What is the Enneagram?

The basic idea

Most personality models describe what people are like: how outgoing, organized, or anxious they tend to be. The Enneagram asks a different question: what is a person organized around? Each of its nine types is defined by a core motivation, something the person keeps reaching for, and a core fear, something they keep steering away from. Behavior follows from those, but the same behavior can come from different motives. Two people who both work late may do it for very different reasons, and the Enneagram says the reason is what defines the type.

The name comes from Greek words for nine and for something drawn or written. The figure is a circle with nine points, connected by a triangle and an irregular six-sided shape. Each point is a type, identified by a number from 1 to 9. The numbers are labels, not rankings. A Type 9 is not more or less of anything than a Type 1.

The nine types at a glance

The names in the table are EnneaFox's own short labels. Enneagram teachers use many different names for the types, which is one reason the numbers are the safer reference. Each type has its own page with a fuller description, common confusions, growth practices, and reflection prompts.

The three centers

Tradition groups the types into three centers, also called triads, of three types each. The gut center (8, 9, and 1) is said to organize around autonomy and a relationship with anger. The heart center (2, 3, and 4) organizes around identity and image, with shame as a common theme. The head center (5, 6, and 7) organizes around security and uncertainty, with fear as the common theme. Each type in a center is said to handle the shared theme differently: one type expresses it outwardly, one turns it inward, and one is most out of touch with it.

Wings

Each type sits between two neighbors on the circle. In tradition, those neighbors are its wings, and most teachers say a person leans toward one of them, which adds a secondary flavor to the core type. A Type 4 with a stronger 3 wing is said to be more outward and ambitious than one with a stronger 5 wing, who is said to be more private and cerebral.

Lines and arrows

The lines inside the circle connect each type to two others. In the most common teaching, one line shows where a type is said to go under stress and the other where it goes when it feels secure or is growing. For example, Type 1 is said to take on qualities of Type 4 under stress and of Type 7 when relaxed. These connections are popular in Enneagram books and workshops.

Where the Enneagram came from

The nine-pointed symbol was introduced to Western audiences in the early twentieth century by the teacher G. I. Gurdjieff, who used it for cosmological and spiritual teaching rather than personality. The personality system came later. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Oscar Ichazo taught a system of nine ego fixations in Chile, and the psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo developed it further in California. From there it spread through spiritual retreats, Jesuit programs, and popular books in the 1980s and 1990s, then saw a large surge of interest in the late 2010s.

What research says, in brief

That makes the Enneagram a framework worth using carefully. It is good at prompting questions about motivation that people do not often ask themselves. It is not a precise measurement, and nothing about it should be used to label, hire, or judge people.

How people use it well

• As a vocabulary for patterns of attention and motivation that are otherwise hard to name.
• As a prompt for honest reflection, especially about fear and avoidance.
• As a way to understand why people who seem similar can be driven by very different things.
• Loosely, with curiosity, and with a willingness to be wrong about one's type.