There is no single authoritative description of the nine Enneagram personality types. Instead, there are a number of different schools, authors, and teachers who have their own interpretation of the types. Some of the differences between these interpretations are subtle and not very noticeable while others are more obvious. There are two general approaches to dealing with this: 1) use the descriptions of one interpretation or source as a basis for understanding the types or 2) piece together an understanding from multiple interpretations and sources. Below are links to a sampling of type descriptions from a variety of authors/schools.
- Enneagram Type 1
- Enneagram Type 2
- Enneagram Type 3
- Enneagram Type 4
- Enneagram Type 5
- Enneagram Type 6
- Enneagram Type 7
- Enneagram Type 8
- Enneagram Type 9
Enneagram Schools and Authors
What's meant by an Enneagram school is a consulting and/or training group that presents its own interpretation and approach to using and understanding the Enneagram types. People trained through a particular school often become an extension of that interpretation and approach as well. The result is that many websites, and sometimes books, about the Enneagram types may be created by a student or participant of a particular school, resulting in a website or book that's mostly just a restatement of that school's interpretation.
Below are links for exploring a particular school's and/or author's take on the Enneagram types. Authors are either listed on their own or after the school they've founded or participate with. Click on the school or author for additional resource links, books, and videos. The list is not exhaustive and will be added to from time to time.
- The 3 keys approach combines the Myers-Briggs types, the Enneagram types, and affective or right brain/inner child healing.
- Today's Enneagram personality types evolved from Oscar Ichazo's ego-types and concepts related to his proto-analysis.
- The Enneagram types represent different strategies for interacting with the world. Each of us have a habitual preference for one of these strategies, and it shapes the way we think about the world and act in it.
- Richard Rohr, an early author of the Enneagram types, is a Franciscan priest who approaches the Enneagram types from a Christian spiritual perspective.
- The Enneagram types explain underlying motivations, as well as strengths and weaknesses in navigating life and relating to others.
- Each personality type represents a particular orientation with its own internal blueprint, inner commentary, and perception of self and the external world.
- The Diamond Logos is a specific process of reclaiming one’s ‘true self’, our ‘Being’.
- Elizabeth Wagele's Enneagram books are known for their type cartoon drawings and ease of reading.
- Each of us have one dominant (not exclusive) energy that drives us in everything we do which we use too much becoming our chief fault - or sin.
- The Enneagram is a tool for exploring individual differences in motivation, looking not just at personality, but beyond it.
- The originators and teachers of the Tritype approach (an individual is understood in terms of one type from each of the three centers).
- The Enneagram groups human motivations and patterns of feeling, thought and body experience into nine personality types.
- Nine ways of looking at reality from which flow our motivations, our thoughts, our feelings and our choices of action.
- A box of habitual patterns you developed as a child that help you cope, yet narrow your worldview.
- It was through psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo that Oscar Ichazo's enneagram material evolved into the Enneagram personality types as commonly used today.
- Suzanne Stabile has been conducting Enneagram workshops for the past 25 years and co-founded Life in the Trinity Ministry.
- Tom Condon draws from his background in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Ericksonian Hypnosis to understand the internal experience of Enneagram type.
- The Enneagram describes three centers of human intelligence — the head, heart, and body — nine interconnected personality types, and 27 subtypes.
- A.H. Almaas and Sandra Maitri were early participants in Claudio Naranjo's SAT groups in the 1970s and now use the Enneagram types in the Diamond Approach.
- Ginger Lapid-Bogda incorporates the Enneagram into business training, coaching, consulting, and organizational development.
- The Enneagram describes and explains the natural resources of human nature — what some call soul and others call “true self” or “real self.”
- Riso and Hudson introduced additional concepts to the types including levels of development, integration/disintegration, and various triads.
- A personality system that presents a useful template or map for understanding ourselves, the important people in our life, and the groups we work with.
- The Enneagram of Liberation is a wisdom mirror, holding up a light to illuminate our deepest egoic movements and patterns.
- The Narrative Tradition offers an interactive exploration of the Enneagram through inquiry with panelists who share their personal stories and insights.