According to Jung's personality theory, the psyche is constantly flowing between two extremes, and your primary task is to successfully balance the two polarities. To achieve individuation, each personality has to acknowledge and work through the limitations of its idealized self and shadow, its strengths and weaknesses, and its motivations and fixations (what keeps it stuck). These primary polarities that a Two has to navigate are explored in the following sections.

Shadow and Idealized Self

Every personality forms an inner world that reflects how it feels about itself and an outer world that projects what it wants others to know about it. Jung would also refer to these worlds as the shadow, the hidden traits that your psyche squelches and does not want the outer world to see, and the idealized self, what your psyche creates and wants the outer world to see.

Twos' shadow hides excessive neediness and the willingness to manipulate others to get their hidden or unexpressed needs met. They don't want anyone to know that, when angry, ignored, or insulted, they swing from feeling martyred to feeling hostile. Twos mask their martyrdom. If they feel out-shined, they will undermine the other person's image. They can become possessive, dominating, overprotective, and controlling.

A Two's idealized self contains extreme sensitivity, genuine compassion, and true generosity. A truly healthy Two offers real nurturing based on real love and often inspires others to give selflessly. They are highly perceptive, empathetic, nonjudgmental, and supportive.

Turn-Ons and Turnoffs

According to Jung, libido is not connected to your sex drive alone, but instead refers to your overall psychic energy or what gives your personality juice. The opposite of what turns you on would be what turns you off. To individuate, Twos need to seek balance between these two polarities.

Twos thrive on appreciation and gratitude. They love feeling indispensable, helping others through a crisis, and feeling unimpeachable when it comes to relationships. They love behaving in a charitable fashion or being perceived as someone who loves deeply. What they really love, however, is someone who shows real concern for their needs.

They are turned off to the point of being miserable when their love is not returned in equal proportions or when their loved ones aren't sensitive to or fulfilling their needs. Even though they use manipulation to win love, they really don't like it when someone tries to control them.

Fear and Security

These basic and very essential characteristics determine how Twos approach, live in, and eventually conquer their worlds. Fears stop people short and often cause them to regress, and people rarely progress unless they feel a certain sense of security about themselves or their circumstances.

Twos are terrified that no one will love them and that they cannot survive alone. Since they compensate by becoming indispensable, Twos are always afraid that they will let people down. They are afraid of not being needed. When their need for being perceived as essential, unselfish, and saintly isn't met, they feel as if they don't exist.

Twos create a sense of security by using their heightened sensitivity or internal radar to determine the moods and preferences of those around them and then using that knowledge to make loved ones need them. They like feeling unselfish and feel most secure when they are earning praise or gratitude from others.

Motivations and Fixations

Being motivated or being stuck relates to how Twos use or ignore their psychic energy. Knowing their primary motivations and what Twos cling to within their own personality that either helps them progress toward individuation or keeps them stuck in fixations helps you understand how their personality functions.

Twos need to feel important, loved, appreciated, and needed; they need others to validate their feelings and make them feel special. Their egocentric desire to be loved makes them willing to do whatever it takes to prove that others need and love them. They eagerly sacrifice themselves to take care of others in anticipation that the recipient of their love will grow to love them for it. Twos let their needy hearts rule over their heads.

Because Twos are afraid that no one will love them for who they are, they feel as if they have to make others love them by constantly sacrificing themselves. They fear and deny their own aggressive tendencies, which leads to repression and resentment. Terrified that anyone who sees their real, unattractive underbelly won't love them, they are also afraid to show their real feelings. Instead of admitting, owning, and fulfilling their own needs, they project their neediness onto others.

Coping and Failing

This coping-failing dichotomy has to do with the behaviors Twos adopt to cope with their lives, or maintain the status quo, and how those same behaviors can lead to a failure to grow into their full potential.

Twos rely on their intuition, their feelings, and their heart far more than their analytical or mental abilities. Twos cope by taking pride in being more loving and generous than anyone else. As long as they focus on others, they don't notice that they aren't getting their own needs met.

Convinced it will win love, Twos become changelings who alter their personality, appearance, behavior, or mannerisms to be what someone else wants them to be. They use flattery and intense protestations of their undying love to lure someone into their web. They curry favor and will give and give and give — if only you will like them and need them and want them around. Twos are highly sensitive to the moods and preferences of those around them as if they have internal radars to detect what they need to do to win your favor. Twos have a strong desire for relationship. They develop a strong need for affection and approval — they need to feel loved, protected, and valued.

Twos fail when their sense of identity is tied to their unfailing generosity when it comes to time or energy spent serving others, causing them to overextend themselves to the point of exhaustion. They get so used to deflecting attention by obsessing about everyone else's problems that they forget how to focus on themselves. In fact, their need to feel superior — based on their willingness to focus on everyone else's needs — leads them to seriously neglect their own physical, intellectual, or emotional needs. Eventually they lose sight of who they are and what they really need.

Falling Apart and Transcending

Each enneatype has a unique way of falling apart. The types each have specific needs they need fulfilled, or mental concepts they can embrace, before they can successfully transcend their ego limitations and become fully integrated and whole. Twos become angry, accusatory, and abusive toward anyone they feel is ignoring their needs or who isn't returning their affections. This is especially apparent when their excessive giving becomes compulsive and openly goal oriented or manipulative and wakes others up to their games or causes them to reject them. When all of their coping mechanisms fail, their emotions may become volatile and escalate disproportionate to the conflict or situation. When they feel thwarted or threatened, they verbally or emotionally berate their partners, fly into rages, or lapse into crying jags.

To become self-actualized, Twos need to recognize their neediness and learn to fill it in healthier ways. They also need to uncover their hidden motives and forgive themselves for being underhanded when it comes to love. They need to truly recognize that everyone is responsible for their own needs, that people will love them simply for being themselves, that boundaries need to be honored, that their needs are as important as anyone else's needs, and that filling their needs from the inside out is healthier than meeting them from the outside in. As they integrate, Twos save themselves by becoming increasingly attracted to spiritual enlightenment.