Mechanisms of Erasure

The gut types all engage in what I like to call mechanisms of erasure. All three types in the center, Eights, Nines, and Ones, have a tendency toward self-erasure. Oscar Ichazo pointed to this in his original dissemination, describing the tendency of these types to feel a sense of hollowness, an inner lack in the core that points to their sense of beingness. Because these types often have difficulty feeling themselves and, as such, tend to seek (whether consciously or not) stronger sensate experiences, they also have a simultaneous tendency to blunt the emotions and sensations that disturb their egos.

All gut types use denial, though it takes slightly different forms depending on the type. The technical psychological definition of denial is a refusal to accept the reality of a traumatic or uncomfortable situation or emotion. Gut types have heightened somatic awareness, hence the term gut type, which refers to the felt sense of physical awareness in their instinctive responses to the environment and to those around them. This implies a well-developed sense of basic somatic empathy, where the gestalt of a particular situation arrives before conscious thought or emotion. Somatic empathy does not always translate into affective or cognitive empathy, which may or may not be present in the gut type and often depends on other developmental conditions.

Because gut types tend to feel things strongly, unwanted emotions, thoughts, or situations that trigger physical responses (which may literally be anything) are filtered through a kind of gatekeeping mechanism that decides early on whether to allow the feeling to rise to conscious or subconscious awareness. Many gut types may be surprised when someone brings their potential denial to their attention (which, more often than not, happens when others become frustrated with them), because they obviously, by virtue of the defense, have not registered that they have blunted the emotion or its impact.

Just because they have denied the full existence of whatever is uncomfortable in their bodies does not always guarantee that the unwanted feelings will stay out of their way.