Explain to me the magic of Enneagram.

[Contra]

I've looked into it, and I just don't get it. It looks like a horoscope, but the difference is that you choose it. At least Socionics has some sort of underpinning that allows it to make sense, but I just don't get why enneagram is seen as credible or even useful. I can relate with 3, 5, 6, and 8, which probably shouldn't be the case. I know that it's thought that there is a certain range of possible enneagram types assigned to each socionic type, and let's say thats true. In that case each enneagram type functions more like a subtype and represents a certain emphasis a type can have. If that is true then why is it that enneagram types are seen as static as opposed to changing? Or are they? I see no reason why enneagram type couldn't change: that maybe when you are young you could be 5-ish but as you get older you could become an 8. And not just due to some sort of "integration" that enneagram talks about. Clearly a lot of people like it and find it credible. My question is why? Could you explain it to me in a way that makes sense? Personally I don't relate that well with any one type. Could I be typeless? Can you explain to me the interplay between enneagram type and socionics type? Is my subtype idea correct?

[Aylen]

Try this. It adds more dimension. As far as validity... to me it is neither more valid or less than socionics. It is all in the way that you want to define yourself. The wider you cast your net the more dimensions you can add to your personal definition of self.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritype

Edit: this site breaks it down in a pretty simple way.

http://waysofwisdom.wordpress.com/20...gram-tritypes/

[Amber]

Enneagram is supposed to be a tool for boxing people into 9 finite types. There's stuff I find fascinating (naranjo, for instance - just like I can read various psychology studies, even some that may be quite outdated). However it's not really plausible for one to have only one cluster of motivations or "neuroses" based on such an abstract theory ...that usually has to do more with personal experience and is context-bound. People on here refer to Enneagram to explain intra-type differences ...but you could resort to DCHN instead. It's hardly based on fact, it's more like a reduction of the personality. It's like saying "he's nerdy/an intellectual", he's "ambitious", he's "strong" and so on, just that you treat that as an ever-lasting personality profile.

Tests have given me Tritype 584 ("Scholar archetype", triple independent thinker). It's cool to think about, but that's about it.

[Galen]

In short, enneagram is a system meant to classify the human condition into 9 distinct core motivations that define personalities. These notes attempt to consolidate it into its most easy-to-digest basics.

http://forum.socionix.com/topic/4392...-on-enneagram/

[woofwoofl]

A lot more can be done with the system than just coarsely attempting to shove billions of people into nine homogenous boxes, that approach is retarded in all senses of the term. More on this later probably; tritype/trifix is a good way forwards, stackings are absolutely huge, huge write-up likely on the way.

[some chair]

Enneagram is even more Baby's First than the Baby's First Personality of Socionics. The roots are interesting, but R&H commercialised it and put it in competition with things it's not competitive against. Like actual personality science, or psychology/psychiatry. I suppose the magic is based on your choice of bricolage. Are you an enneagram shaman, or a psychiatry shaman? Pick your dead chicken.

People like it and find it credible because people like structuring narratives and are basically credulous, and are typically not exposed to the exciting world of things that do the Enneagram's job better than the Enneagram.

Brb, accepting ILI typing.

(As a history note, this site started as a way of connecting Oldham types and Socionics. Now look where we are. This forum has really gone downhill.)

[anndelise]

I've looked into it, and I just don't get it. It looks like a horoscope, but the difference is that you choose it. At least Socionics has some sort of underpinning that allows it to make sense, but I just don't get why enneagram is seen as credible or even useful. I can relate with 3, 5, 6, and 8, which probably shouldn't be the case. I know that it's thought that there is a certain range of possible enneagram types assigned to each socionic type, and let's say thats true. In that case each enneagram type functions more like a subtype and represents a certain emphasis a type can have. If that is true then why is it that enneagram types are seen as static as opposed to changing? Or are they? I see no reason why enneagram type couldn't change: that maybe when you are young you could be 5-ish but as you get older you could become an 8. And not just due to some sort of "integration" that enneagram talks about. Clearly a lot of people like it and find it credible. My question is why? Could you explain it to me in a way that makes sense? Personally I don't relate that well with any one type. Could I be typeless? Can you explain to me the interplay between enneagram type and socionics type? Is my subtype idea correct?

I had always thought enneagram was about focus/motivations, and focus/motivations can change throughout one's life. My focus/motivations as a single young adult changed when I became a single mother of a special needs kid, and are changing again as she becomes an independent adult leaving the nest and my health deteriorates.

I also have a difficult time with the enneagram as commonly used. Nor do I feel that one e-type accurately describes me. I would prefer if i could maybe just list the ones in order of primary focus or best fits, but practioners don't seem open to that. In my book though, if you were to tell me you're an e3568, I would either ask you questions so i could get an idea about how they all fit together for you, or assume that maybe you're a guy who's driven to succeed in an intellectual field, and maybe even enjoys some intellectual competition as well.

[woofwoofl]

I've looked into it, and I just don't get it. It looks like a horoscope, but the difference is that you choose it. At least Socionics has some sort of underpinning that allows it to make sense, but I just don't get why enneagram is seen as credible or even useful. I can relate with 3, 5, 6, and 8, which probably shouldn't be the case. I know that it's thought that there is a certain range of possible enneagram types assigned to each socionic type, and let's say thats true. In that case each enneagram type functions more like a subtype and represents a certain emphasis a type can have. If that is true then why is it that enneagram types are seen as static as opposed to changing? Or are they? I see no reason why enneagram type couldn't change: that maybe when you are young you could be 5-ish but as you get older you could become an 8. And not just due to some sort of "integration" that enneagram talks about. Clearly a lot of people like it and find it credible. My question is why? Could you explain it to me in a way that makes sense? Personally I don't relate that well with any one type. Could I be typeless? Can you explain to me the interplay between enneagram type and socionics type? Is my subtype idea correct?

My solution to that would be to soldier on forwards with an unpermutated 358 tritype and go from there, leaning ever-so-slightly towards having 5w6 as the strongest fix due to that occuring with ILI much of the time. Going through the triads would make this a double assertion, double competency, and double rejection tritype.

As for why this stuff is seen as static, probably in part due to people clinging to some idiotic and defeatist notion of bounded inherence. Fuck that shit. Also a huge reason why I steer hard away from saying/typing anything of the "X person is Y" format, there's a personal insult buried in each and every one of those statements.

As for correlations between enneagram and socionics? Tendencies, yes; hard-and-fast correlations at the exclusion of some types, not so much. INFx and the 8/7 area make little sense together, but last time I checked, a majority opinion on this site for Ayn Rand would result in SLE E1, so there's that.

[Aylen]

Thanks Ann for highlighting that portion.

I don't think enneagram is exactly static. Using my own tritype 459 here are the levels of each. It certainly shows ability for major change and a lot of variety.

 

Type Four—More Depth by Level

Healthy Levels

Level 1 (At Their Best): Profoundly creative, expressing the personal and the universal, possibly in a work of art. Inspired, self-renewing and regenerating: able to transform all their experiences into something valuable: self-creative.
Level 2: Self-aware, introspective, on the "search for self," aware of feelings and inner impulses. Sensitive and intuitive both to self and others: gentle, tactful, compassionate.
Level 3: Highly personal, individualistic, "true to self." Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane. Ironic view of self and life: can be serious and funny, vulnerable and emotionally strong.

Average Levels

Level 4: Take an artistic, romantic orientation to life, creating a beautiful, aesthetic environment to cultivate and prolong personal feelings. Heighten reality through fantasy, passionate feelings, and the imagination.
Level 5: To stay in touch with feelings, they interiorize everything, taking everything personally, but become self-absorbed and introverted, moody and hypersensitive, shy and self-conscious, unable to be spontaneous or to "get out of themselves." Stay withdrawn to protect their self-image and to buy time to sort out feelings.
Level 6: Gradually think that they are different from others, and feel that they are exempt from living as everyone else does. They become melancholy dreamers, disdainful, decadent, and sensual, living in a fantasy world. Self-pity and envy of others leads to self-indulgence, and to becoming increasingly impractical, unproductive, effete, and precious.

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: When dreams fail, become self-inhibiting and angry at self, depressed and alienated from self and others, blocked and emotionally paralyzed. Ashamed of self, fatigued and unable to function.
Level 8: Tormented by delusional self-contempt, self-reproaches, self-hatred, and morbid thoughts: everything is a source of torment. Blaming others, they drive away anyone who tries to help them.
Level 9: Despairing, feel hopeless and become self-destructive, possibly abusing alcohol or drugs to escape. In the extreme: emotional breakdown or suicide is likely. Generally corresponds to the Avoidant, Depressive, and Narcissistic personality disorders.

 

Type Five—More Depth by Level

Healthy Levels

Level 1(At Their Best): Become visionaries, broadly comprehending the world while penetrating it profoundly. Open-minded, take things in whole, in their true context. Make pioneering discoveries and find entirely new ways of doing and perceiving things.
Level 2: Observe everything with extraordinary perceptiveness and insight. Most mentally alert, curious, searching intelligence: nothing escapes their notice. Foresight and prediction. Able to concentrate: become engrossed in what has caught their attention.
Level 3: Attain skillful mastery of whatever interests them. Excited by knowledge: often become expert in some field. Innovative and inventive, producing extremely valuable, original works. Highly independent, idiosyncratic, and whimsical.

Average Levels

Level 4: Begin conceptualizing and fine-tuning everything before acting—working things out in their minds: model building, preparing, practicing, and gathering more resources. Studious, acquiring technique. Become specialized, and often "intellectual," often challenging accepted ways of doing things.
Level 5: Increasingly detached as they become involved with complicated ideas or imaginary worlds. Become preoccupied with their visions and interpretations rather than reality. Are fascinated by off-beat, esoteric subjects, even those involving dark and disturbing elements. Detached from the practical world, a "disembodied mind," although high-strung and intense.
Level 6: Begin to take an antagonistic stance toward anything which would interfere with their inner world and personal vision. Become provocative and abrasive, with intentionally extreme and radical views. Cynical and argumentative.

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: Become reclusive and isolated from reality, eccentric and nihilistic. Highly unstable and fearful of aggressions: they reject and repulse others and all social attachments.
Level 8: Get obsessed yet frightened by their threatening ideas, becoming horrified, delirious, and prey to gross distortions and phobias.
Level 9: Seeking oblivion, they may commit suicide or have a psychotic break with reality. Deranged, explosively self-destructive, with schizophrenic overtones. Generally corresponds to the Schizoid Avoidant and Schizotypal personality disorders.

 

Type Nine—More Depth by Level

Healthy Levels

Level 1 (At Their Best): Become self-possessed, feeling autonomous and fulfilled: have great equanimity and contentment because they are present to themselves. Paradoxically, at one with self, and thus able to form more profound relationships. Intensely alive, fully connected to self and others.
Level 2: Deeply receptive, accepting, unselfconscious, emotionally stable and serene. Trusting of self and others, at ease with self and life, innocent and simple. Patient, unpretentious, good-natured, genuinely nice people.
Level 3: Optimistic, reassuring, supportive: have a healing and calming influence—harmonizing groups, bringing people together: a good mediator, synthesizer, and communicator.

Average Levels

Level 4: Fear conflicts, so become self-effacing and accommodating, idealizing others and "going along" with their wishes, saying "yes" to things they do not really want to do. Fall into conventional roles and expectations. Use philosophies and stock sayings to deflect others.
Level 5: Active, but disengaged, unreflective, and inattentive. Do not want to be affected, so become unresponsive and complacent, walking away from problems, and "sweeping them under the rug." Thinking becomes hazy and ruminative, mostly comforting fantasies, as they begin to "tune out" reality, becoming oblivious. Emotionally indolent, unwillingness to exert self or to focus on problems: indifference.
Level 6: Begin to minimize problems, to appease others and to have "peace at any price." Stubborn, fatalistic, and resigned, as if nothing could be done to change anything. Into wishful thinking, and magical solutions. Others frustrated and angry by their procrastination and unresponsiveness.

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: Can be highly repressed, undeveloped, and ineffectual. Feel incapable of facing problems: become obstinate, dissociating self from all conflicts. Neglectful and dangerous to others.
Level 8: Wanting to block out of awareness anything that could affect them, they dissociate so much that they eventually cannot function: numb, depersonalized.
Level 9: They finally become severely disoriented and catatonic, abandoning themselves, turning into shattered shells. Multiple personalities possible. Generally corresponds to the Schizoid and Dependent personality disorders.

http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/de...p#.U8nmCfldVwu

It is not an exaggeration to say I experienced the highest levels of unhealthy for my tritype and have progressed to the healthy ranges (most of the time but can regress to average when highly stressed) now. It is not like a bible or anything. It's just information that appeals to my Ni and doesn't offend my Te polr like a lot of this stuff floating around.

[InvisibleJim]

Its a relatively trivial system which assumes certain behaviours are specific to certain fears.

It has little depth or practical value unless your value system is aligned with the creator of the model who, as per his type, has a real lack of pragmatism and practical utility.

And pop the magic was gone.

[Contra]

I had always thought enneagram was about focus/motivations, and focus/motivations can change throughout one's life. My focus/motivations as a single young adult changed when I became a single mother of a special needs kid, and are changing again as she becomes an independent adult leaving the nest and my health deteriorates.

I also have a difficult time with the enneagram as commonly used. Nor do I feel that one e-type accurately describes me. I would prefer if i could maybe just list the ones in order of primary focus or best fits, but practioners don't seem open to that. In my book though, if you were to tell me you're an e3568, I would either ask you questions so i could get an idea about how they all fit together for you, or assume that maybe you're a guy who's driven to succeed in an intellectual field, and maybe even enjoys some intellectual competition as well.

From everything I've read about enneagram it sounds like the only way one can really handle it realistically is as a temporary focus or an M.O. There are maybe some aspects that are hard and fast but most of it seems transient. It definitely doesn't feel as real as Socionics and even that may be a subtle and devious illusion, borne of a sociological origin rather than biological.

As for your last part, I'm a guy who is trying to actualize my vision for my life and prove that I'm able to accomplish my goals. I constantly strive for competence and if there is an area where I can't gain competence I will just drop it or bow out of the system or sport altogether. So in a sense I'm competitive, but not in an overt way and I'm not really trying to win. I just want to remain competent as, in the end, that's all you can do; nobody wins in the end. I try to be competent in all worlds rather than just the intellectual, but I do focus on my intellectual side since that is one of my greatest strengths. Competence+Accomplishment of Goals= Self Worth for me.

My solution to that would be to soldier on forwards with an unpermutated 358 tritype and go from there, leaning ever-so-slightly towards having 5w6 as the strongest fix due to that occuring with ILI much of the time. Going through the triads would make this a double assertion, double competency, and double rejection tritype.

As for why this stuff is seen as static, probably in part due to people clinging to some idiotic and defeatist notion of bounded inherence. Fuck that shit. Also a huge reason why I steer hard away from saying/typing anything of the "X person is Y" format, there's a personal insult buried in each and every one of those statements.

As for correlations between enneagram and socionics? Tendencies, yes; hard-and-fast correlations at the exclusion of some types, not so much. INFx and the 8/7 area make little sense together, but last time I checked, a majority opinion on this site for Ayn Rand would result in SLE E1, so there's that.

Interesting. I may possibly be a 358. It's hard to say. I read what Aylen posted in her first post and I actually find the 'head' grouping to be not so relatable though I relate with quite a bit of 5. Yeah I think people feel it's more 'real' if it's static. The MBTI folk are guilty of the same. So far, from everything I've read, it seems hard and fast correlations would be very difficult to make.

[Contra]

Enneagram is supposed to be a tool for boxing people into 9 finite types. There's stuff I find fascinating (naranjo, for instance - just like I can read various psychology studies, even some that may be quite outdated). However it's not really plausible for one to have only one cluster of motivations or "neuroses" based on such an abstract theory ...that usually has to do more with personal experience and is context-bound. People on here refer to Enneagram to explain intra-type differences ...but you could resort to DCHN instead. It's hardly based on fact, it's more like a reduction of the personality. It's like saying "he's nerdy/an intellectual", he's "ambitious", he's "strong" and so on, just that you treat that as an ever-lasting personality profile.

Tests have given me Tritype 548 ("Scholar archetype", triple independent thinker). It's cool to think about, but that's about it.

I pretty much agree. It's a little hard to take this stuff very seriously. It may describe some very well, but I hardly find it tenable.

In short, enneagram is a system meant to classify the human condition into 9 distinct core motivations that define personalities. These notes attempt to consolidate it into its most easy-to-digest basics.

http://forum.socionix.com/topic/4392...-on-enneagram/

This is some pretty good stuff. I definitely fall into the overcompensatory grouping, but I actually don't relate to any of the type descriptions within the grouping. I think you are really on to something, but, honestly, this stuff could probably stand on its own apart from enneagram. It would be interesting to see if there is a pattern of socionic types that fall into each grouping or if it's more of an outer layer.

[Ananke]

The Enneagram groups people in 9 categoriesbased on what I would call "archetypal and unconscious fixations/mind patterns" in people. It is not so much a "personality" system, as it is a system explaining how core motivations and external behaviour forms based on unconscious "life messages" - things we tell ourselves.

With that in mind, it should be rather easy to grasp the enneagram.

There are 3 main motivations in humans according to the enneagram, and they should be rather easy to agree with, more or less:
1. boundaries - how we relate - others vs ourselves (gut centre) (types 8 - 9 - 1)
2. love - how we are valued - do others appreciate us? (heart centre) (types 2 - 3 - 4)
3. survival - how we try to secure our survival (head centre) (types 5 - 6 - 7)

Within each of these 3 motivations, the enneagram describes 3 fixations humans have when it comes to coping with these 3 main areas of our lives. These fixations can be thought of as "unconscious and OCD-like beliefs".

We all have all 9 fixations. But according to the enneagram, we have more focus on one of our fixations, and it develops into a "pattern" that we repeat through our lives. According to the enneagram, we will be free/happy only if we stop ourselves from falling into the behavioural tracks that follow one of these "core fixations".

The enneagram isn't so much a personality system, typing an ego like socionics, it's more a system explaining how - based on psychic knots/complexes (fixations) - we may fail at getting what we want in a bit of a counter-intuitive way (as the fixations ultimately lead to the opposite effect of what you desire). So to get out of the fixation, the enneagram teaches us we have to move against the fixation.

I have my own questions when it comes to the enneagram, but they aren't on the level of "is it real". I mean, it is evident that you can group people into the 9 types that the enneagram presents. The questions I have are about the validity of it's more "religious" aspects: Is it really true that people are happier fixation free? WHY is fixation free/unity a goal? Is it really true that "unity" is better than diversity?

As for tritypes, I never really cared much, but I can't deny that I very much understand people of my own tritype. I'm 854. Solaris, Have Lucid Dreams, Ashton... I think these may be 458 types of various kinds. I get how we are similar, despite our obvious personality differences.

[Radio]

This book is the only source you should reference: http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin...laudio-Naranjo

Pretty much everything else other than Naranjo will make you think Enneagram is something completely different than what it was originally intended as.

[miss BabyDoll]

enneagram - the best way to find out in which way you're retarded when you have a nervous meltdown. but on a serious note, quite useful tool to objectively see what makes you tick and what makes you thrive

[Persephone]

I found a simple test, just wanted to share:
https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/QuestTest.pdf

[Creepy-male]

I've looked into it, and I just don't get it. It looks like a horoscope, but the difference is that you choose it. At least Socionics has some sort of underpinning that allows it to make sense, but I just don't get why enneagram is seen as credible or even useful. I can relate with 3, 5, 6, and 8, which probably shouldn't be the case. I know that it's thought that there is a certain range of possible enneagram types assigned to each socionic type, and let's say thats true. In that case each enneagram type functions more like a subtype and represents a certain emphasis a type can have. If that is true then why is it that enneagram types are seen as static as opposed to changing? Or are they? I see no reason why enneagram type couldn't change: that maybe when you are young you could be 5-ish but as you get older you could become an 8. And not just due to some sort of "integration" that enneagram talks about. Clearly a lot of people like it and find it credible. My question is why? Could you explain it to me in a way that makes sense? Personally I don't relate that well with any one type. Could I be typeless? Can you explain to me the interplay between enneagram type and socionics type? Is my subtype idea correct?

My quick attempt is this:

Socionics, Jungian Functions, or MBTI all organize people's personality into a set number of "types". Enneagram is no different but there are 9 types instead of 16. We could create any system of personality, but ultimately their will always be uniqueness between individuals and commonality between all people. Personality systems usually deal with a manageable number of types for people to identify themselves as fitting.

Now while most other systems are based on Jungian Functions and these notions of Introverted/Extroverted, Sensing/Intuitive, and Thinking/Feeling the Enneagram is not. However to say it is without basis would be incorrect. One confusing aspect about the enneagram is there are several basis'. Usually these are systems of organizing the 9 types into 3 groups of 3.

One example is the notion of head type, heart type, or gut type. We define 3 groups to be each and connect them in a chain so we have.

Core head type - Head type that borders heart - Heart type that borders head - Core Heart Type - Heart type that borders gut - Gut type that borders heart - Core gut type - Gut type that borders head - Head type that borders gut - Core head type (and so forth)

or

6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6


You can then look and see that the e5 or e4 are types that sit on the boundary point between head and heart.

Doing this with each form of organization and then understanding the descriptions of the types will begin to build an understanding of the logical system.

Words like head, heart, and gut have deeper psychological significance too as well. Head types being primarily concerned with the issue of anxiety/trust. Heart types being primarily concerned with shame and self-esteem. Gut types being primarily concerned with rage/anger and primal impulse. Now while it is true all humans experience these psychological issues, the type is formed around the focus of that individuals personality or ego.

For example the core heart type (e3) is primarily concerned with shame/self-esteem more so than the other types so they are definitively more over-achiever/appearance minded/approval seeking/outgoing etc...

Much of the enneagram is based on these systems of triads and how they connect and overlap. Each triad system usually touches on some psychological issue so that the entire system is really useful in terms of self-understanding/self-development. For example, at the core of heart types struggle for self-esteem we see negative results that must be overcame: e2 possessiveness, e3 narcissism, e4 self-absorption. However, in the right situation these same psychological issues can be handled in a positive way: e2 becomes helpful/involved/committed, e3 becomes a highly productive performer socially, e4 becomes unique/original/creative.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

I think the integration/disintegration aspects of enneagram are the best parts, though I'm wary of integrating my identity too much with it.

Like for example, if you're feeling insecure (unhealthy 6), just chill out (healthy 9). If you're too woozy and spiritual/mediciney brained (unhealthy 9), act more assertive and self-possessed (healthy 3). If you're too assholeish and overbearing, be more gentle and helpful. (8 integrating to 2) You can basically tell people the same shit without all the labels but the labels help some people I guess.

[strangeling]

uhh, this might seem unrelated, but how do you explain this? "Ni-ILI-D" Cause going by introversion and extroversion, the two subtypes seem to contradict each other and then I wonder if this contradiction is manifesting in how you're applying enneagram as well.

[Contra]

uhh, this might seem unrelated, but how do you explain this? "Ni-ILI-D" Cause going by introversion and extroversion, the two subtypes seem to contradict each other and then I wonder if this contradiction is manifesting in how you're applying enneagram as well.

Haha, well, it's just bullshit subtyping. I like both descriptions so I tacked on both. I don't really care if it contradicts anything. I'm pretty clueless as to what my subtypes actually are. I was going to make a thread but haven't gotten to it. As for enneagram, I'm not interested in it enough to really give myself a type.

[Skepsis]

I would quit wasting your time with the ennegram and embrace a more useful personality test, like this one:


http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamdavis/wh...flavor-are-you

You got: Chocolate chip cookie dough
The best of so many worlds come together in you. You’ve got the biting wit of chocolate chip mixed together with the childlike innocence of cookie dough. You would think the two halves would be at odds with each other, but instead, their flavors — and your personality — meld perfectly. When your hard edge gives way to your softer side, that’s when people are seeing the true you.

See how insighful this was? See how unique and special I am? Forget the gut center, fill your real gut with ICE-CREAM!!!!!

On a more serious note, I relate to your frustration/skepticism. I place very little stock in enneagram in being able to consistently and accurately describe anyone's personality with any depth. It is interesting though. I've been a 1,2,4,5,6,9. What is very often the trouble is that something in the descriptions may resonate with you, it is one of your traits. Then you read another description and that contains one of your other traits. Your traits are distributed among various other types, without being able to objectively compare the relative strength of each trait to one another because they are mostly internal processes and cannot be directly measured.

I think socionics is at least more dimensional, but it has its limits, as any typological system does.

[chemical]

I wrote a passage on one way of seeing enneagram, which is also in this Psychology forum, but here's the main thing to me about enneagram - the "centers" of intelligence don't strike me as entirely surprising, as they're not so different from a disorganized version of ideas you can find in socionics/Jung, at least if you take the most essential aspects.

There's instinctual, there's heart and head. You can view this as sort of saying instinctual intelligence can develop into heart/head intelligence, the more well-formed the ego is as separate from its environment. The main instinctual types do exactly what you expect: react instinctually to the environment rather than intensify the separation of the ego from it. Enneagram 4/5 merely represent the extreme points of view of such separation. Enneagram 9 represents a state of inertia relative to the background/environment. Enneagram 8 is still very much "merged" with its instinctual responses to the environment, as it makes the forceful or intensity of pursuits of objects of the environment its perspective, rejecting fear of foreign bodies. Enneagram 1 is also very instinctual. This isn't a dreamer type of perfectionism so much as a sense of how the environment does not match the wish-image the ego knows, and it's not based on heart or head rationalization. If you've ever known a 1, they don't need an elaborate philosophical reason to pursue perfection - they simply resent it not being there, and that's enough; in pursuing it, of course, they can get philosophical (or not; some will be doggedly pragmatic). When you get over into the heart triad, you get heart rationalization which seeks the meaningfulness of the ego's existence (can get quite elaborate). This becomes more and more elaborate as the person's relations with others are considered, because your notion of what constitutes a meaningful/worthwhile existence is complicated/amplified by the heart intelligence center noting other heart-rationalizations, seeing your ego inside others, comparing it to how you see others and how others see you, and so forth.

With E2, neighboring instincts but not quite there, for instance, it goes from pure resentment to a sense of entitlement and pride, as if the perfection is deserved as a product of how the ego feels itself, rather than merely an instinctual response of anger/resentment that things aren't that way.

Wings just mean type is not pure. As with my view on all subtypes I think depending on who you are, they could change in life.

[chemical]

And my view on tritype is basically that you can treat them as auxiliary fixations, so you can either do without them or not.

The lines of disintegration/integration, I don't view in as good faith as some do, because I don't think addressing your fixation is anywhere near going to amount to re-integrating some inner type you've neglected. I think the lines exist and are useful in knowing your main fixation's relation to the rest of the enneagram in some ways though.

Your secondary/tertiary centers are more likely to be offshoots of the dominant one, so if you really so choose, simply characterizing yourself by one type is probably totally fine. I just think it's the reality that the finer details of what the other centers look like inside you helps to get at, but again I do not think this is separate from what's going on in your dominant center - very related generally.

I guess I can say a bit about the extremes E4/E5. E4 represents the reality that all satiation with respect to heart center issues begins in some sense with whether one can feel one's own worth. E4 at its extreme represents an inability to do this, due to or correlated with not having a sense of one's own substantiality. The more the environment's reactions to you (which affect you on an instinctual level) are fused with your sense of heart rationalization, the less the rationalizations stem substantially from your separate sense of ego. E4 experiences a sense of craving, lacking substantiality, and thus is simply unable to justify its worth. This leads to fixations on authenticity and the like. Without a sense of substantiality of the ego, the meaningfulness of feeling one's worth seems empty, and this leads to intensifying the separation of the ego further and further so as to isolate it sufficiently to render its existence clear, and not fused with things which render it less well-formed.
When it envies, it's not envying in a sense of just reacting to the environment, saying "I want to be part of that too" - because wanting to be part of something is an emotion of merging, and that's anything but what E4 wants. It's more a self-focused sense of lacking that they're reminded of when they see signs of others having substantiality outside. What do I lack that I cannot feel myself or my worth? They can pursue this question deeply intuitively, through emotional expression, and many such things.

With E5, you get a both similar and opposite reaction. Being part of the head triad of fear, yet also in the bottom of the enneagram, there is also a sense of lacking. If you look really deep down, a lot of fear stems from the fact that you feel in life as if you're just reacting to foreign situations. The responses are two in number here: either you seek to possess the foreign situations with a vigor that they no longer are foreign or you seek to possess yourself entirely, because in a sense, if you are run by fear, your existence amounts to a successive number of states of foreign-ness. You intuit your existence through your experience of foreignness, for that there exists someone who feels apart from the foreign objects gives you an idea that you have an identity.
Enneagram 5 often thus are deeply identity-driven much like E4, but it is from seeking something to hold onto within this succession of states - rather than intuiting their identity as a sum of experiences of foreignness, they forego the foreign and seek to hold onto a more definite sense of what they are, and define themselves based on this apartness so that it becomes a plus, rather than a minus whereby foreignness appears to loom over you. The resulting holding on to themselves and all that is associated with themselves is enneagram 5's avarice. Where enneagram 6 seeks a mental system as the constant within the sum of experiences, to hold onto, enneagram 5 hold more directly to their sense of identity. They do seek to understand the world, but not with a feverish sense of seeking certainty - their understanding needs stem a lot more from within generally, and their cerebral pursuits tend to appear cut off from the rest of the world.

[chemical]

I think there are some universal stress triggers in humanity, and your type fixation is more how you build your sense of ego and consciousness around responding to those than what exactly triggers you.

Also, I've given a sort of philosophy of how the types look, but the rationalization I give is embedded into the very psychology of the individual. You might have to intuit that the rationalization is applicable rather than see it directly, but of course this could be quite fun for a Ni base.

[Aylen]

I would quit wasting your time with the ennegram and embrace a more useful personality test, like this one:


http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamdavis/wh...flavor-are-you

You got: Chocolate chip cookie dough
The best of so many worlds come together in you. You’ve got the biting wit of chocolate chip mixed together with the childlike innocence of cookie dough. You would think the two halves would be at odds with each other, but instead, their flavors — and your personality — meld perfectly. When your hard edge gives way to your softer side, that’s when people are seeing the true you.

See how insighful this was? See how unique and special I am? Forget the gut center, fill your real gut with ICE-CREAM!!!!!

You got: Neapolitan
You’ve got it all — the crowd-pleasing nature of vanilla, the decadent side of chocolate, and the refreshing attitude of strawberry. It’s not that you can’t decide on one personality, but rather that you are such a multifaceted person that one measly flavor just can’t suffice. Because you’ve got so much depth to you, people love to stick around and get to know every part of you. And that’s a great thing.

[Skepsis]

You got: Neapolitan
You’ve got it all — the crowd-pleasing nature of vanilla, the decadent side of chocolate, and the refreshing attitude of strawberry. It’s not that you can’t decide on one personality, but rather that you are such a multifaceted person that one measly flavor just can’t suffice. Because you’ve got so much depth to you, people love to stick around and get to know every part of you. And that’s a great thing.

wait a minute........triple flavor......tritype........coincidence? I think not!

[Contra]

I think there are some universal stress triggers in humanity, and your type fixation is more how you build your sense of ego and consciousness around responding to those than what exactly triggers you.

Also, I've given a sort of philosophy of how the types look, but the rationalization I give is embedded into the very psychology of the individual. You might have to intuit that the rationalization is applicable rather than see it directly, but of course this could be quite fun for a Ni base.

What you've written is definitely helpful/interesting. It definitely provides a more substantial understanding of the enneagram types. Is your "philosophy of how the types look" in a different post? Just wondering, because I'm curious to read them fully.

[chemical]

@Contra my musings on this stuff are condensed pretty well into this thread and the one other in the Psychology forum called "some enneagram" or something. Basically my underlying bias is I see the enneatypes as philosophical cores of experience rather than your more concrete struggles.

That's because personally I don't find you can differentiate the concrete struggles beyond individually, and they don't really fit into this nice of a system. Like who doesn't fear being humiliated in some capacity? Who doesn't want their life to be meaningful, and to achieve some greatness, or to be satisfied, or some such thing. I mean, of course some people don't want these things but the point is they're universal enough that I don't think you can build a good system around your more concrete struggles).
I think fearing failure, fearing powerlessness, fearing not knowing how to deal with things - all are so universal that we can't break them directly into enneatypes, because these things are so interconnected that it's artificial to put them in separate categories. For instance, attributing fear of failure to E3? Nah.

I view it more as your implicit psychological-philosophical attitude - what drives you based on what center of intelligence you're fixated in determines more how you see your struggles than what they are; it's something you kind of have to intuit exists. Transcending it probably is where you get mysticism in the picture, and that appeals to some more than others, but simple self-awareness can be a fine goal, providing context and so forth.

[darya]

courtesy of @darya

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...rive_web#gid=0

Spidey this is not actually mine, but it was posted somewhere, so I figured it can be sent around . And I mostly agree with the correlations so... Unfortunately I don't know who the author is .

[Persephone]

You got: Neapolitan
You’ve got it all — the crowd-pleasing nature of vanilla, the decadent side of chocolate, and the refreshing attitude of strawberry. It’s not that you can’t decide on one personality, but rather that you are such a multifaceted person that one measly flavor just can’t suffice. Because you’ve got so much depth to you, people love to stick around and get to know every part of you. And that’s a great thing.

I got the same!!

[chemical]

I think in some sense, the simplest thing I've been able to do to clearly distinguish the types is to really use their position - that is, E4 lies at the border of thinking/fear and image/heart, and such. There are three "purer" types (instinctive, thinking/fear, image/heart). Note that just because the fixation happens in a center doesn't mean that intelligence is the dominant function.

I can see a feeling type fixation easily occurring in a non-feeling-type cognitive dominance. What happens in these cases, I think, is the feeling function still exists and is active in evaluating one's fixation status, but you adopt potentially a different principle of cognitive functioning which is endorsed by the fixation.

For instance, you can equate your E3 vanity to satisfying principles of efficiency, and this might be the natural thing to do if a Te-lead, and indeed there's a bunch of these types out there, who struggle to feel their own worth, struggle with shame, but bypass it by projecting these needs onto another function. It also shows how sometimes a E6 may become not a thinking leading type but an ethical leading type with a highly active thinking function too, even though the classic function to adopt is thinking.

I think it's useful to justify how one side interplays with the other, rather than taking either of the two extremes of one - not allowing any links between enneagram and your cognitive processes, or two, viewing these links very rigidly so that you start thinking a certain enneagram type must be certain cognitive process types.