher who has taught thousands of people over the last thirty years. She is the author of ‘The Path Between Us’, and coauthor, with Ian Morgan Cron, of ‘The Road Back to You’. She is also the creator and host of The Enneagram Journey podcast. Along with her husband, Rev. Joseph Stabile, she is cofounder of Life in the Trinity Ministry, a nonprofit, nondenominational ministry committed to the spiritual growth and formation of adults.
