Note: While there are a number of interpretations of and uses for the Enneagram, the two most well known practitioners are: Helen Palmer’s Enneagram Worldwide and The Enneagram Institute, founded by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. Because of variations in descriptions and approach you may be more drawn to one or the other (or blend them as I have), so I am highlighting each of them in separate posts. For information from The Enneagram Institute, see
founded by Helen Palmer
The Enneagram is a powerful and dynamic personality system that describes nine distinct and fundamentally different patterns of thinking, feeling and acting. The word “ennea” is Greek for nine and “gram” means model or figure. Hence, the Enneagram is a diagram or star with nine points representing the nine personality patterns. Each of these nine patterns is based on an explicit set of perceptual filters that determine our worldview. Underneath each of the nine patterns is a basic proposition or belief about what you need in life for survival and satisfaction. As you discover your personality type and the underlying basic proposition, you also will discover what motivates you, your coping strategy and keys to personal development.
Type One: The Perfectionist believes you must be good and right to be worthy. Consequently, Perfectionists are conscientious, responsible, improvement-oriented and self-controlled, but also can be critical, resentful and self-judging.
Type Two: The Giver believes you must give fully to others to be loved. Consequently, Givers are caring, helpful, supportive and relationship-oriented, but also can be prideful, overly intrusive and demanding.
Type Three: The Performer believes you must accomplish and succeed to be loved. Consequently, Performers are industrious, fast-paced, goal-focused and efficiency-oriented, but also can be inattentive to feelings, impatient and image-driven.
Type Four: The Romantic believes you must obtain the longed for ideal relationship or situation to be loved. Consequently, Romantics are idealistic, deeply feeling, empathetic and authentic to self, but also dramatic, moody and sometimes self-absorbed.
Type Five: The Observer believes you must protect yourself from a world that demands too much and gives too little to assure life. Consequently, Observers seek self-sufficiency and are non-demanding, analytic/thoughtful and unobtrusive, but also can be withholding, detached and overly private.
Type Six: The Loyal Skeptic believes you must gain protection and security in a hazardous world you just can’t trust. Consequently, Loyal Skeptics are themselves trustworthy, inquisitive, good friends and questioning, but also can be overly doubtful, accusatory and fearful.
Type Seven: The Epicure believes you must keep life up and open to assure a good life. Consequently, Epicures seek pleasure and possibilities, and are optimistic, upbeat and adventurous, but also can avoid pain and be uncommitted and self-serving.
Type Eight: The Protector believes you must be strong and powerful to assure protection and regard in a tough world. Consequently, Protectors seek justice and are direct, strong and action-oriented, but also overly impactful, excessive and sometimes impulsive.
Type Nine: The Mediator believes that to be loved and valued you must blend in and go along to get along. Consequently, Mediators seek harmony and are self-forgetting, comfortable and steady, but also avoid conflicts and can be stubborn.
The Narrative Tradition is an extraordinary teaching method that offers a unique and personally transformative experience of the Enneagram.
By listening to representatives of each Enneagram type share their personal stories and reveal their particular inner worlds and realities, you can discover how to recognize personality differences from direct experience, rather than simply learning about the Enneagram from a particular “authority.”
The Narrative Tradition promotes an open exploration of each personality type. In our view, there is no better way to explore, learn and teach than through this interactive method of panel interviews. Through a sophisticated inquiry method, the Narrative Tradition demonstrates the types, their struggles, dilemmas, strengths and separate paths of development. The types continuously teach us about themselves at ever deepening levels of awareness, and we learn from exploring with them.
Helen Palmer and David Daniels, M.D., founded the
For more information: Enneagram Worldwide
