Tritype: Enneagram glossary definition

One type from each center

Standard teaching gives you one core type and connects it to wings and lines. Tritype adds a different claim: because everyone uses all three centers, everyone also has a favorite strategy within each center. Your core type sets the first number. Then you add the type you lean on most from each of the other two centers. A Four, from the heart center, might pick 5 from the head center and 8 from the gut center, giving 4-5-8, or 458 written without dashes.

• The first number is your core type.
• Each center contributes exactly one number, so 4-3-5 is not a valid tritype (two heart numbers).
• Order matters: 4-5-8 and 5-8-4 are said to describe different people.
• Wings stay within the core type and are separate from the tritype numbers.

Where it comes from

How it is used

People mention tritype when their core type does not explain everything. A Nine who is surprisingly blunt might say her tritype includes 8; a Five who cares a lot about status might say his includes 3. Tritype is also used to explain why two people who share a core type and wing still feel quite different from each other.

An example

Two Sevens both love variety and plans. One is 7-3-8: fast, competitive, and always pitching the next venture. The other is 7-9-2: gentle, easygoing and happiest making sure everyone at the campsite is having fun. Tritype is the tool fans use to account for that difference without changing the core type.

Evidence

Related terms: center of intelligence, wing, Enneagram type and typing.

• Center of intelligence: what it means in the EnneagramCenter of intelligence, defined: the Enneagram idea that people take in life through body, feeling or thinking, which types fit each, and the evidence.
• Wing: Enneagram glossary definitionEnneagram wing definition: one of the two types next to yours on the circle, how 4w5 notation works, how teachers use wings, and what one study found.
• Enneagram type: what the term meansWhat an Enneagram type is: one of nine motivational patterns, why types are numbered 1 to 9, what a type does and does not describe, and research status.
• Typing: Enneagram glossary definitionEnneagram typing, defined: the process of finding a best-fit type through reflection, tests, interviews and reading, its pitfalls, and what research says.