Enneagram of Personality

For other uses, see Enneagram.

Enneagram figure

The Enneagram of Personality (or simply enneagram, from greek ennea [nine] and grammos [written or drawn]) is a typology of human personality developed by Oscar Ichazo and his students Claudio Naranjo and Helen Palmer, ostensibly based on a system introduced by G. I. Gurdjieff. The typology defines nine personality types ("enneatypes"), which are usually depicted as the points of a geometric figure (an enneagram) which shows their basic relationships. There are different schools of thought among Ichazo's students about the structure of the typology, so interpretations of the system are not always unified or consistent.

The Enneagram of Personality is not a typology used in academic psychology, but has been widely promoted in both business management and religious or spiritual contexts through seminars, conferences, magazines and DVDs, and books. In business contexts it is generally used as a pure typology to gain insights into workplace dynamics; in spirituality it is more commonly presented as a path to higher states of being, essence and enlightenment, with some describing it as a 'self religion' or method for self-understanding and self-development. The typology has been criticized as being more subjective and interpretive than mainstream academic personality typologies such as the the Meyers-Briggs, making it difficult to test or validate scientifically.

History

G. I. Gurdjieff is credited with introducing the enneagram figure to the West, however did not develop the nine personality types now associated with the Enneagram. Oscar Ichazo is generally recognized as the principal source of the contemporary Enneagram of Personality. Ichazo's "Enneagon of Ego Fixations", together with a number of other dimensions of personality mapped on the enneagram figure, forms the basis of the Enneagram of Personality. Bolivian-born Ichazo began teaching programs of self-development in the 1950s. His teaching, which he calls "Protoanalysis", uses the enneagram figure among many other symbols and ideas. Ichazo founded the Arica Institute which was originally based in Chile before moving to the United States, and coined the term Enneagram of Personality

Claudio Naranjo, a Chilean-born psychiatrist and Ichazo student, split with Ichazo about the correct interpretation of the Enneagram. Naranjo began teaching his understanding of the Enneagram in the United States in the early 1970s, influencing others, including a group of Jesuit priests who adapted the Enneagram for use in counseling sessions, and Naranjo student Helen Palmer who wrote a series of books that focused the Enneagram toward self-analysis, family and workplace relationships. Richard Rohr and Elizabeth Wagele, and Don Riso also published widely read books on the Enneagram of Personality in the 1980s and 1990s.

Basic typology

The enneagram figure is usually composed of three parts, a circle, an inner triangle (connecting 3-6-9) and an irregular hexagonal "periodic figure" (connecting 1-4-2-8-5-7). According to esoteric spiritual traditions, the circle symbolizes unity, the inner triangle symbolizes the "law of three" and the hexagon represents the "law of seven" (because 1-4-2-8-5-7-1 is the repeating decimal created by dividing one by seven in base 10 arithmetic). These three elements constitute the enneagram figure. The table below gives the principle characteristics of the nine types, along with their basic relationships.

Nine types

This table is based on Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types, revised edition and the Enneagram institute; other variants may disagree on specific points. Types are normally referred to by number, though often people will use the 'characteristic role' (which refers to distinctive archetypal characteristics) as a conventional name. The 'stress' and 'security' columns (sometimes referred to as disintegration and integration points) give the number of the type that a person may resemble in particularly adverse or particularly favorable situations. Thus, someone normally classed as type 1 may appear like a type 4 under stress, or like a 7 when relaxed.

#	Characteristic role	Ego fixation	Holy idea	Basic fear	Basic desire	Temptation	Vice/Passion	Virtue	Stress	Sicherheit
1	Reformer	Resentment	Perfection	Corruptness, evil	Goodness, integrity, balance	hypocrisy, hypercriticism	Anger	Right action	4	7
2	Helper	Flattery	Freedom	Unworthiness of love	Unconditional Love	Manipulativeness	Vainglory	Altruism	8	4
3	Achiever	Vanity	Hope	Worthlessness	Value to others	Pleasing everybody	Deceit	Truthfulness	9	6
4	Individualist	Melancholy	Origin	Commonness	Uniqueness, authenticity	Self-castigation, withdrawl	Envy	Equanimity	2	1
5	Investigator	Stinginess	Omniscience	Uselessness, helplessness	Competency	Overthinking	Avarice	Detachment	7	8
6	Loyalist	Cowardice	Faith	Isolation and vulnerability	Safety	Suspiciousness	Fear	Courage	3	9
7	Enthusiast	Planning	Work	Boredom	Experience of life	Moving too fast	Gluttony	Sobriety	1	5
8	Challenger	Vengeance	Truth	Loss of control	Self-protection, autonomy	Self-sufficiency	Lust	Magnanimity	5	2
9	Peacemaker	Indolence, self-forgetting	Liebe	Loss, annihilation	Stability, peace of mind	Giving in	Indifference	Serenity	6	3

Wings

Most, but not all, Enneagram of Personality theorists teach that a person's basic type is modified, at least to some extent, by the personality dynamics of the two adjacent types as indicated on the enneagram figure. These two types are often called "wings". A person of the Three personality type, for example, is understood to have points Two and Four as their wing types. The circle of the enneagram figure may indicate that the types or points exist on a spectrum rather than as distinct types or points unrelated to those adjacent to them. A person may be understood, therefore, to have a core type and one or two wing types that influence but do not change the core type.

Stress and security points

The lines between the points 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 a person's overall personality. There are, therefore, at least four other points that can significantly affect a person's core personality; the two points connected by the lines to the core type and the two wing points.

Instinctual subtypes

Each of the personality types are usually understood as having three subtypes. These three subtypes are believed to be formed according to which one of three instinctual energies of a person is dominantly developed and expressed. The instinctual energies are usually called "self-preservation", "sexual" (also called "intimacy" or "one-to-one") and "social". On the instinctual level, people may internally stress and externally express the need to protect themselves (self-preservation), to connect with important others or partners (sexual), or to get along or succeed in groups (social). From this perspective, there are 27 distinct personality patterns, because people of each of the nine types also express themselves as one of the three subtypes. An alternative approach to the subtypes looks at them as three domains or clusters of instincts that result in increased probability of survival (the "preserving" domain), increased skill in navigating the social environment (the "navigating" domain) and increased likelihood of reproductive success (the "transmitting" domain). From this understanding the subtypes reflect individual differences in the presence of these three separate clusters of instincts.

It is generally believed that people function in all three forms of instinctual energies but that one usually dominates. According to some theorists another instinct may also be well-developed and the third often markedly less developed.

See also

• Arica School

Further reading

• Almaas, A. H. (2000). Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas. Shambhala. ISBN 0-936713-14-3.
• Goldberg, Michael J. (1999). 9 Ways of Working. Marlowe & Company. ISBN 1-56924-688-2.
• Ichazo, Oscar (1982). Interviews with Oscar Ichazo. Arica Press. ISBN 0916554023.
• Maitri, Sandra (2005). The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues: Finding the Way Home. Tarcher. ISBN 1-58542-406-4.
• Naranjo, Claudio (1997). Transformation Through Insight: Enneatypes in Life. Hohm Press. ISBN 0934252734.
• Palmer, Helen (1996). The Enneagram in Love and Work: Understanding your Intimate and Business Relationships. HarperOne. ISBN 0-06-250721-4.
• Riso, Don Richard (1999). Wisdom of the Enneagram. Bantam. ISBN 0553378201. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Wagele, Elizabeth (2010). The Career Within You. HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-171861-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Riso, Don Richard (2000). Understanding the Enneagram; the practical guide to personality types. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-61800415-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Enneagramweb.com - A Brief History of the Enneagram of Personality