browse7.html

Enneagram Monthly: What's your opinion on possible correlations between the Enneagram and the Myers-Briggs system?

Tom Condon: The Enneagram describes nine species of ego-nine ways the human unconscious creates and organizes subjective experience, Your ego generates your map of reality, and your sense of identity along with your core motivations, values and defenses. It offers guiding assumptions, giving you a general sense of direction and immediate ways to proceed.

To me, the MBTI and the Enneagram don't describe the same things at all. If the article described an Enneagram style as merely a defense I think that would be a little off. There are clearly healthy expressions of Enneagram styles; each offers abilities and gifts as well as defensive limitations. To me the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs typing system don't describe the same things at all.

EM: We think Pat Wyman (see "The Enneagram and MBTI in Affective Therapy" in the April 1999 issue) is right on target in regarding the two systems as different entities, tather than trying to find correlations.
TC: The Enneagram is describing a central orientation, a core strategy. Within that core strategy, the MBTI describes what amounts to subtypes. The sensory, mental orientations and emotional orientations that are possible within your core Enneagram style. If you try to evenly correlate the two systems, or to identify the one MBTI combination that always goes with each Enneagram style you would be attempting the impossible.

There's a book by Renee Baron and Elizabeth Wagele [Are You My Type, Am I Yours?] with a section in the back on MBTI-I think that book has the combination just right.

EM: Remind us how they did that.
TC: Baron and Wagele said there might be general tendencies as you correlate the two systems, some MBTI combinations that are more frequent with say Nines. But ultimately it's wide open. That's been my experience.

It's not unlike body typing. I've heard some people try to assign a single body type to each Enneagram style. Personally, I see two or three body types consistent with each style. Someone recently said to me, "Fives are always skinny," and I thought, "except when they're not." Many Fives aren't skinny.

The speaker was referring to one of several body types Fives can have, a lean ectomorphic body type that I've noticed most often in self-preservation Fives - young self-preservation Fives. When they get older there's an even chance that a withdrawn sedentary lifestyle will lead them to put on weight, especially if they have American eating habits.

It's not that there aren't some physical expressions of Enneagram styles; they just aren't rigidly constant. The paradox of this material is that when you apply it loosely it leads you to a more precise diagnosis.

I liked the Enneagram Monthly article by Peter O'Hanrahan [see "Body Types" in the Jan. and Feb. 1998 issues] and was glad to see him not overly applying his model. His generalizations seemed solid and based on a disciplined observation of real people.
One way I like to describe Enneagram styles is as "psychological nationalities," because a personality style functions like a nationality. Both define you, yet within them you're an individual. Both are deeply unconscious and shape your perceptions in involuntary ways. Both your nationality and your ego are simultaneously deep and yet shallow, parts of you that are apart from you at the same time.

While the Enneagram describes the sameness of people, everyone is unique within their style just as they are within their nationality. Moreover there is great variety among people with the same nationality. Americans from Florida and Americans from New England can be very different in manner and speech. But underneath they share an unconscious orientation that is American. The same is true with Enneagram styles. The range of expression among people with the same personality style is just as wide.

EM: We've been talking more about ways to bring the Enneagram into the mainstream. Do you have any ideas in that regard?
TC: I think the model itself has been well defined and there are different ways to proceed from here. You could continually refine the descriptions, which may have some value, though that's also how people get bogged down and use the Enneagram as a way to avoid change.

To me, the Enneagram's future is in its applications. How do you use it? I'm someone who thinks that the Enneagram is not worth knowing unless you actually do something with it. To take the material into yourself in a way that makes a functional difference in your daily life, both spiritually and psychologically.

If it can be meaningfuly applied to people's lives, and presented in ways that are not too rarified, arcane or new agey, then I think the Enneagram will take root in broader ways. Especially in established psychological circles, one place where it really belongs.

When the system is well taught there is a real power in the descriptions; it hits people where they live, putting its finger on the central way they construct reality. When the Enneagram is taught badly, say as a group of stereotypes by someone who learned the system six months ago, then I think newcomers sensibly decide to avoid it.

EM: Do you find that over the years, that your ability to correctly assess someone's type has grown?
TC: Oh sure. Actually, it takes years. It takes lots of practice, lots of floundering around and making mistakes, being certain you were right and then finding out later that you were all wrong.

The notion that you can type quickly and easily when you've just learned the model is an illusion. In a way, it's an illusion that typing systems foster. The Enneagram seems to say, "Learn about the nine types of people, and reality will be simplified, all will be revealed." And of course that's not what happens. Nothing is simplified, everything gets more complicated and rich and interesting. The study of human behavior and psychology is one of those subjects that just keeps going. You don't announce one day that you know everything there is to know about it.

EM: There is not a single branch of psychology that makes those claims; there's no reason why the Enneagram should either.
TC: It's like any deep subject; each time you think you "know" the Enneagram - if you're paying attention - something will come along that will tell you that you don't know anything. You've just plateaued.

EM: When you type a person do you go from the general towards the specific? How do you do it? What is the process that you use?
TC: It's such a combination of things. To describe it too tightly is misleading because it's based on years of experience. In a broad way, I may look for what someone is obviously not, and that will narrow it down. I listen quite a bit to how a person's internal experience is reflected in their language, not only in terms of sensory sequence, but also in terms of what they include or leave out, and how they describe themselves. Whether somebody speaks in a passive way when they describe their problem, for instance.

I often listen for the kinds of metaphors people use to describe themselves or the world they subjectively live in. For instance, Eights who have wars in their heads will use war metaphors embedded in casual conversation. "Yeah, let's get together and play soccer on Saturday and kill those guys." Threes, by contrast, are much more prone to using sports metaphors. Life isn't a war, it's a game.

I think good typing is a struggle and you have to just keep doing it, and learn from your mistakes. Every time you're really sure of yourself and you turn out to be right, memorize the feeling that goes with that. Every time you're really sure of yourself and you turn out to be wrong, think back on what you were thinking or feeling that day, and see if there's a difference. If you make consistent mistakes, they may begin to reveal a pattern to you, a blind spot.

I believe in doing homework, reading biographies, watching interviews, doing research. I'm often amazed when someone types a famous person based solely on their impression or feeling about that person. It's like, "whatever I think their Enneagram style is, it probably is." That means there's no Enneagram, there's just what I think. People will also sometimes type as if it's the Olympics - a competition. They'll rush into it, and try to "beat" somebody else at it, to see who can make the fastest snap judgment.

EM: Or to elevate a single characteristic into something they consider as extremely defining.
TC: That is really a tendency, to grope for some formula, usually based on the person's external behavior. Somebody will say "He was angry, so that means he's a One." Like it's an equation or a math problem. Determining someone's Enneagram style involves paying attention to them and taking into account many things at once. You really have to get out of your own way and develop your observation and listening skills. Focusing on someone's external behavior traits is extremely misleading. It's not what someone does, it's why they do it.

EM: Do you have a set of verification procedures? If you begin to suspect that somebody might be a Four or a Six, for example, what would be a tie-breaker?
TC: You can't quite do it that way, because it's not one thing or another. In the end, though, what you're after is the person's central strategy, what they return to again and again. Sometimes you can't get that in one pass. You can't make up your mind right away, nor should you. You need more exposure to the person, to see how their patterns play out through time, to get to know them better. Then gradually, their style will come clear.

EM: Do you find that some types are more or less accessibile? Some may be very elusive and you could struggle for a very long time and you still can't be sure?
TC: Not anymore. I might have at one time but I don't now. In any case that would not have been a statement about the type's elusiveness but rather a blindness in myself.

EM: Or people who have done a lot of work on themselves I imagine would be a lot harder to type.
TC: If somebody is really healthy, they can be harder to initially type them because they're not so evidently pathological. But even very healthy people have a point of view, a shape to their thoughts, talents and strengths that are characteristic of one Enneagram style and not another.

The Dalai Lama seems to me an evolved man but he's still a Nine. The nature of what he does is profoundly inclusive. The quality of his thoughts, his preoccupations and his values are all fundamentally Niney.

EM: Have you seen any good movies lately?
TC: I've just come out with an expanded version of The Enneagram Movie and Video Guide. For a few months, I haven't been able to stand the thought of seeing a movie. Just recently, I've actually been renting them again.

The documentary Kurt and Courtney has an amazing Eight in it; Courtney Love's father. There's five minutes towards the end of the film that you could show in an Enneagram class. Buffalo 66 centers on a sweet but crazy counterphobic Six. I have a bunch of new reviews on my website.

EM: Did you ever apply the Enneatypes to literature?
TC: No, but that's next. They're there. Somebody should do it.

EM: Do you enjoy reading?
TC: Well, lately I've been writing books so I tend not to read. But at a certain point, I'll go back. It's obvious that Enneagram styles are in fiction. You can, for instance, see styles in films that have been faithfully rendered from novels.

EM: You sure can. I had read the book, Civil Action, and then we saw the movie. It was such a disappointment. John Travolta just didn't seem to be like the character or personality style from the book.
TC: The Jane Austen novels seem to transpose well - Sense and Sensibility for instance. Most of the styles that were in the recent film were in the novel, according to my English wife.

It would be very interesting to study of Shakespeare through the lens of the Enneagram. Dostoevsky's books are full of Enneagram styles as are Thomas Mann's.

EM: There's a topic we haven't touched on. Most people don't teach anything about subtypes, and you do.
TC: Yes, I've been teaching them a lot. They're very useful.

EM: How so?
TC: I think they are the key to discovering what further motivates someone within the general motivation of their Enneagram style. If you are doing changework this is very handy. The subtypes are also a way to understand the wide variety of expressions that can occur among people of the same Enneagram style. They resolve a lot of confusion. I've also found it helpful to focus on the high side of each subtype, to work out how each can be a resource, a strength.

EM: How do you define them?
TC: Each Enneagram style has three possible suborientations,related to three realms of life - survival or how we take care of ourselves, the realm of close relationships, and how we relate socially to the larger world.

Your primary subtype is determined by whether you are unconsciously preoccupied with personal survival (self-preservation), whether you incline towards one-to-one relationships (intimate), or whether your style of relating includes groups of people (social).

We all have portions of our attention and energy focused on these three realms but may habitually favor a particular realm more than the others. If your basic desire is for material security you might be continuously, if subtly, preoccupied with the essentials of life - food, shelter, physical safety and your home.

If your primary desire is for intimacy in one-to-one relationships you might be especially focused on whether you are desirable to others. Or be interested in finding or being with your mate or you relate to your friends one at a time in a tightly focused way.

If your primary desire is for community you might seek safety and security in numbers. You could gravitate towards groups of people and be interested in outer recognition, popularity, honor, status, social acceptance. Your inner thoughts will tend to be occupied with groups of people.

As with wings and stress and security points, your subtype can be both a resource or a limitation depending on how healthy or defensive you are within it. The high side of a preoccupation with self-preservation is that you can really take care of business, be good at details and capable at life-management skills. The low side is that you could be overfocused on mere survival and miss life's other dimensions. Or you could make survival complicated or difficult out of a conviction that life is hard and your survival is somehow always at stake.

The high side of the intimate orientation is that you have a talent for one-to-one intimacy and you could have exceptionally deep, rich friendships. The low side is that you might freight up your relationships with too many expectations and have a tendency to be dependent, jealous or possessive.

With a healthy social orientation you could be a gregarious people-person, someone who works hard and unselfishly to serve your chosen group. When you win everybody in your group wins. The low side is that you might tend to lose yourself in the group, be unable to be alone, or lessen your individuality. You could be especially prone to conflicts about what the group wants versus what you need.

EM: Do you think that people only have one subtype? Some teachers say that we have all three and they just come out in different situations.
TC: I think it's both. Most people have one dominant subtype. But you will also notice evidence of the others in your behavior. You could be a social subtype but when you fall in love, you would react more like an intimate subtype. If your business went broke you might be in a self preservation mode until your survival was again assured. Your other subtypes can also come and go in your responses to immediate situations throughout the day.

The other worthwhile thing to note about subtypes is that they carry across your other built-in connections. If you are a Seven and your primary subtype is intimate, you will be an intimate subtype in your experience of your Six and Eight wings and your built-in connections to Five and One.

Originally I thought of subtypes as advanced material but lately some people have come to the workshops with little previous exposure to the Enneagram and they understand them just fine. Rather than advanced, I've started to think of subtypes as a sidedoor into the Enneagram.
.

Back To Monthly Musings
Part 1 of this Interview: NLP & the Enneagram