What is the Enneagram System and How Does it Work?
Enneagram is a personality system that classifies people into nine personality types based on their core motivations, strengths, weaknesses, fears, and desires. It offers a holistic approach to understanding human character, combining ancient wisdom with modern philosophy and psychology.
As a personality theory, Enneagram is unique in that it emphasizes an individual‘s inner psychological landscape over their behavior. Moreover, it provides holistic personality insights into all the key aspects of one’s character, including typical thought and emotional and behavioral patterns.
Primarily developed as a self-exploration tool, Enneagram today has a very wide application because of its pragmatic, comprehensive approach.
Base personality model
The Enneagram system works by categorizing people into nine personality types. Each of the 9 Enneagram personality types is explained through their unique traits. However, their behaviors and tendencies may overlap, which is why you may identify with more than one Enneagram type.
Enneagram clarifies these overlaps through concepts like Enneagram wings and Enneagram arrows. Wings explain how Enneagram subtypes are formed, whereas Enneagram arrows explain how each type changes and takes over traits of some other type depending on whether they are experiencing growth or developmental challenges.So, while your behavior and tendencies may change depending on the phase you‘re going through, your base personality type remains the same.
A description of a base personality type will typically focus on the defining traits of that type and may sound like this:
Threes are competitive and strive to achieve excellence in everything they do. Nonetheless, because they prioritize success above all else, they may struggle to connect with their genuine needs.
Moreover, if you have a strong preference or aversion toward some Enneagram types, you may want to examine how much your attitude is shaped by cultural or other influences. If certain traits are highly respected in your culture, then you may unconsciously prefer types who have them and dislike those who don‘t.
The better you understand how the Enneagram system works, the clearer it becomes that no personality type is better than the other.
Enneagram Personality types
The nine Enneagram types are divided into three main categories, the so-called Enneagram Triads, based on their core emotions and dominant tendencies.
So, let‘s see how the Enneagram system works in terms of Enneagram Triads:
Heart triad
Personality types who belong to the heart triad are deeply emotional and tend to have highly developed emotional intelligence. They make decisions based on their feelings and are very empathetic.
Head triad
The head types are distinguished by their focus on their intellects. They use their intellectual capacity to deal with reality and make choices based on objective facts, not feelings.
Body triad
Enneagram types who belong to the body triad rely on their instinct and intuition to guide them in life. Due to this, they quickly recognize opportunities, identify challenges in their environment, and react promptly.
Heart Types
Heart types identify with their feelings, which is why their view of the world is highly subjective and conditioned by their emotional state. Personal relationships play a central role in their lives, and they draw their strength from the emotional bonds they form with others.
Type 2: Twos are highly attuned to the needs of others and feel at their best when they can help other people. Driven by the need to be loved, they believe that by doing favors and taking care of others, they will earn the love they need. Fear of rejection and abandonment is what shapes many of their decisions and actions.
Type 3: Threes internalize others‘ expectations and believe that by fulfilling them, they earn the right to be loved and respected. For this reason, they are highly ambitious and focused on success and public image, as being successful equals being worthy of love to them. They are very self-conscious and dread the idea of being seen as failures.
Type 4: Type Four personalities are highly sensitive and emotionally intense. They are the least extroverted of the three Heart types and rather focus on a few important connections than a large group of friends. Through relationships with close people, they seek validation of their uniqueness. However, their fear of being somehow inherently flawed drives them to try to blend in and go against their core need to express their uniqueness, causing inner conflicts.
Head Types
Head types rely on their intellectual abilities to perceive the world and make decisions. They tend to intellectualize their feelings and value logic and facts more than emotions. It is easy for them to understand complex theories, and they enjoy intellectual challenges, but they have trouble connecting with their feelings.
Type 5: Fives are predominantly focused on building and protecting their independence. For this reason, they acquire plenty of knowledge, believing that competence is the key to autonomy. They avoid relying on others in any way, as they are deeply distrustful and tend to be emotionally detached and disconnected from their own feelings.
Type 6: Driven by the fear of the unknown, Sixes focus on making their lives as predictable as possible. As a result, they are highly focused on planning the future and protecting themselves from perceived dangers. A sense of belonging to the community is also very important to them, so they are very concerned with forming harmonious relationships with others.
Type 7: Sevens are insatiably curious, playful, and eager to explore the world around them. They are easily bored and need constant intellectual stimulation, which is why they constantly seek new experiences and challenges. They find intense and unpleasant emotions overwhelming, so they avoid them. As a result, it may be hard for them to form deep emotional connections with others.
Body Types
Body types have a very strong inner sense of self. Their core emotion is anger, which makes them very intense regardless of whether they express or suppress it. Their gut feelings and intuition are their guiding light in making decisions. Honest, direct, and action-oriented, these types react quickly and easily adapt to different environments.
Type 8: Eights are driven by the need to have power over their destiny and to protect themselves from being manipulated, used, or betrayed. They express their needs, opinions, and beliefs openly, never avoiding confrontation. Moreover, they enjoy challenging the status quo and exercising their power by provoking changes.
Type Nine: Nines direct all their energy toward understanding others and ensuring harmony in their environment. Establishing peace around them is their way of being in control. Driven by the core fear of abandonment, they avoid expressing their opinions whenever they believe that could disrupt the harmony, and they rather rely on others for leadership and direction.
Type 1: Ones have very firm moral principles and a strong sense of right and wrong. They hold everyone else to their high ethical and personal standards, always striving to make things better. Passionate, disciplined, and genuinely inspired to protect justice, they readily stand up for their beliefs and readily take on the most challenging responsibilities others usually avoid. As a result, they often emerge as leaders in their environment.
Understanding Enneagram Wings
According to the Enneagram theory, each personality type can be under the influence of the two adjacent types, which are called the “wings.” Enneagram wings act as sidekicks to the core type, allowing for more nuance and diversity among these types.
So, here‘s how the Enneagram system works in terms of wings. Enneagram 2 can be under the influence of Type 1 and 3:
- Two with a One wing will show some characteristics of Type 1.
- Two with a Three wing will exhibit some traits of Type 3.
Nevertheless, both variations will have the same core motivation.
Through the concept of Enneagram wings, Enneagram explains how individuals belonging to the same personality type can exhibit very different traits and behaviors, though they have the same core motivation. Understanding how the Enneagram wings work can help you avoid mistyping and help you deepen your self-awareness.
Exploring Enneagram Instincts
Based on the three universal survival instincts ingrained deeply in human nature, the Enneagram introduces the concept of Enneagram instincts or instinctual variants. Namely, each Enneagram type has one of the three instincts as the primary one, while the other two follow depending on the strength of their expression.
Each Enneagram type can have either of the three instincts as their dominant one. The instinct that is also evident but slightly less expressed is called the secondary instinct, while the third instinct is the least developed and often neglected one.
The hierarchy of instincts within a personality type is called the Enneagram instinctual stacking.
The three basic instincts are:
Self-preservation Instinct:
Individuals with a dominant self-preservation instinct are focused on their personal safety, physical well-being, and comfort. Their primary concerns revolve around financial stability, material security, health, food, and practical, everyday issues.
Strong self-preservation instinct adds cautiousness, pragmatism, and self-control to a personality type, as well as a strong sense of responsibility and self-reliance.
On the other hand, when this instinct is too strong, it may lead to materialism and obsession with comfort at the expense of personal relationships.
Social Instinct:
The key concerns of people with a dominant social instinct are a sense of belonging to a wider community, social roles, and group dynamics. These individuals are usually focused on their family life, connection with their community, and their social status in general.
As a result, they are motivated to understand social hierarchies and relationships. They value collaboration, networking, and teamwork and are usually good at building strong social bonds. Their social intelligence is highly developed, making them very adaptable and communicative, even when they are introverted.
Nevertheless, when this instinct is too strong, it may lead to an individual neglecting their personal needs due to the need for social validation or excessive focus on others‘ needs.
Sexual Instinct:
The dominant sexual instinct doesn‘t indicate just a strong sexual drive but a focus on deep personal connections. Personality types with this primary instinct prioritize passionate connections, intimacy, and intense relationships and generally tend to be very energetic.
Their strengths are their strong inner drive, willpower, charisma, and authenticity. However, when sexual instinct is too strong, it may make a person overly fixated on specific people in their life and obsessive about certain relationships.
