The Epicure, The Enthusiast, The Adventurer, The Visionary, The Dreamer, The Joyful Person and The Futurist are all labels used by authors to describe Enneatype 7. The common thread seems to point to someone with a positive anticipation of the future that seeks out new and exciting possibilities. Does this approach to life lead to happiness or an endless pursuit of happiness?

Stereotyping the Enneagram types can be understood in terms of inductive and deductive reasoning. The inductive approach goes from details to generalizations while the deductive approach starts with generalizations and moves to details. Although using one or the other approach exclusively can easily lead to stereotyping, it seems to me that the deductive approach to typing leads to stereotyping more often (especially with people just learning the Enneatypes).

The two Enneatypes on either side of each Enneatype are called wings. The term "wing" describes well the placement of the two types. What's insufficient is an explanation of what they are precisely and why placing them on either side is the best placement.

I've noticed early on that the types opposite each other are similar in some way (e.g., some 9's can seem 5-like, some 6's can seem 1-like). Instead of truly exploring these connections, people studying the Enneagram often explain it away as having to do with the aggressive, compliant or withdrawn triads. I see problems with that type of approach though.

"The Helper" is by far the most popular label given to Enneagram type 2 by the Enneagram authors, yet all nine types are helpful in their own way. In his book Ennea-Type Structures, Claudio Naranjo gets closer to the reality when he labels Ennea-type II as Egocentric Generosity. He goes on to describe the seductiveness of type 2 in this way.

For those who haven’t followed Eliot Spitzer in the news, in 2002 Time Magazine named him “crusader of the year” for the way he took on greed and wrongdoing when he was the New York State attorney general. In 2006 he was elected New York’s governor by a historic winning margin. In March 2008 however, the trapdoor to his personality was revealed when the story broke about how he was a repeat prostitution customer.

The Enneagram as used in the Gurdjieff tradition uses the inner triangle in one way and the inner hexad in another. The inner triangle and inner hexad in the Enneagram personality types are combined to commonly describe the stress/security points or directions of integration/disintegration. While the triangle can be illustrative of the triadic nature of 9 equaling 3 x 3, the hexad contradicts that triadic nature.

Type 3 seems to get a bad rap because of their chameleon-like ability to take on the identity valued by whatever group they're trying to become a part of. Three points I'd like to make about this:

People tend to type President George W. Bush as some combination of 6, 7, 8 or 9. Let's take a look at each of these Enneagram personality types to see why people may type him as they do.

Don't confuse emotional expression and feelings. Lack of emotional expression on the surface can belie a richness of feelings within. Just because someone doesn't want you to see their feelings, don't assume they have none or that they're not very aware of them. Sometimes the most emotionally expressive people are those least in touch with their feelings.