For those who haven’t followed Eliot Spitzer in the news, in 2002 Time Magazine named him “crusader of the year” for the way he took on greed and wrongdoing when he was the New York State attorney general. In 2006 he was elected New York’s governor by a historic winning margin. In March 2008 however, the trapdoor to his personality was revealed when the story broke about how he was a repeat prostitution customer.

The scandal of ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer seems a classic example of the Enneagram Trapdoor One. While the press and the public were trying to understand why a man in Spitzer’s position would do such a thing, the Enneagram personality types offered some penetrating insight. Helen Palmer seems to hit the nail right on the head in her 1991 book The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others In Your Life. Here’s the excerpt.

A One lives in a divided house. A critic lives in the upper story, and this critic is largely unaware of the tides of feeling that periodically flood the cellars of the house. If the tide of passion rises sharply, a One is likely to leak off unacceptable feelings by focusing on someone else's wrongdoing, or by getting drunk or drugged enough to put the internal critic to sleep. Binge drinking, episodal rages, or periods of intense sexual activity are ways in which a One can release the pressure that periodically builds from unacknowledged needs.

The image of the divided house also applies to Perfectionists who develop a "trapdoor" relationship between the mental critic and the flood of feelings that get trapped in the basement of the unconscious. Trapdoor Ones are people who develop a double-life solution to the problem of living in a divided house. They develop two distinct temperaments, one for "where I'm known" and one for "far away." They are responsible and well respected where they are known, but become more relaxed and sexy in an environment away from family and friends. The trapdoor solution can be acted out in as innocent a way as going on a vacation to a place where there is anonymity and no responsibility, or it can be acted out in bizarre combinations, such as librarian/prostitute or missionary/thief.

I think the misconception people have of type one is that they want to be good. Experience tells me it's more about them having to be good even though they don't necessarily want to.

Imagine being raised in an enviroment where you're expected to be good. You're expected to know what's right and wrong and behave accordingly. If you don't, there will be consequences. It's not that you're rewarded for good behavior, it's simply that you're not punished if you behave correctly. It's not as if you can be good for awhile, get you're reward, then relax. It's more that you're expected to be good all the time. If you're not, then consequences are always a possibility.

This creates an everpresent internalized critic you carry around with you to make sure you behave correctly. Sometimes you wish it would just go away. However, unlike other people who seem to get away with not behaving, you always seem to end up in trouble if you don't behave appropriately.