A map of what moves you.
The Enneagram describes nine patterns of motivation: what each one pays attention to, what it protects, and how it can grow. Choose a type to begin.
The Ones
Wants to be good and to get things right.
Driven to make things right. The three Ones differ in where the anger goes.
Nine types. Nine reasons why.
The Enneagram is a map of nine types. Each type is a pattern of motivation: a habit of attention, a core fear, and the strategy that grew up around it. Any type can do anything. What differs is why.
That is why we never type from behavior alone. Two people can do the same thing for very different reasons, and the reason is where growth begins.
In its modern form the Enneagram comes through Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo. Teachers such as Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes carried the work on the 27 subtypes forward.
Body, heart and head.
Where your energy goes first.
Self-preservation
Attention goes to safety, health, money, comfort and having enough. Under pressure these people conserve, prepare and protect.
Social
Attention goes to the group: belonging, standing, who is in and who is out, the shared goal. Under pressure these people read the room and manage their place in it.
One-to-one
Attention goes to intensity and to particular people: the bond, the spark, the person across the table. Under pressure these people go all in or go cold. Also called the sexual instinct.
Everyone has all three. One dominates, and it is the dominant instinct that shapes the subtype. A season of life can imitate an instinct, which is why we treat a person’s own report of their instinct as the lightest evidence there is.
Every type comes in three.
Your type says why. Your leading instinct says where that why gets spent. Choose a type to meet its three subtypes.
CountertypeIn each type, one subtype’s instinct pulls against the type’s passion, so it can look like a different type. These nine are the most often mistyped, and often where the deepest work happens.
See all 27 subtypes →How a type moves.
Wings are the two types beside yours on the circle. Many people lean toward one, and it adds a flavor to their type.
Lines connect each type to two others across the symbol. Following the arrow back leads to the energizing point, a place of harnessing energy for the inner journey. Following the arrow forward leads to the resolution point, which can feel stretching but ultimately rounds out (resolves) the ego structure. Both are moves a person can learn to make, and neither is a reward or a penalty.
Growth means having more of yourself available, whatever your type.