Defining Personality and the Enneagram View

Transcription

1 Defining Personality and the Enneagram View The Enneagram Symbol Defining Personality Personality is all the characteristics and habitual behaviours of a person, i.e. the person s type and influencing types. In Enneagram usage, personality may be defined as the nine particular patterns (habits of mind) into which attention is organized and into the corresponding mental and emotional preoccupations. In spiritual traditions these patterns sometimes are referred to as the false self, the acquired personality or false personality. Defining the Enneagram The Enneagram is a powerful and dynamic personality system that describes nine distinct and fundamentally different patterns of thinking, feeling and acting. Each of the nine patterns is based on an explicit perceptual filter. This filter determines the focus of your attention and how you direct your energy. Underneath each of the nine patterns is a basic proposition or belief about what you need in life for survival and satisfaction. Each one of us developed one of the nine patterns to protect a specific aspect of our essence or essential self that felt threatened as our personality was developing. As you discover your Enneagram personality type, you will discover more about your original whole self. You will also understand more about the unconscious motivation from which you operate. Discovering your Enneagram personality type can help you achieve an understanding of how to bring positive change into your 2009 Hoffman Centre Australia/Singapore 1 Rev. 01/17

2 life. It can help change the way you relate to yourself and others, as well as give you a greater understanding of the circumstances and issues facing you. Of course, each of us has some aspects of all of the types as well as free energy not connected to any type, sometimes referred to as the conflict free sphere of function. The Enneagram connects the psychological and spiritual dimensions of life. The Enneagram brings together the observable psychological and the spiritual aspects of life and shows how to integrate the two. No other psychological tool is as efficient at highlighting the links between these two levels of being. Another word for spiritual is essence, or that in being that is separate from and underlies all outward manifestations and is permanent and unchanging (Webster). In Enneagram terms, each type has the following features: A key mental trait or the fixation the type s habitual mental preoccupation. The key mental trait is sometimes loosely referred to as the chief feature, compulsion, neurotic stance or stuck place. Higher mental attribute or the Holy Idea the higher mental aspect of essence for each type, sometimes called the divine idea. The Holy Idea must be experienced, not just thought. It may be conceptualized as having several levels. A key emotional trait or the passion the type s habitual emotional response or feeling state. The specific passion supplies the emotional energy for the corresponding fixation or key mental preoccupation. In the Enneagram, the passions are the seven deadly sins plus two generics, fear and deceit. Higher emotional attribute or the Virtue the higher emotional quality, sometimes called the objective emotion. This is in contrast to the subjective emotion of the passion. It is the energy in the body that allows us to act appropriately without directives from personal thinking or feeling, or likes and dislikes. The Virtue represents the effective true force or power producing moral excellence. The Enneagram, a dynamic system: The connected or influencing types defined. Each type has four additional types that influence personality, making the Enneagram a dynamic system and each person unique. While individuals may move to or lean on these four connected types, they do not leave or abandon their basic personality type. Such movement to or influence by connected types may be either to the higher or lower side (characteristics and qualities) of that type. Persons with less connected type influences are more pure types. In addition, each person has a unique handprint or footprint showing that some of each type is present even if this representation is very small Hoffman Centre Australia/Singapore 2 Rev. 01/17

3 The wing types. The types on either side of a particular type, i.e., adjacent to a particular type on the Enneagram circle, flavour or influence the type. Usually there is a habitual leaning toward one wing or the other. The stress or action type. This is the type that a person manifests characteristics of at times of stress, tension, pressure or mobilization for action. On the Enneagram figure the stress type is indicated by the direction to which the arrow points. The security type. This is the particular type that a person manifests characteristics of at times of security or relaxation, or paradoxically, when exhausted or overwhelmed. On the Enneagram figure the security type is indicated by the direction away from the arrow Hoffman Centre Australia/Singapore 3 Rev. 01/17

4 Ancient Roots History of the Enneagram: A Brief Summary The world s spiritual traditions have each produced a system for understanding people based on specific personality (type) barriers to contemplation. This is the result of inner reflection which naturally leads to self-observation, and thus leading further to noticing the habits of mind or patterns of attention. Thus complex Enneagram-like systems became rooted in each of the world traditions and were carried forward as a body of teaching within Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, to name few. Modern Era This began early in the twentieth century with the work of George Gurdjieff who claimed traditional spiritual sources for his work. The nine-pointed figure of the Enneagram, including its matrix of dynamic connecting lines, became the signature of his inquiry into process and change, especially the evolution of consciousness. His teaching about type focused on the chief feature, which is roughly equivalent to the central core of personality structure. In 1970, Oscar Ichazo convened a seminal training that continued the spiritual orientation of Evagrius, Origen and other medievalists who codified the seven Vices and their corresponding Virtues. By mapping the traditional concept of Vice to Virtue conversion to Gurdjieff s nine-pointed process diagram, he vastly deepened the study of type as a path of spiritual transformation. Working from prior models in concert with his considerable intuitive capacity, he correctly placed the types on the figure, wrote precise personality descriptors, expanding Gurdjieff s definitions of the chief features, and related the types to the three key areas of instinctual life (the subtypes). Claudio Naranjo, M.D., who attended the Ichazo training, produced the figure that connected Enneatypes with current personality theory. Of his many contributions, the most outstanding was the definition of the major defence mechanism associated with each type. Dr. Naranjo also interviewed people in order to discover their type, thus initiating the public panel method, which was continued for several years by his associate, Dr. Kathleen Speeth. Helen Palmer came to the material by way of exploring barriers to intuition. She attended an early Naranjo public workshop. At the time, Palmer was seeking explanations for the systematic barrier that opposed her students progress with intuitive practices. What began as an inquiry into type-related spiritual obstacles quickly developed into a broader teaching program rooted in the panel inquiry method and a body of Narrative Tradition teachings. Since 1988, she and David Daniels, M.D. have developed the Enneagram Professional Training Program and originated many aspects of the current Enneagram teachings Hoffman Centre Australia/Singapore 4 Rev. 01/17

5 The Catholic priest, Robert Ochs, S.J., also attended an early Naranjo workshop that included Helen Palmer. A year later he brought the Enneagram from California to Chicago s Loyola University. From there, during the 1970 s and 1980 s, the Enneagram spread worldwide through the Catholic network of seminaries, retreat centres and global missionary outreach. The original Ochs seminar included Jerry Wagner who wrote the first doctoral thesis on the Enneagram; Patrick O Leary, an early Enneagram author who broke the silence surrounding the teaching; and Mitch Pacwa, S.J., who later became an Enneagram detractor. The first description of Ichazo s Enneagram material appeared in Transpersonal Psychologies (Charles Tart, 1975). In the 1980 s, the Enneagram teachings spread even further with the publication of several books. The first book, The Enneagram: A Journey of Self Discovery, by Maria Beesing, Patrick O Leary and Robert Nogosek appeared in It was soon followed by The Enneagram and Prayer by Barbara Metz and John Burchill in 1987; Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery by Don Riso also in 1987; and The Enneagram: The Definitive Guide to the Ancient System for Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer in Since then numerous books have appeared. Summing Up As with most significant innovations in science and psychology, the Enneagram is only now working its way into the mainstream of academia and critical investigation. Yet systems like the Enneagram have persisted through human history, sometimes in the foreground and sometimes in the background. The formal Enneagram is a relatively recent discovery, but it was always there prior to being discovered. And how do we answer the question, why are there only nine types? They came about in the same way that evolution has produced innumerable species of life. Humans are a complex group of living species that requires different personality types in order to live together successfully some relationship oriented, some analytic, some aggressive, some amiable and so on. If evolution dictated it, a greater or smaller number of types would make their appearance Hoffman Centre Australia/Singapore 5 Rev. 01/17

6 Using the Enneagram Value of the Enneagram Why the Enneagram? The Enneagram represents a truly profound and powerful way to understand personality The Enneagram gets directly to the core of motivation. Each type has a simple Basic Proposition about what is necessary for survival and satisfaction in life and a corresponding pattern of attention or set of perceptual filters that determine what is experienced and what isn t. Because the Enneagram is such a fundamental and powerful way to understand personality, it provides numerous, often immediate, practical applications for personal development in such diverse fields as education, business, relationships and family life The Enneagram as taught through the narrative inquiry method is observationally based, and thus is self-verifiable, lending itself to scientific psychology. Through self-observation, one can begin to see for oneself the patterns proposed by the Enneagram. The Enneagram connects the observable psychological level of life to the spiritual level of life and shows how to integrate the two. No other psychological tool is as efficient at highlighting the links between these two levels of being. The Enneagram teaching recognizes three centres of intelligence: the mind, heart and body. The Enneagram not only identifies the three centres as equally important, it suggests ways to achieve a more balanced life through balancing one s use of the centres. The Enneagram is a dynamic system that accounts for changes under various circumstances and explains why we are all uniquely different. The Enneagram provides a universal language, like mathematics. The language of type underlies race, religion, nationality, culture, gender and group identity in any form. This universality helps foster greater understanding of what is common to all. Thus, while no two individuals are alike, the Enneagram teachings show that we share specific discernible patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour, thus opening up paths to mutual understanding. Ultimately the Enneagram helps us understand the limiting personality box each of us is in so that we can get out of our box or, at the very least, understand and enlarge the particular box that constrains us. Gaining a sense of how we unknowingly and automatically constrain ourselves is of great importance in developing intimate relationships, and in leading more productive and fulfilling lives. Applications of the Enneagram The Enneagram is a fundamental and powerful way to understand personality precisely because each type is based on a comprehensive Basic Proposition. This 2009 Hoffman Centre Australia/Singapore 6 Rev. 01/17

7 proposition can be applied effectively to virtually every area of life s endeavours. Depending upon the specific class, as a teacher, you would stress different applications and uses. General Applications of the Enneagram Personal development and managing personal reactivity Building fulfilling relationships Developing spiritual qualities of life Integrating psychological life and spiritual life Body based therapies and practices Effective parenting Education learning and teaching styles Counselling and psychotherapy Building healthy relationships and couples counselling Conflict resolution and mediation Stress reduction and management Workplace applications: o Executive coaching o Project management o Managing personal o Motivation reactivity o Decision making and authority o Communications relationships o Leadership skill o Supervision development o Building workplace culture o Team building o Change and risk management Ethical Use of the Enneagram It is important to consider the ethical parameters. Since most of us are ambivalent about being typed, we all need to remember that typing in some form in inevitable, that people who don t believe in typing are actually categorizing people into two types those who type and those who don t type! When using the Enneagram: Be sure that typing doesn t devolve into stereotyping into labelling resulting in prejudice Be sure to respect privacy and personal boundaries of participants Avoid fault-finding or excuse-making for behaviour based on type Keep key objectives in mind and do not get side-tracked by type issues See other sources of issues in addition to the Enneagram Avoid using the Enneagram for personal agendas Recognize that the Enneagram requires commitment, effort and time Be very cautious of using the Enneagram in any selection process in either personal or professional relationships. Level of development and willingness to work on issues are more important than type per se Hoffman Centre Australia/Singapore 7 Rev. 01/17