Enneagram of Personality

The Enneagram (click the numbers for detailed explanations)

The Enneagram of Personality—usually known simply as the Enneagram—is a particular application of the Fourth Way enneagram figure. The Enneagram system describes nine distinct personality types and their interrelationships, mapped around an ancient symbol of perpetual motion. This is now the best-known use of this particular enneagram figure.

The term "enneagram" derives from two Greek words, ennea (nine) and grammi (line). The Enneagram is a nine-pointed figure inscribed in a circle. The meaning of the symbol itself, together with the personality types organized around the nine points, convey a system of "knowledge" about nine distinct but interrelated personality types, or nine ways of seeing and experiencing the world. The Enneagram of Personality is generally presented as a psychospiritual system for mapping and understanding nine possible personality types.

Although mostly understood and presented as a typology (a model of personality types), the Enneagram of Personality is also presented in ways intended to develop higher states of being, essence and enlightenment. Each personality type associated with the Enneagram represents a map of traits that highlights patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. By learning one’s type and the patterns and habits associated with that type, one may be able to use the Enneagram system as an effective tool for self-understanding and self-development.

Adherents of the theory believe that each Enneagram personality type, or style, is based on a pattern of attention. They believe that by learning about what kinds of things one habitually attends to and puts energy into, one can observe oneself more accurately and develop more self-awareness, and that by enhancing one’s self awareness with the help of the Enneagram, one can exercise more choice about one’s functioning rather than engaging in patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior in an automatic, habitual, unconscious way.

In recent decades, the term Enneatype has been used in many mainstream publications on the subject (in lieu of "Enneagram personality type"). This system is being applied in many varied areas including business, psychotherapy, organizational development, career coaching, the arts, health care, parenting, education, and spiritual growth.

Enneagram figure

Don Riso claims that enneagram figure possibly originated around 2500 BC. It is composed of three parts, the circle, the inner triangle, and the "periodic figure". According to esoteric spiritual traditions, the circle symbolizes unity, the inner triangle symbolizes the "law of three", and the hexagonal periodic figure represents the "law of seven". These three elements constitute the Enneagram.

Development

George Gurdjieff

The Enneagram symbol was supposedly first brought to the attention of the modern world by G. I. Gurdjieff, though first published by P.D. Ouspensky in 1947 in In Search of the Miraculous. Although Gurdjieff used the Enneagram diagram to describe possibilities of human development, his concept of the diagram was related to the symbolic communication of ancient knowledge and the "self-work" process through which individuals can acquire insight rather than to the categorizing of personality styles.

Oscar Ichazo

Oscar Ichazo assigned descriptions to each of the nine positions on the Enneagram diagram he called the Enneagram of Ego Fixations, which was the origination of the Enneagram of Personality as we know it today. The popular use of the Enneagram of personality began principally with Claudio Naranjo who had studied with Ichazo in Chile but was asked to leave before the intensive 1971 training had finished. Ichazo considers Naranjo's understanding of the Enneagram to be limited and incomplete, although Naranjo's Enneagram teachings, and those of other Enneagram teachers, have been more influential in popularizing familiarity of the Enneagram figure than any available works by Ichazo.

Ichazo from the 1960s on taught a program of self-development work that he called "Protoanalysis" that used, among many other symbols and ideas, the Enneagram.

Ichazo founded the Arica Institute, originally based in Chile. The contemporary Arica School offers trainings around the world in various aspects of Ichazo's work.

Claudio Naranjo

Claudio Naranjo, a Chilean-born, American-trained psychiatrist who had explored theories of personality extensively, studied with Ichazo and took Ichazo's teaching and further developed it, articulating the nine types in Western psychological terms. Naranjo then brought his understanding of the Enneagram system to Berkeley (the city, not the university) in the early 1970s, where he taught it to students in the context of his own program of self-development work.

Based on material first taught by Claudio Naranjo, Helen Palmer, Don Riso, Russ Hudson, Patrick O'Leary, Richard Rohr, Elizabeth Wagele and others published the first widely read books on the Enneagram in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The nine types

According to Enneagram of Personality theory, the points of the enneagram figure indicate a number of ways in which nine principal ego-archetypal forms or types of human personality ("Enneatypes") are psychologically connected.

People of each Enneatype are usually referred to after the number of the point on the enneagram figure (Eights, Fours, Sixes etc.) that indicates their particular psychological space and 'place' of connection to the other types. They are also often given names that suggest some of their more distinctive archetypal characteristics.

Brief descriptions of the nine Enneatypes are as follows:

Ones

Ego fixation: Resentment
Holy idea: Perfection
Basic Fear: Being corrupt/evil, defective
Basic Desire: To be good, to have integrity, to be balanced
Temptation: To be hypercritical or hypocritical of others.
Vice/Passion: Anger
Virtue: Serenity
Stress/Disintegration point: Four (Angry, critical Ones suddenly become moody and irrational like Fours.)
Security/Integration point: Seven (Objective, principled Ones become more spontaneous and joyful like healthy Sevens.)

Twos

Ego Fixation: Flattery
Holy Idea: Freedom
Basic Fear: Of being unworthy of being loved.
Basic Desire: To be loved unconditionally.
Temptation: To manipulate others in order to get positive responses
Vice/Passion: Pride (specifically, Vainglory, the love of one's own goodness)
Virtue: Altruism
Stress/Disintegration point: Eights (When Twos give without receiving back, they become manipulative and angry like unhealthy Eights.)
Security/Integration point: Four (Helpful Twos become emotionally strong, caring, and authentic like healthy Fours.)

Threes

Ego fixation: Vanity
Holy idea: Hope
Basic Fear: Being worthless
Basic Desire: To be valuable
Temptation: To please everybody
Vice/Passion: Deceit
Virtue: Truthfulness
Stress/Disintegration point: Nine (Burnt-out Threes start to disengage themselves from their relentless drive to success and look like unhealthy Nine)
Security/Integration point: Six (Once they recognize being on top of everything is not everything, Threes find it comfortable to commit themselves to others, like a healthy Six. The commitment to relationships also allows them to explore their emotions.)

Fours

Ego fixation: Melancholy
Holy idea: Origin
Basic Fear: Being commonplace
Basic Desire: To be unique and authentic
Temptation: To beat themselves up and withdraw
Vice/Passion: Envy
Virtue: Equanimity
Stress/Disintegration point: Two (Disintegrating Fours become dissatisfied like unhealthy Twos.)
Security/Integration point: One (Self-actualized Fours are idealistic and progressive like healthy Ones.)

Fives

Ego Fixation: Stinginess
Holy Idea: Omniscience
Basic Fear: Being useless, helpless, or incapable
Basic Desire: To be capable and competent
Temptation: To keep the world at bay
Vice: Avarice
Virtue: Detachment
Stress/Disintegration point: Seven (Detached Fives suddenly become hyperactive and scattered like Sevens.)
Security/Integration point: Eight (Avaricious, detached Fives become more self-confident and decisive like healthy Eights.)

Sixes

Ego fixation: Cowardice
Holy idea: Faith
Basic Fear: To be without a support system in an unforgiving world
Basic Desire: To feel safe
Temptation: To question the intentions of everyone around them
Vice/Passion: Fear
Virtue: Courage
Stress/Disintegration point: Three (Paranoid, anxious Sixes try to win over others, like unhealthy Threes, to cover up their anxiety.)
Security/Integration point: Nine (Positive-thinking Sixes become more peaceful, open and receptive like healthy Nines.)

Sevens

Ego fixation: Planning
Holy idea: Work
Basic Fear: Boredom
Basic Desire: To experience as much of the world as possible
Temptation: Moving too fast
Vice/Passion: Gluttony
Virtue: Sobriety
Stress/Disintegration point: One (When forced to stand still, Sevens become irritable and impatient like unhealthy Ones.)
Security/Integration point: Five (Confident, experienced Sevens bring a sense of calm to hectic situations like healthy Fives.)

Eights

Ego fixation: Vengeance
Holy idea: Truth
Basic Fear: Of being harmed or controlled by others, of violation
Basic Desire: To protect themselves, to determine their own course in life
Temptation: To be too self-sufficient
Vice: Lust
Virtue: Magnanimity
Stress/Disintegration point: Five (Eights become withdrawn and isolated like unhealthy Fives in their pursuit of control.)
Security/Integration point: Two (Proactive, forward-thinking Eights learn to become helpful and cooperative like healthy Twos.)

Nines

Ego fixation: Self-forgetting
Holy idea: Love
Basic Fear: Loss and separation; of annihilation
Basic Desire: To maintain inner stability and peace of mind
Temptation: To go along to get along
Vice/Passion: Indifference
Virtue: Right action
Security/Integration point: Three (begin to work at developing themselves and their potential and move into greater action in the world, like healthier Threes)
Stress/Disintegration point: Six (get more anxious, suspicious, and negative like unhealthy Sixes and may exhibit more aggressiveness)

The three centers of intelligence

The nine Enneagram types are grouped into three groups of three, corresponding to the three Centers of Intelligence, through which information is processed (head, heart, and body) and the three core emotions (fear, grief, and anger). In the West, the head is commonly considered the only Center of Intelligence, but the Enneagram highlights the importance of the emotions and the body as equally important centers of functioning and interacting with the outside world.

According to the Enneagram system, each of the nine types is limited by an imbalance involving one of the three Centers of Intelligence. The human faculty primarily involved with the Head Center is thinking, the faculty primarily involved with the Emotional Center is feeling, and the faculty primarily involved with the Body Center is will. Each of the head types has a different kind of imbalance involving thinking, each of the heart types a different kind of imbalance involving feeling, and each of the body types a different kind of imbalance involving will.

The three Centers of Intelligence also correspond to three core emotions that influence the character of the types. The head types (5, 6, and 7) are also the fear types, and their personality style is shaped by their relationship to fear. The heart types (2, 3, and 4) are also the grief or sadness types, and their personality style is fundamentally shaped by their relationship to grief. The body types (8, 9, and 1) are the anger types, and their personality is fundamentally shaped by their relationship to anger. The types on the inner triangle (3, 6, 9) are also called the core points of each center's triad of types. Thus, type 3 is the core of the Heart Center types; type 6 is the core of the Head Center types; and type 9 is the core of the Body Center types.

Relations between types

Wings

Each Enneagram type may be influenced by the types on either side of it (adjacent to it). These two types are known as wings of the type, and may or may not color the expression of a given individual's personality type or core point. The circle of the Enneagram symbol suggests that the types or points exist on a spectrum, rather than as distinct types or points unrelated to those adjacent to them. Thus, an individual may be said to have a core point and one wing, two wings, or both wings that influence but do not change that person's core type.

Stress and security points

The lines with arrows between the types add further meaning to the information provided by the descriptions of the types. Sometimes called the security and stress points, or points of integration and disintegration, these connected points also contribute to the expression of a given individual's personality. Thus, each person actually has five points that potentially contribute to the make-up of his or her personality: the core type, the two types that are connected by the two lines to the core type, and the two wings.

Instinctual subtypes

Each of the Enneagram personality types can also be further subdivided into one of three categories or subtypes. These three sub-type categories correspond to one of three different ways the instinctual energy of the type may express itself. These three sub-type categories or types of energies are self-preservation, one-to-one (also called sexual), and social. On the instinctual level of being, humans may internally stress and externally express the need to protect themselves (self-preservation), to connect with important others or partners (one-to-one), or to get along or succeed in the group (social). From the point of view of Enneagram subtypes, there are actually 27 personality types because individuals of each Enneagram type may express themselves primarily as a self-preservation subtype, a one-on-one subtype, or a social subtype.

Each individual has some functionality in all three subtypes, but one subtype usually dominates a personality, sometimes with a second nearly as well developed, and the third often markedly less developed.

Directional scales

The Enneagram types have also been mapped to Karen Horney's "Three Trends" (Moving Towards, Against, Away from), in two dimensions of "Surface Direction" and "Deep Direction" (which also are roughly similar to FIRO and other Two-factor models of personality). Each type, on the surface, moves one way but, underneath, can move a different way. This is claimed to determine both behavior and motivations.

Surface Direction→ Deep Direction↓	− Against (confronting)	0 Away (withdrawing)	+ Towards (embracing)
+ Towards (Approval Seeking)	3	9	6
0 Away (Ideal Seeking)	1	4	7
− Against (Power Seeking)	8	5	2

Applications

The Enneagram system of personality types is now widely used in a variety of contexts, including business, psychotherapy, spiritual development work, the arts (literature and acting), education (including parenting).

Here are some of the ways practitioners in these areas use the Enneagram today:

Business: To understand and improve individual and group behavior in work situations involving communication, team performance, leadership, conflict, and coaching.

Psychotherapy: To provide clinicians with a clearer "understanding" of psychological processes and the unconscious patterns underlying human experience, relationships, suffering, healing, and growth; to design therapeutic interventions to correspond to different personality styles; to help individuals -- through self-analysis -- gain insights into their automatic habits of behavior, thoughts, and emotions.

Spiritual Work: To provide a framework for clarifying the spiritual paths, tasks, biases, and practices most relevant and useful to individuals of the nine different Enneagram types.

The Arts: To create more dimensional and credible characters in literature; to understand characterization in filmmaking and acting; to understand the creative processes of artists of the nine types.

Education: To "understand" the specific strengths and challenges corresponding to each of the distinct personality types in order to tailor teaching to different styles of learning; to help parents improve their own parenting styles and learn how to most effectively parent children of the nine different types.

Criticism

Similar to the Myers-Briggs typology of personality, the Enneagram does demonstrate internal consistency in testing conditions. However, this does not indicate that the types themselves are valid, organized correctly, or represent all possible personality types. Currently, the only scientifically based personality typology with general scientific consensus is known as the Big Five personality traits, though even that system is empirical, based on a description of human behavior, and does not conclusively offer a complete profile of human psychology. Like Myers-Briggs and other personality typology systems, the Enneagram of Personality is not falsifiable, and can be heavily influenced by the Barnum Effect.

Certain relationships in the modern Enneagram are suspect as having their roots in mysticism and numerology. Don Riso and Russ Hudson attribute the three portions of the Enneagram to Gurdijieff's notions of divine or universal laws - the Laws of One (the circle), Three (the triangle), and Seven (the hexad). For example, the Enneagram of Personality draws a developmental line along 1-4-2-8-5-7, separate from the 3-6-9 triangle, inscribed into a circle. Dividing one by seven yields the repeating decimal .142857, or multiplying 142857 by 7 equals 999999. Similarly, 3, 6, and 9 are all multiples of three, and one divided by three yields a repeating decimal of .333.

References

• Almaas, A. H. (2000). Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas. Shambhala. ISBN 0-936713-14-3.
• Bartlett, Carolyn (2008). The Enneagram Field Guide: Notes on Using the Enneagram in Counseling, Therapy and Personal Growth. ISBN 978-0979012549.
• Beesing, Maira (O'Leary, Patrick; and Nogosek, Robert J.). The Enneagram: A Journey of Self-Discovery. Dimension Books. ISBN 978-0871932143. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Daniels, David (2000). The Essential Enneagram: Test and Self-Discovery Guide. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-251676-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Hurley, Kathleen V. (1993). My Best Self: Using the Enneagram to Free the Soul. HarperOne. ISBN 85-7272-066-9.
• Ichazo, Oscar (1982). Interviews with Oscar Ichazo. Arica Press. ISBN 0916554023.
• Maitri, Sandra (2001). The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul. Tarcher. ISBN 1-58542-081-6.
• Maitri, Sandra (2005). The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues: Finding the Way Home. Tarcher. ISBN 1-58542-406-4.
• Naranjo, Claudio (1990). Character and Neurosis. Gateway Books & Tapes. ISBN 0-89556-066-6.
• Naranjo, Claudio (1990). Ennea-type Structures: Self-Analysis for the Seeker. Gateway Books & Tapes. ISBN 978-0895560636.
• Naranjo, Claudio (1995). Enneatypes and Psychotherapy. Gateway Books & Tapes. ISBN 0934252475.
• Naranjo, Claudio (1997). Transformation Through Insight: Enneatypes in Life. Hohm Press. ISBN 0934252734.
• Palmer, Helen (1988). The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life. Harper & Row. ISBN 0062506730.
• Palmer, Helen (1996). The Enneagram in Love and Work: Understanding your Intimate and Business Relationships. HarperOne. ISBN 0-06-250721-4.
• Riso, Don Richard (1996). Personality Types. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0395798676. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Riso, Don Richard (1999). Wisdom of the Enneagram. Bantam. ISBN 0553378201. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Rohr, Richard (2001). The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective. Crossroad. ISBN 0-8245-1950-7.
• Wagele, Elizabeth (1994). The Enneagram Made Easy. HarperOne. ISBN 0-06-251026-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Wagele, Elizabeth (1995). Are You My Type, Am I Yours? : Relationships Made Easy Through The Enneagram. HarperOne. ISBN 006251248X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Wagele, Elizabeth (1997). The Enneagram of Parenting: The 9 Types of Children and How to Raise Them Successfully. HarperOne. ISBN 0062514555.
• Wagele, Elizabeth (2007). Finding the Birthday Cake; Helping Children Raise Their Self-Esteem (An Enneagram book for children). New Horizon Press. ISBN 978-0-88282-277-8.

External links

• International Enneagram Association (China): Hong Kong website
• Arica School website
• International Enneagram Association website
• Association of Enneagram Teachers in the Narrative Tradition
• History of the Enneagram of Personality article
• Enneagram Monthly website
• TALK Journal