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Introduction
INSTRUCTIONS: Click on the text of a point in the image to get a summary of the point on this page. Click on the point on the circle to get a full description of that point.
The Enneagram describes the way you see your world. It does not describe the way you are perceived by others. You may see yourself in several of the patterns, but you have one predominant pattern. Once personality is formed, attention becomes immersed in the preoccupations that characterize our type. We lose the essential, childlike ability to respond to the work as it really is and begin to become selectively sensitive to the information that supports our type's worldview. We see what we need to see in order to survive and become oblivious to the rest. In theory, each pattern of the Enneagram represents a very strong drive that is ingrained in one's self-concept and that exercises great influence over one's behavior. The force, or compulsion, that shapes the personality is a combination of adaptation and defense created to protect the individual and give meaning to his or her life. Discovering this force, understanding its origins, and learning the ways in which it can affect feelings, actions, and reactions can help one to become a more effective person. Although an adult's core personality may not change, the individual can become a healthier, more productive version of his or her type. Human beings are so complex that no typology can capture the nature of the spirit of any person; however, typologies can be useful. I invite you to use the Enneagram as a springboard, an impetus to you in examining the strong and enduring drives that underlie much of what you do in your career and in your life.
1. The PerfectionistCritical of self and others. Convinced there is one correct way. Feel ethically superior. Procrastinate for fear of making a mistake. Use should and must a lot.Well Adapted Ones can be critically astute, moral heroes. 2. The GiverDemand affection and approval. Seek to be loved and appreciated by becoming indispensable to another person. Devoted to meeting others' needs. Manipulative. Have many selves -- show a different self to each good friend.Well Adapted Twos are genuinely caring and supportive. 3. The PerformerSeek to be loved for performance and achievement. Competitive. Obsessed with image as a winner and with comparative status. Masters at appearances. Type A personalities. Confuse real self and job identity. Can appear to be more productive than actually are.Well Adapted Threes can be effective leaders, good packagers, competent promoters, captains of winning teams. 4. The RomanticAttracted to the unavailable; ideal is never here and now. Tragic, sad, artistic, sensitive: focused on the absent lover, the loss of a friend.Well Adapted Fours are creative in their way of life and able to help other people through their pain. They are committed to beauty and the passionate life: birth, sex, intensity, and death. 5. The ObserverMaintain emotional distance from others. Protect privacy, don't get involved. Doing without is a defense against involvement. Feel drained by commitment and by other people's needs. Compartmentalize obligations; detached from people, feelings, and things.Well Adapted Fives can be excellent decision makers and ivory-tower intellectuals. 6. The TrooperFearful, dutiful, plagued by doubt. Procrastination -thinking replaces doing -- afraid to take action because exposure leads to attack. Identify with underdog causes, antiauthoritarian, self-sacrificing, loyal to the cause. The phobic Sixes vacillate, feel persecuted, and cave in when cornered. The counter phobic Sixes feel perpetually cornered and therefore go out to confront the terror in an aggressive way.Well Adapted Sixes can be great team players, loyal soldiers, and good friends. Will work for a cause in the way that others work for personal profit. 7. The EpicurePeter Pan, the puer aeternus -- the eternal youth. Dilettantish, dance-away lovers, superficial, adventurous, gourmet approach to life. Trouble with commitment, want to keep the options open, want to stay emotionally high. Generally happy, stimulating to be around, habit of starting things but not seeing them through.Well Adapted Sevens are good synthesizers, theoreticians, Renaissance types. 8. The BossExtremely protective. stick up for self and friends; combative, take charge, love a fight. Have to be in control. Open displays of anger and force; great respect for opponents who will stand and fight. Make contact through toe-to-toe confrontations. Excessive way of life: too much, too late at night, too loud.Well Adapted Eights are excellent leaders, especially in the adversarial role. Can be powerful supporters for other people; want to make the way safe for friends. 9. The MediatorObsessively ambivalent; see all points of view; readily replace own wishes with those of others and real goals with unessential activities. Tendency to narcotization through food, TV, and drink. Know other people's needs better than their own; tendency to space out, not sure whether want to be here, or not, whether want to be on the team or not. Agreeable; anger comes out in indirect ways.Well Adapted Nines make excellent peacemakers, counselors; negotiators, achieve well when on track. |
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©1996-2004, The Enneagram in the Electronic Tradition by Jerome Freedman, Ph.
D. All rights reserved.
All enneagrams diagrams were created by enn.exe, created by Jerome and edited using a typical paint program.
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