Copyright © 1997, 1998 The Changeworks.
The Dynamic Enneagram
Free Chapter
"The Trouble With Typing"
Copyright © 1997, 1998 The
Changeworks.
The Dynamic
Enneagram
Free Chapter
"The Trouble
With Typing"
Back
To The Dynamic Enneagram 1"Say not, "I have found the truth,"
but rather, "I have found a truth."
- Kahil Gibran
"Wisdom never has made a bigot, but learning has." -
Josh Billings
"A formula is something that worked once, and keeps trying
to do it again."
- Henry S. Haskins
"A quarter of a picture is worth 250 words." - George
Carlin
"No theory is good except on condition that one use it to
go beyond."
- Andre Gide
"Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the
unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its
chops." - H.L. Mencken
When people are strongly impacted by the Enneagram they often become intensely occupied with the system. New students will buy books, go to workshops, and engage in a flurry of typing, working out the personality styles of their relatives, spouses, colleagues and friends. Suddenly, evidence of the Enneagram seems to be everywhere, the way we notice German cars after buying a new Volkswagen.
This stage is perfectly appropriate to discovering
something new. Learning about ourselves and others is fun, fascinating,
and useful and the best way to absorb a complex subject is to
dive in and swim in its sea. Newcomers to the Enneagram often
have a sense of dynamic enthusiasm, of making real progress, as
if they finally have their hands on something solid.
There's an old story about the Devil following a man who has just
found the Truth. Someone sees this procession, steps up to the
Devil and asks, "Why are you, of all entities, following
someone who has just found the Truth?" The Devil strokes
his goatee, and replies, "He may have just found the Truth
but I'm going to help him organize it."
While it's exciting to find a framework that seems to organize reality, personality typologies are notoriously double-edged. Just as they open you to a new view of human behavior, they also close you to experience in a new way.
Tools are value-free; a hammer can build a house or crack a skull and it's still just a hammer. The high side of learning about personality styles is that you can deeply comprehend the inner workings of yourself and others, something that has hundreds of uses. The down side is that you might apply the information too narrowly, to reinforce and justify your biases, to see a new set of stereotypes, or turn into one yourself.
The Enneagram doesn't come with a manual that instructs people on how to use it properly, but perhaps it should. Most of this chapter is an attempt to catalog the ways the Enneagram is most commonly misunderstood or distorted.
If you are new to the system, I want to leave
you with some useful cautions; some may not make sense right away,
but you'll have them for future reference. Long-term students
of the Enneagram will recognize at least one of the pitfalls described
below. I'll also offer some constructive, common sense guidelines
for using the Enneagram in a way that leads to solid competence.
Educated Bigotry
People who object to the whole idea of personality typing often
say that they dislike being labeled because it makes them feel
trapped and one-dimensional. The irony is that the Enneagram aims
to show you how you are already trapped. It is true, however,
that the system's labels and categories can induce a mindset that
is potentially limiting.
Part of the problem is words. We use language to describe our experience, and yet words tend to diminish and reduce. Among languages, English is more noun-based than verb-driven. It's easy in English to talk about active, living, subjective processes - like people - as frozen, objective things. To some extent, this "thingification" is inevitable, but it creates a distorting lens.
When you call a person by a number or a name that is related to a role - a "Three," a "Performer" or an "Achiever" - you are talking more about a thing than a person. It's vastly different to describe a Three as "a person who needs to perform and achieve."
I once heard a song called "My Life Has Been Waiting For Your Love." Within the song, the singer was saying that he had this "thing" he called his Life that had been waiting for this other thing called Love. The woman he was singing to presumably had two things: her Life and the thing she gave him, her Love. If he gave his Love back to her Life, she would then have three things.
In a way, all generalizing about personality is akin to bigotry. Psychotherapists are paid to employ a professional form of bigotry each time they meet a new client - it's called diagnosis. The therapist has to assess someone both individually and in terms of how that person fits with generalizations drawn from various schools of psychology.
Therapists are, however, carefully trained to tell a person apart from a type. If someone comes in to their office and says, "I'm a Christian," a therapist wonders what the statement means to the person. They don't immediately think "Christian, of course, everybody knows what that is." "Christian" is instead taken as important information about the client; the label is arbitrary, relevant only for what it reveals about his identity and map of the world.
Even if the client believes he's like everyone else, the therapist doesn't. Instead, she tries to understand why it's important for the client to see himself that way; how the belief is, paradoxically, an expression of his uniqueness. The therapist tries to see the client uncompared to anyone else; she wants to know who the client is and who the client is trying to become. She compares the client to himself.
The advantage of diagnosis is that the therapist can generalize usefully and better decide how to work with a unique individual. An American therapist with a Swiss client would be crazy to ignore the cultural conditioning of Switzerland. Yet the therapist's first job is to comprehend her client's core individuality and then factor in the significance of the client's being Swiss.
Try to imagine instead a therapist who describes his current group of clients this way: "I have two Germans, a Kenyan, a Chinese, not to mention the Brazilian couple. It's good; I always get along with Germans, and Kenyans are easy to change, too. Chinese baffle me, of course, but at least I don't have any French clients - God, those people get on my nerves! Next week I start working with a Pakistani. Now that should be a challenge."
Strange as it sounds, I have heard people familiar with the Enneagram talk in the same way. They say things like: "Twos drive me crazy, they're always invading me. I can't stand Eights either - they're so pushy. Fives are my kind of people, though; always so sweet and so shy. Of course, everybody loves Sevens." I've met Enneagram enthusiasts who asked for my Enneagram number before they asked for my name.
There is a way to use the Enneagram that is much like bigotry. The two most important ingredients of common bigotry are seeing the other person's identifying characteristic first and then continuing to see it in a way that eclipses the rest of them.
In Enneagram bigotry you look at someone, see their number first and then reframe all their behavior to fit your expectations for their style. A complex individual then seems like a caricature, rather than a real person with a skewed point of view. Their personality style becomes the most outstanding thing about them.
The Enneagram describes how we make ourselves one-dimensional, but it's just as possible to see what it describes in a one-dimensional way. If you don't continually remind yourself of the difference between a type and a total person, then the material will delude you. You'll think you have people in a nutshell, but all you'll have are nutshells.
If I'm white and I see a "Black person"
first before I see my friend Roma, then I'm practicing a form
of bigotry. Roma happens to be a Nine so I could also see a Black
Nine. If, instead, I try to see Roma first, then her "Blackness"
and her "Nineness" become significant parts of who she
is that emerge in the way she expresses herself. It's almost a
matter of sequence.
Forging a New Identity
It's not too far a slide from seeing others in a bigoted way to
seeing yourself as some walking, talking type. As you learn about
your Enneagram style, you can get caught up in the idea of it,
fashioning a new quasi self-insightful identity, a new persona
to overidentify with.
Let's say I discover I'm a Two. I now make sense of my experience in a new way and understand behavior that has baffled me for years. After the initial shock, I begin to think of myself differently and say things like, "Well, I do these things because I'm a Two," or, "I'm a Two, so naturally I flatter people."
There's nothing natural about it at all. Overidentifying with the description of your personality style is exactly the same thing as being caught in its trance; you are simply replacing an old mask with a new one.
An expression of this occurs when people suddenly start to find their neurosis interesting. Enneagram periodicals will often carry articles by people describing their experience of their style. Some of these articles are useful but others are quite peculiar, recounting the ins and outs of the author's personality trance in a way that sounds pleased, as if the writer is fascinated with the new world of "me."
Such an article will then outline warped relationships, immature behavior and deluded goals often in a tone of bragging, juvenile glee. It's as if the writer feels endorsed, ratified, or given licensed by the Enneagram, not realizing that the system only describes their ego. The thoughts, feelings and behavior they list so proudly are exactly what they need to overcome.
A long-term consequence of overidentifying with your style is to grow habituated, complacent and unmotivated to change. People who have been familiar with the Enneagram for a long time will sometimes talk about their personality tendencies in a way that sounds strangely practiced. They describe themselves with insight and yet somehow remain trapped. They remind themselves of what they should work on but don't sound as if they'll bother.
One of the clearest perversions of the Enneagram is to use it as an excuse for neurotic behavior that you have no intention of changing. People will actually say things like, "Don't blame me for being paranoid, I'm a Six !" or, "I can't be expected to work in an office - I'm a Four!" You may as well say, "Of course I'm limited; I'm an American, aren't I?" The result is a sweeping reversal of the point of the model.
A related distortion occurs when people use
their style to create a new set of interpersonal limits, reflected
in statements like, "I'm an Eight so I can't work with Fours.
I don't make dinner plans with Sevens either - they're always
late."
I once got a phone call from a prospective student who demanded
to know my Enneagram number. When I asked why, she said she had
been told to only continue learning the Enneagram from someone
with a different personality style than her original teacher's.
The idea was that Enneagram styles are so influential
that two teachers with the same style would teach the Enneagram
in exactly the same way. Addled with their own personality biases,
their rendition of the material would be principally an expression
of their egos. Actually that just sounds like bad teaching.
Groups of people who know the Enneagram can also support its distortion.
One function of community is to reinforce the identities of its
individual members; everyone knows your story and expects you
to act in a way that's consistent with how they see you. On the
one hand this is the basis of great comfort and belonging, on
the other it means you're stuck, typecast, expected to conform
to the consensus image others have of you.
I've heard people in Enneagram groups say things like, "Oh, he's our resident Five, ha ha ha!" or "Look: she's getting him more coffee - just like a Two!" Though it seems like a harmless habit, it may result in group members feeling destined to follow the script of their style rather than creating their own alternative stories.
While connection to groups who know the Enneagram may offer a sense of belonging or fulfill other needs, it's very important to be mindful of what you're reinforcing in each other, even fondly. A group can help its members evolve beyond their Enneagram trances or support their immaturities, sense of victimhood, and desire to hide.
The Enneagram invites misunderstanding. It seduces us by seeming static, by offering neatly bounded categories that promise to contain and explain reality. It turns out the system points to something more profound and existential: the unnerving mystery behind everyday appearances, an invisible world that we may not be equal to seeing.
In the 1950 movie Rashomon, an incident in a forest involving a thief and an elegant, upper-class couple leaves the husband dead and the thief charged with murder. The film dramatizes the trial testimony of the participants where the witnesses present four absolutely different, equally plausible versions of what happened in the forest.
At the end of the film you don't know what to think. Each person could be lying but all four are equally convincing in their telling of the event. The story ends on a deliberate note of ambiguity, leaving you suspended in a void between equally valid subjective realities. You're forced to accept that there's no right answer, no absolute truth.
Sometimes the Enneagram induces exactly this
feeling in its users. It implies that when we are most certain
the world is one way, we are avoiding ambiguity and uncertainty.
But the system itself induces uncertainty and the part of us that
defends against those feelings in daily life also defends against
the Enneagram.
Roberto Assogioli, who founded Psychosynthesis, used to say, "You
never kill the ego, you only find it living in a larger house."
Remember, your ego's job is to co-opt the new, to translate the
unknown into the known. The Enneagram studies egos and presents
a sometimes withering portrait of their efficiency, sort of like
a negative cost-benefit analysis.
Your ego can react to the Enneagram's revelations by bureaucratically trying to hold onto its job, mutating to incorporate the new insights about itself while defending its basic position. Life is a series of openings and closings and when we change or expand our model of the world, something in us won't let us go too far.
Part of what this means is that if you're going
to work with the Enneagram in depth, it will take honesty every
step of the way. There's nothing in the model's formulation that
will keep you on track. No matter how powerfully the Enneagram
impacts you, it's still possible to warp it into a new version
of the same old thing.
The Trap of Traits
The Enneagram is easy to learn but difficult to master. For practical
purposes the essentials of the system can be grasped quickly and
applied to daily life in myriad ways. But it is a complex matter
with subtle depths and takes time to absorb.
Surfing is like that: you can become a passable board surfer rather quickly but it takes a lot of practice to get good. You need to develop a depth of experience and integrate the skill, to make it unconscious and reflexive. Until we make knowledge our own, it's like a rumor about something real.
Because the Enneagram is complex, many students search for shortcuts to simplify its usage. The most common form this takes is to seek a connection between people's outer behavior and their inner personality styles.
Users will ask questions like, "My husband drives too fast, what does that mean?" It means he should slow down, but the questioner is actually asking: "What's the connection between observable external traits and a person's Enneagram style?" The answer is: just about none.
I have known many Twos, for instance, who tailgate while driving. If you think about it, that's logical within the metaphor of Twoness - somebody who doesn't want to be alone and needs to stay connected to others drives too close to them in traffic.
Are all tailgaters therefore Twos? No; the external behavior isn't proof of anything. If you realize - through other means - that a person is a Two, then the fact that he tailgates makes sense against the deep background of his personality style. The behavior may combine well with a dozen other things a person says and does, but in the end you'll need another strategy altogether for discovering someone's Enneagram style. To assume each tailgater in your rear view mirror is a Two would be more bigotry.
Another question runs, "I'm a Nine. What would be the best type for me to marry?" The correct answer is either a type that's healthy, or one that loves you, preferably both.
There's no mathematical correlation, no magic formula, nothing in the Enneagram that could possibly advise about such a decision. Nines and every other number in the Enneagram fall in love. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't - it depends on the people involved.
The Enneagram can beautifully describe a likely dynamic between two individuals - what happens when the relationship works and when it doesn't. But it won't give you a formula for finding a mate.
It's probably only a matter of time before Enneagram dating services spring up. Author Helen Palmer has already described her horror at seeing newspaper ads soliciting romance with particular styles: "Nine seeks Seven for fun and romance." Again, imagine an ad that says, "Handsome Bulgarian looking to make beautiful music with that special someone. Only Brazilians need apply."
Trying to connect behavior traits to personality styles is like wanting a multiple choice answer to an essay test or confusing a math problem with a poem. The hope is that some exact formula exists. "Maybe if the person had a Six father and an Eight mother you could combine those numbers, divide by two and it will always mean that the person's a Seven." Although the Enneagram labels people with numbers but it's not realy mathematics.
Some people practice face reading. The claim is that you can look at someone's outer features, either in person or from a photograph, and determine their Enneagram style. This would be a fine thing if it worked but I've never met a practitioner of face reading who was accurate with any consistency. The technique ignores the influence of genetics as well as how a person's immediate mood might change the way they look.
When someone using face reading is wrong, the belief that is even possible makes things worse. The practitioner is much more likely to stick to an inaccurate diagnosis despite feedback from the subject and the evidence of his own senses.
Face reading is symptomatic of a broader mentality. I've heard "trait happy" people say things like, "you can't be a Three, you have Seven hair," or "you may think you're a One but you're not - Ones always make eye contact."
It's not that there aren't some physical expressions of Enneagram styles; they just aren't rigidly constant. Overgeneralizing any part of what you learn produces an illusory, simplistic view of human behavior and turns the Enneagram into something perfectly stupid. The paradox of this material is that when you apply it loosely it leads you to a more precise diagnosis.
A last typical question runs something like, "Don't Eights always fight with authority?" The answer is: nobody always does anything. There is tremendous variety within Enneagram styles just as there are within nationalities. I can meet Americans from other regions of the country and find them vastly different. Yet we still share associations and underlying references that come from being American.
The same is true with different individuals with the same ego style. If you heard a group of Threes talk about their lives, it would be clear that each person had a similar central world view and set of core assumptions. At the same time, each would plainly be their own person with an obvious independent identity.
As you apply what you learn to your life, remember that an Enneagram style is more than the sum of someone's visible behavior. The Enneagram describes the inner strategies that drive behavior, the "machinery in the basement." It's not what people do, it's why they do it. A person has only one core habit of perception; when you identify that, you'll see how their external traits flow logically from it.
Sometimes after studying the Enneagram for a while it's wise to pull back and realize how little of you it's really describing. Also, when you talk about people and their personality styles, remember the most important words to use: can, may, might, could, possibly, often and sometimes.
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