Enneagram

• Types
  • We are born with a dominant type
  • From one point of view, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type.
  • It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself.
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• Highlighted Traits
  • 1 - Principled, Purposeful, Self-controlled, Perfectionistic
  • 2 - Generous, Demonstrative, People-pleasing, Possessive
  • 3 - Adaptable, Excelling, Driven, Image-conscious
  • 4 - Expressive, Dramatic, Self-absorbed, Temperamental
  • 5 - Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, Isolated
  • 6 - Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, Suspicious
  • 7 - Spontaneous, Versatile, Acquisitive, Scattered
  • 8 - Self-confident, Decisive, Willful, Confrontational
  • 9 - Receptive, Reassuring, Complacent, Resigned
• Centers
  • Each Center consists of three personality types that have in common the assets and liabilities of that Center.
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• Dominant Emotion
  • Each type results from a particular relationship with a cluster of issues that characterize that Center. Most simply, these issues revolve around a powerful, largely unconscious emotional response to the loss of contact with the core of the self.
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  • Each type has a particular way of coping with the dominant emotion of its Center.
    • Instinctive Center
      • 1
        • Control/repress their anger and instinctual energy
        • Direct these energies according to the superego
      • 9
        • Deny their anger and instinctual energies, often feeling threatened by them
        • Stay out of their darker feelings by focusing on idealizations of their relationships and their world
      • 8
        • Act out their anger and instinctual energies in some physical way, raising their voices, moving more forcefully
        • Others can clearly see that they are angry
    • Feeling Center
      • 2
        • Control their shame by getting other people to like them and to think of them as good people and by focusing on their positive feelings for others while repressing their negative feelings
        • As long as they can get positive emotional responses from others, they feel wanted and are able to control feelings of shame
      • 3
        • Deny their shame and fears of failure, and are potentially the most out of touch with underlying feelings of inadequacy
        • Cope with shame by trying to become what they believe a valuable, successful person is like
      • 4
        • Control their shame by focusing on how unique their particular talents, feelings, and personal characteristics are, although they are the type most likely to succumb to feelings of inadequacy
        • Manage their shame by cultivating a rich, romantic fantasy life in which they do not have to deal with whatever in their life seems drab or uninteresting to them
    • Thinking Center
      • 5
        • Fear about the outer world and their capacity to cope with it
        • Cope with their fear by withdrawing from the world hoping they understand reality on their own terms by involving themselves with increasingly complex inner worlds
      • 6
        • Exhibit the most fear of all three types, largely experienced as anxiety, which causes them to be the most out of touch with their own sense of inner knowing and confidence by constantly looking outside themselves for something to make them feel sure of themselves like philosophies, beliefs, relationships, jobs, savings, authorities, or any combination of the above
        • Respond to their fear and anxiety by impulsively confronting it— defying their fear in the effort to be free of it
      • 7
        • Have fear about their inner world i.e. feelings of pain, loss, deprivation, and general anxiety
        • Cope with these feelings by keeping their minds occupied with exciting possibilities and trying to do as many as they can by staying on the go, pursuing one experience after another, and keeping themselves entertained and engaged with their many ideas and activities
• The Wing
  • No one is a pure personality type: everyone is a unique mixture of his or her basic type and usually one of the two types adjacent to it on the circumference of the Enneagram. One of the two types adjacent to your basic type is called your wing.
  • Your basic type dominates your overall personality, while the wing complements it and adds important, sometimes contradictory, elements to your total personality.
  • Some individuals seem to have both wings, while others are strongly influenced by their basic type and show little of either wing. Most people have a dominant wing. In the vast majority of people, while the so-called second wing always remains operative to some degree, the dominant wing is far more important.
  • Strictly speaking, everyone has two wings—in the restricted sense that both of the types adjacent to your basic type are operative in your personality since each person possesses the potentials of all nine types.
• The Continuum of the Levels of Development
  • Healthy
    • Level 1: The Level of Liberation
    • Level 2: The Level of Psychological Capacity
    • Level 3: The Level of Social Value
  • Average
    • Level 4: The Level of Imbalance/ Social Role
    • Level 5: The Level of Interpersonal Control
    • Level 6: The Level of Overcompensation
  • Unhealthy
    • Level 7: The Level of Violation
    • Level 8: The Level of Obsession and Compulsion
    • Level 9: The Level of Pathological Destructiveness
• Directions of Integration (Growth) and Disintegration (Stress)
  • The inner lines of the Enneagram connect the types in a sequence that denotes what each type will do under different conditions.
  • Direction of Integration or Growth
    • The line that connects with a type that represents how a person of the first type behaves when they are moving toward health and growth.
    • Indicated by the sequence of numbers 1-7-5-8-2-4-1 or 9-3-6-9
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  • Direction of Stress or Disintegration
    • The line that goes to another type that represents how the person is likely to act out if they are under increased stress and pressure—when they feel they are not in control of the situation.
    • Indicated by the sequence of numbers 1-4-2-8-5-7-1 or 9-6-3-9
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• The Three Instincts

  • A major aspect of human nature lies in our instinctual “hard wiring” as biological beings. We each are endowed with specific instinctual intelligences that are necessary for our survival as individuals and as a species.
  • We each have a self-preservation instinct (for preserving the body and its life and functioning), a sexual instinct (for extending ourselves in the environment and through the generations), and a social instinct (for getting along with others and forming secure social bonds).
  • While we have all three Instincts in us, one of them is the dominant focus of our attention and behavior—the set of attitudes and values that we are most attracted to and comfortable with. We each also have a second Instinct that is used to support the dominant Instinct, as well as a third Instinct that is the least developed—a real blind spot in our personality and our values. Which Instinct is in each of these three places—most, middle, and least developed—produces what we call our “Instinctual Stack” (like a three-layer cake) with your dominant Instinct on top, the next most developed Instinct in the middle, and the least developed on the bottom).
  • While every human being has all three of these instincts operating in him or her, our personality causes us to be more concerned with one of these instincts than the other two. We call this instinct our dominant instinct. This tends to be our first priority—the area of life we attend to first. But when we are more caught up in the defenses of our personality—further down the Levels of Development— our personality most interferes with our dominant instinct.
  • Self Preservation Instinct / SP
    • Tend to be more grounded, practical, serious, and introverted
    • Interested in adjusting the environment to make themselves more secure and comfortable by preoccupying with the safety, comfort, health, energy, and well-being of the physical body
    • By extension, are usually interested in maintaining these resources for others as well
    • Might have active social lives and a satisfying intimate relationship, but if they feel that their self-preservation needs are not being met, still tend not to be happy or at ease
    • In their primary relationships, these people are “nesters”—they seek domestic tranquility and security with a stable, reliable partner
  • Sexual (aka “Attraction”) Instinct / SX
    • Tend to be more aggressive, competitive, charged, and emotionally intense
    • Seek intimacy, and constantly moving toward that sense of intense stimulation and juicy energy in their relationships and in their activities
    • Are immediately aware of the attraction, or lack thereof, between themselves and other people and not necessarily about people engaging in the sexual act
    • Have an intense drive for stimulation and a constant awareness of the “chemistry” between themselves and others
    • Have intense energetic charge in their primary relationships or else they remain unsatisfied and enjoy being intensely involved—even merged—with others, and can become disenchanted with partners who are unable to meet their need for intense energetic union
  • Social (aka “Adaptive”) Instinct / SO
    • Tend to be warmer, more open, engaging, and socially responsible
    • Seek personal connection; stay in long-term contact with people and to be involved in their world
    • Adapt themselves to serve the needs of the social situation they find themselves in by doing things that have an impact on their community, or even broader domains, thus are highly aware of other people, whether they are in intimate situations or in groups, and also aware of how their actions and attitudes are affecting those around them
    • In their primary relationships, they seek partners with whom they can share social activities, wanting their intimates to get involved in projects and events with them, and paradoxically tend to avoid long periods of exclusive intimacy and quiet solitude, seeing both as potentially limiting
    • Lose their sense of identity and meaning when they are not involved with others in activities that transcend their individual interests

• Ref. : The Enneagram Institute