The enneagram: An innovative approach

Abstract

The enneagram (pronounced any-a-gram) is a tool consisting of nine points that depict personality styles. It is a tool that can be integrated into theoretical counseling approaches to better serve the therapeutic relationship and is adaptable to the unique personality of each client. This manuscript includes correlations between the enneagram and psychological precepts such as the diagnostic criteria found within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV, Ivey's Developmental Counseling theory, and Transactional Analysis theory. To demonstrate the enneagram's compatibility with other counseling theories, each of the nine styles is explained with corresponding theories recommended for each style. A case study and examples are provided to demonstrate effectiveness as a tool to promote awareness in the counseling relationship.

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ArticleTitle The Enneagram: An Enhancement to Family Therapy
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Journal Name Contemporary Family Therapy
Corresponding Author Family Name Matise
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Given Name Miles
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Organization Troy University
Address 81 Beal Pkwy, SE, Fort Walton Beach, FL, 32548, USA
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Abstract The enneagram (pronounced any-a-gram) is an ancient tool consisting of nine points depicting personality
styles. It is a tool that can be integrated into different theoretical approaches. The enneagram is adaptable
to the unique style of each client and can aid a counselor in conceptualizing a client or family. This
manuscript includes the enneagram theory integrated within a family systems framework. To demonstrate
the enneagram’s compatibility with family systems perspective, the enneagram is presented to facilitate
therapy with a couple. A case study is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the enneagram as a tool
to promote awareness in the counseling relationship.
Keywords (separated by '-') Enneagram - Counseling - Family therapy - Spirituality - Personality - Typologies
Footnote Information

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Contemporary Family Therapy
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-018-9471-0
The Enneagram: AnEnhancement toFamily Therapy
MilesMatise1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract
The enneagram (pronounced any-a-gram) is an ancient tool consisting of nine points depicting personality styles. It is a tool
that can be integrated into different theoretical approaches. The enneagram is adaptable to the unique style of each client and
can aid a counselor in conceptualizing a client or family. This manuscript includes the enneagram theory integrated within a
family systems framework. To demonstrate the enneagram’s compatibility with family systems perspective, the enneagram
is presented to facilitate therapy with a couple. A case study is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the enneagram
as a tool to promote awareness in the counseling relationship.
Keywords Enneagram· Counseling· Family therapy· Spirituality· Personality· Typologies
Introduction
As the field of therapy has evolved, family systems theory
has emerged as a perspective that can embrace a diversity
of ideas from other therapeutic models, while retaining its
fundamental core assertion that personality development
evolves from an individual’s family system (Minuchin
1993). To add to the complexity, couples in counseling bring
their individual issues, as well as pre-established relation-
ship issues, learned from early experiences and attachments
(Choucroun 2012). A unique capability of family systems
theory is to allow for the integration of ideas and concepts
from other theories, thus creating a milieu for the develop-
ment, testing, and effectiveness of alternative perspectives
on human behavior and development. The counselor can
face many challenges when joining with the couple for ther-
apy and must make adjustments in order to account for the
pre-existing relationships of the couple. One such tool for
addressing these challenges and for helping clients’ become
more aware of unconscious beliefs and patterns is called the
enneagram. The enneagram is a tool designed to help a per-
son better understand what motivates his or her behavior in
an attempt to fulfill certain needs (Eckstein 2002). As clini-
cians, the enneagram can serve to assist in conceptualizing,
understanding, and organizing a client’s enduring lifelong
patterns.
The majority of therapists, including couple and family
therapists, report using an integrative approach to counseling
and drawing from a broad theoretical basis (Barth 2014;
D’Aniello 2015). Therapists, including couple and family
therapists, have found the enneagram an effective tool for
working with clients (Arthur 2008; Bettinger 2005; Matise
2007). Eckstein (2002) has developed the Couple’s Ennea-
gram Questionnaire (CEQ) to assist couples and families in
understanding of both one’s own plus one’s partners and/or
other family members’ primary motivators. The enneagram
can be a useful tool to gather, comprehend, and apply infor-
mation about complex systems, such as family members,
thus increasing the effectiveness of the therapeutic process
(Mandara 2003; Totton and Jacobs 2001).
Postmodern Family Theory
andtheEnneagram
Postmodern family theory is counter to the idea that there
is a universal progress for every family and its members. It
thwarts the idea that the family system is the only basis for
learning about self. Postmodernism purports that the roles
and rules of a family system are flexible rather than static
and that social interaction is the definer of self (Golden-
berg and Goldenberg 2012). Pare (1995) noted that family
therapy is currently undergoing a paradigm shift as a result
* Miles Matise
mmatise@troy.edu
1 Troy University, 81 Beal Pkwy, SE, FortWaltonBeach,
FL32548, USA
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of a changing epistemological focus that was mechanistic.
Postmodernist social constructionism has given rise to per-
sonal meaning, interpretation, and the inter-subjectivity of
knowledge. This new epistemology is leaning away from
the family as a system metaphor and leans more toward the
family as a storying community of its own. The paucity
of research on the subjective experience of the individual
in marriage and family theory has led to the development
of postmodern models, such as Narrative therapy (White
2004) and Solution-Focused therapy (De Jong and Berg
2008; Miller etal. 1996). Contemporary family therapy
models, such as narrative and solution focused models
assume a less directive and expert stance, thus allowing the
client’s to assume responsibility for moving toward change
(D’Aniello 2013). Allowing for the subjective experience of
the individual in theory and practice of couples counseling
can assist in second and third order changes in the family
system by helping members identify and change their own
schemata as adaptive members of the system (Hall 2011).
One order change can percolate and assist in transitioning
to other order changes.
Enneagram Origins
Evolved from ancient spiritual traditions, the Enneagram
has proven to be a useful tool for self-discovery and under-
standing a person’s internal process (Palmer 1988; Riso
1990). The Enneagram is a composite of two Greek words—
“Ennea” (the word for number nine) and “Grammas” (the
word for figure)—that map nine personality styles of human
nature (Naranjo 1994). The enneagram is a theory that
evolved from Sufism, the mystical sect of Islam, an ancient
spiritual tradition dating back thousands of years (Riso and
Hudson 1996). Initially, it was transmitted orally from gen-
eration to generation, and more recently has emerged from
the teaching traditions of Gurdjieff (1973), Ichazo (1972),
Palmer (1988), Naranjo (1994), and Ouspensky (1957)
who have influenced its presently revised form. Initially the
enneagram was introduced and taught by a few academicians
and has increased in popularity as its proponents have pro-
moted its efficacy to the mainstream public through writing
and speaking. Despite the enneagram’s apparent spiritual
origins, it is not a religion. A strength of the enneagram is
that it transcends doctrinal and dogmatic differences while
promoting a person’s self-knowledge. The enneagram can
help individuals empathize with the experiences of others
and act from a place of inner strength, while increasing the
possibility of getting one’s needs met appropriately. Interpre-
tation of the instrument for a client may serve to normalize
his or her experience without pathologizing, thereby con-
tributing to the empowerment of the client.
Enneagram Typology
Typologies allow for the recognition, observation and
organization of information about complex systems in
the treatment of systemic patterns of thought, emotions,
and behaviors (Arthur 2008; Nichols and Schwartz 2001).
According to Arthur (2008) early examples of typologi-
cal approaches in systemic theory include Bowenian
approaches to couple and family therapy, which is based
on a typology of interaction styles (Kerr and Bowen 1988).
Also structural approaches to family therapy which are
organized using a typology of boundaries (Minuchin
1993). More recent examples of typologies used in couple
and family therapy are attachment style typology (Shaver
and Mikulincer 2005) and the Gottman Method, which
describes five types of couples (Gottman and DeClaire
2002).
Totton and Jacobs (2001) identified five characteristics
of a typology if it is to be an effective tool in therapy. They
are (a) have the power to reveal relevant patterns of char-
acteristics; (b) be coherent with distinct categories related
in a meaningful way; (c) contribute to a greater under-
standing of the individuals categorized; (d) an increased
ability to predict clinically relevant information, and; (e)
relevant information is revealed as a result of the patterns
discovered from the categories. Based on this criteria, the
enneagram is an effective, coherent, and useful typology.
Enneagram Styles
The “styles” (also referred to as, types) of the enneagram
are the core-belief patterns that individual’s default to in
times of stress and reactivity. The enneagram system also
refers to three centers of intelligence—head, heart, and
body—which indicate the ways an individual may relate to
other people in certain situations (Waldberg 1973). Each
of the nine styles that make up the enneagram consist of a
continuum from effective to ineffective traits, related to the
three centers of intelligence: Self-image (Heart = Feeling),
thought processes (Head = Thinking), and instinctual traits
(Body = Doing/Moving).
Each individual is disposed inherently and condition-
ally to experience and respond to reality from the perspec-
tive of one of the nine styles (Wagner and Walker 1983),
which will be one of the nine points on the enneagram.
Daniel’s and Price (2000) describe each style on a spec-
trum and including certain strengths. By discovering one’s
style, it can help the counselor anticipate how their client
will behave and respond to life, based on his or her typol-
ogy. Because we all have some of each style in us, it is
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important for the counselor to identify the unique style
of each client in order to have the leverage from which to
support the work of personal transformation.
According to enneagram theory each person represents,
in part, all of the nine styles; however, one of the styles
is more naturally expressed than the others. This is called
one’s home-style (also referred to as core-style) and is
often the most troublesome because of its tendency to
be unconscious to a person’s awareness. In other words,
it is a person’s automatic pilot or default that they react
from, especially in times of stress. The following descrip-
tions are a compilation of personal experience and literary
descriptions of the styles (Daniels 2016).
Style-one (the Perfectionist) is self-reliant, industri-
ousness, responsible, and self-controlled. However, under
stress they can also be rigid, critical, resentful, and judg-
mental. They tend to be black and white thinkers and their
core-belief is that life tends to be you must be good and
right to have a satisfying life.
Style-two (the Helper) tends to be relationship-ori-
ented, helpful, caring, and sensitive to the needs of others.
Under stress they can become prideful, demanding, and
codependent. They believe in order to live a satisfying life
they have to be giving fully to the needs of others.
Style-three (the Performer) approaches their life as
from a reward and success perspective and tend to get
caught in “doing” rather than “being.” While they are
goal-seeking, efficient, and industrious, they can also
become inattentive, impatient, and image driven.
Style-four (the Individualist) is often referred to as a
romantic because they tend to long for a highly-idealized
relationship in order to have a satisfying life. Thy can
approach life with deep feelings, empathy, authenticity,
creativity, and passion. While under stress their tendency
is to be self-absorbed, moody, and dramatic.
Style-five (the Observer) views life as intrusive and at
times, over-demanding. The point of view from this style
is to protect oneself, as if they are lacking or deficient in
and of themselves. Their strengths are to be self-sufficient,
non-demanding, and analytic. Under stress they can come
across aloof, withdrawn, and detached.
Style-six (the Loyalist) views the world as unpredict-
able and untrustworthy and that in order to live a satisfying
life, they strive to gain certainty and security. They tend
to be loyal and trustworthy, while under stress they can be
extremely cautious, doubtful, accusatory, and paralyzed
by their fears.
Style-seven (the Dilettante) believes they must stay
positive because the world imposes pain and suffering.
They tend to be upbeat, optimistic, and pleasure-seeking,
but under stress can become avoidant and use denial as a
way of coping.
Style-eight (the Controller) is also considered a protector
and at their core believes that the world is unjust and they
must be strong and powerful to assure a satisfying life. Their
strengths include being assertive, action-oriented, and pro-
tective. When reacting from an extreme place, they can be
excessive, impulsive, intense, and manipulative.
Style-nine (the Peacemaker) is also known as a media-
tor and their core belief is that they have to blend in and not
upset the equilibrium, in order to have a satisfying life. They
are attentive, supportive, adaptive, and seek harmony, how-
ever, under stress they can avoid conflict and forget them-
selves, which can lead to future resentments.
A person’s home-style is the style from which he or she
will act in times of distress. This is because the home-style is
the template from which a person has learned to relate inter-
personally (Carpenter 2015). Each style includes strategies
on how a person gets his or her needs met. The style includes
how an individual interacts with him or herself, others, and
the surrounding environment. Each style can reveal: (a) how
an individual views the world, (b) the kinds of choices an
individual is likely to make, (c) the values an individual may
hold, (d) an individual’s source of motivation, (e) how an
individual may react interpersonally with other people, and
(f) how he or she responds to stress. By examining what a
client values and what is important to him or her, counselors
may assess the confluence of the two enneagram styles (the
counselor’s and the client’s) to aid in conceptualizing the
client’s situation, while adapting toward compatibility and
attunement with the client (Kitchur 2005). Once counselors
identify a client’s style, he or she can devote attention to
integrating (balancing) the client’s style by using an appro-
priate theory (i.e., Cognitive Behavioral, Person-Centered,
etc.) to help the client change negative patterns of behavior.
The enneagram is a tool for self-discovery, which yields
the results of what Gurdjieff refers to as self-remembering
(Nicoll 1985). The instrument can aid the counselor to gain
insight into the behavioral characteristics of clients, emo-
tional tendencies, and attitudinal patterns that may inhibit
a client’s developmental growth. The enneagram has been
embraced by a variety of genders, ethnicities and people
with various religious backgrounds without threat to his or
her fundamental being or dogma and can serve as a valuable
tool to alert an individual to the reality of his or her deeper
nature (Maitri 2004; Palmer 1988; Riso and Hudson 1996).
Enneagram Theory: Ego, Personality,
Essence
One of the challenges of the Enneagram is that it is both
a historical and modern phenomenon that continues to
evolve. Due to its enigmatic origins, credit cannot be nar-
rowed to a single person or system of knowledge. Naranjo
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(1990) is credited with investigating the system as a theory
of knowledge or epistemology (Almaas 2002). The onto-
logical explanation for each of the Enneagram types is that
our being becomes unstable, largely due to a misperception
of our separation from Being itself. Being, in this context,
represents a spiritual concept but is not clearly defined, yet
can be used by an individual as a force larger than their
ego-self. For a non-spiritual person, they could view this
as a separation from themselves, rather than a benign ulti-
mate force. This misperception is often compensated for
by a person’s primary fear, fixation, or blind spot, which is
correlated with the characteristics of each Enneagram type.
According to Enneagram theory, a person, though unstable
in their being is also in a constant state of becoming (Almaas
2002). From a perspective of ontology, Almaas (2002) and
Naranjo (1990) regarded the goal of each type as recognition
of the three metaphysical parts of self-remembering, self-
discovery, and self-realization by self-observation. Ichazo
(1972) described his understanding of the epistemology of
the Enneagram as each person developing a style of compen-
sating for the ontological emptiness which is at the center
of the ego and experienced as one of the fixations of the
nine types. Bleibreu (1982) believed that the ego develops
because of the loss of contact with Being: “When we turn
away from our primal perfection, our completeness, our
unity with the world and God, we create the illusion that
we need something exterior to ourselves for our comple-
tion. This dependency on what is exterior is what creates a
person’s ego.” (p.9).
Much of the current research on the enneagram has been
correlated with psychological perspectives. Developmen-
tally, psychologists have suggested that the behavior pat-
terns that make up our personalities are due, in part, to how
our needs were met in childhood (Riso and Hudson 1996,
1999). The ego is part of the personality that develops and
which may be evident by a person’s dysfunctional behavior
in order to get certain needs met. The ego is what provides a
frame of reference for a person, thus enabling him or her to
give meaning to his or her experience (Helson and Roberts
1994). Personality may develop as a strategic defense against
the discomfort of unmet needs and thus serves the individual
as a coping mechanism. Palmer (1988) said: “One of the
enneagram’s problems is that it’s very good. If you can type
yourself and the people who are important in your life, a lot
of information is immediately available about the way that
you and another are likely to get along” (p.6).
Unique to each of the nine styles of the enneagram is
a primary fear, which is then compensated for by a basic
desire or passion. The personality then develops out of this
compensation. Essence is referred to as a person’s true or
genuine self. This can represent a transparency in one’s
behavior and congruency with how one feels and behaves.
To clarify this distinction, essence is what babies are born
with, and personality is what they acquire throughout life
(i.e., views and opinions) (Ouspensky 1957). To the extent
that a person lives out of his or her fear, he or she becomes
stuck in his or her ego’s fixation that corresponds with the
personality style. To become aware of this fixation is to no
longer to be seduced by the trance of a person’s ego (Richo
1999). Riso and Hudson (1999) make the distinction with
this analogy:
Our personality is like a cast that protects a broken arm.
The more extreme the original injuries the more extensive
the cast has to be. Of course, the cast is necessary so that the
limb can heal. But if we never take the cast off, it severely
limits the use of the limb and makes further growth impos-
sible (p.34).
Many people have unmet needs, that have influenced
their personality development, by compensating for and by
providing a defense against the discomfort of those unmet
needs. The enneagram can help bring awareness to a per-
son’s reactive tendencies that may be hindering his or her
psychological growth.
Enneagram Process: Integration
andDisintegration
According to the Enneagram theory, personality is formed
from having a central orientation of one of the nine per-
sonality styles (Riso and Hudson 2010; Carpenter 2015). In
order to promote the development of one’s personality style,
knowing which style a client relates to carries implications
for relationship attraction, satisfaction, and distress, which
can be therapeutically beneficial in couple’s counseling
(Holden 2000).
Each personality style on the Enneagram includes a pri-
mary motivation, often a fear that the person developed
from endowed genetic tendencies and experiences in their
environment. Correspondingly, each person attempted to
compensate for irregularities and dysfunctions in their life
(see Appendix: fear, desire, trance). Riso and Hudson (2000)
believe that personality manifests when people loose con-
nection with their essential nature. Palmer (1991) believes
that personality develops because people have a tendency to
focus their attention toward protecting their vulnerabilities.
Riso and Hudson (2000) describe these positive movements
as integration by raising awareness of self and its patterns as
the core of personality. Ultimately resulting with the integra-
tion of each of the nine personality styles.
During times of stress and security the person’s type will
shift in one of two directions, termed: Integration or Disinte-
gration (Bland 2010) (see Appendix for direction). In times
of security, a person is said to be growing in the direction of
integration (psychological health). Whereas, under stress, a
person may be experiencing more of a crisis situation, albeit,
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no less detrimental for positive growth. This is considered,
disintegration, because a person tends to feel that they are
regressing, in terms of their problem (pathological). Integra-
tion leads toward psychological health and well-being (Tapp
and Engebretson 2010).
Integration occurs when a person compliments his or her
home-style by integrating the strengths from other corre-
sponding points on the enneagram. This will provide a per-
son the opportunity to achieve a more balanced emotional
life, by giving the person more options to choose from, when
responding to a crisis situation in his or her life. Typically,
when a person’s life is in a state of homeostasis, externally
and internally, that person will act according to how he or
she wants to be perceived and how he or she perceives him
or herself. Insituations of stress and duress a person’s home-
style will have a tendency to move toward another corre-
sponding style, which is called disintegration.
Disintegration is the result of an unconscious habit of
behaving which a person becomes fixated on, often referred
to as the individual’s passion. For example, insituations of
distress a person may have learned to become angry in order
to obtain what he or she wants. Although this behavior may
have achieved positive results when the person was a child, it
no longer serves an efficacious purpose in his or her present
life situation. The person is said to be in a trance and fix-
ated on the particular style of behaving, which is no longer
effective. Each style on the enneagram has its own point of
integration and disintegration and can help the counselor and
client develop goals for the client’s treatment plan.
For wholeness (also healing and integration), a person
develops his or her home-style (one of the nine points) of his
or her personality by integrating the strengths from the other
eight styles, thus having the skills of all the styles available
as needed (Wagner 1988). For example, a counselor may
work from his or her helper-style when involved in a thera-
peutic relationship with a client. At the same time, when
appropriate, the counselor has access to the individualist-
style of his or her personality to reflect and process clients’
stories from a more objective perspective. Furthermore, the
counselor can access the confronter-style of his or her per-
sonality in order to assert therapeutic boundaries with a cli-
ent for self-care. A person draws from each of the triads and
similarly the nine styles, but one fits his or her personality
more than the others.
The Enneagram inAction
The following case study is a composite of therapeutic
experiences the author has had from working with couples.
It is presented to demonstrate the versatility of the ennea-
gram, as a therapeutic tool for individuals and couples. It is
also to show how the enneagram can help clients achieve
therapeutic insights about their personality characteris-
tics. After gaining insight, clients are encouraged to use
the enneagram on their own as a tool for further develop-
ment and growth, thus empowering a client to become more
self-reliant.
Personality characteristics have been found to be impor-
tant factors in forming and maintaining an intimate rela-
tionship. Partner perceptions have also been found to be
important in relationship functioning and influence the way
partners interact and appraise relational experiences (Abbasi
2017; Singh and Makkar 2014). According to Riso (1990),
when determining a person’s type, the person tends to pick
the personality type he or she would like to be rather than
the one he or she actually is. There is also a tendency to
make an identification based on a single trait of one of the
styles instead of learning and integrating positive traits from
the other styles. Like any system of thought, the enneagram
could degenerate into just another way to stereotype a per-
son. However, if taken to a deeper level it can help a person
develop a more objective and accurate perspective of his or
her behavior. This knowledge can reveal a person’s relation-
ship style, as well as to reveal how he or she relates to other
people in interpersonal situations.
As a marriage and family therapist, the author usually
mentions his interest in the Enneagram as a useful tool for
self-discovery and to help clients communicate and relate
more effectively with one another. Because communication
challenges are a predominant issue in couple and family
therapy, the author asks if the client’s would be interested
in taking some time in one session to introduce the main
concepts of the Enneagram and how it might be helpful for
them. If the client’s response if affirmative, then the author
provides a brief overview of how the Enneagram works and
provides some variation of the nine styles on a circle, each
representing one of the personality types (see Appendix).
The author explains how we each develop one of the nine
styles early in life to adapt, cope, and survive, based on our
unique combination of nature and nurture. The benefit is,
when practiced, there is a predictable pattern of movement
that motivates our behavior, which once identified can give
the individual personal power to make subtle and construc-
tive changes to their relationships.
Usually during the first session, the author has formu-
lated a hypothesis about each client’s style and whether or
not the couple would be appropriate to present the Ennea-
gram to. A factor that would contraindicate the use of the
Enneagram is if the couple is currently in a severe crisis or
an individual is experiencing psychosis. It would be wise to
assist the individual’s to deescalate and achieve some kind
of emotional homeostasis before introducing any accessory
into treatment. Because the Enneagram works best as a self-
observing and self-remembering tool, an individual has to
have some capacity for self-reflection and insight. As with
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Contemporary Family Therapy
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any tool introduced in therapy, a person needs to be willing
to embrace what the therapist is offering. To the extent the
therapist thinks this is not possible, the Enneagram can still
be a valuable tool for assessing the motivation of the cli-
ent’s and how that is affecting the relationship. This can be
done by simply making the narrative assessment paragraphs
(Daniels and Price 2000) a part of the intake and asking the
clients which paragraphs they most strongly identify with.
Because the Enneagram types have been correlated with
personality disorders and psychologies Big-Five personality
traits (Sutton 2012), this can assist the therapist in accurately
assessing the client even if the client is partial to the Ennea-
gram. Finally, it is assumed that a therapist would not use
the Enneagram with clients without having first sampled it
him or herself and have a more developed understanding of
the concepts and their own fixations.
Cohen (2007) found that clinicians who utilized the
Enneagram with clients reported that their understanding of
the Enneagram facilitated rapport building, by understand-
ing the client better and sooner. It also helped therapists
identify their own positive and negative biases and counter-
transference issues, and to recognize their impact on treat-
ment. It also helped clinicians as a model of observation
and to attend to interactive styles of patients, while staying
present in a more neutral way. The enneagram served as a
tool for insight and better understanding how client’s adapt
and suffer by their fixations and fears. It was also a power-
ful tool for recognizing and helping clients with cognitive
restructuring. Furthermore, because of the Enneagrams spir-
itual origins, it could be an effective tool for describing the
more spiritual possibilities of human development, beyond
symptom removal and ego-strengthening.
When describing the nine styles on the Enneagram, their
strengths and extremes, the author is careful not to iden-
tify his own hypothesis to the clients, as it is important for
processing and to encourage empathy, that each individual
identify his or her own, as well as that of their partner. The
author usually asks the clients to identify their own and their
partner’s home-style and if undecided, to think of a situation
in which they were in conflict and recall the enduring pat-
terns that emerge. When the couple comes to a preliminary
conclusion about their own and their partner’s home-style,
then the author encourages each person to explain how he
or she came to that conclusion. The author then discusses
with the couple until we agree on the interaction of each of
their styles relates to their counseling goals in treatment.
To promote hopefulness for change, the author reminds the
couple that the goal is to reduce conflict and improve com-
munication for a more satisfying relationship; not to change
anyone’s personality but rather to reduce the extremity with
which each partner expresses his or her fears and core moti-
vation. As partners become less polarized their interpersonal
patterns and conflicts reduce. In addition, each partner is
encouraged to empathize with their partner’s core motiva-
tion, often fueled by a fear to compensate for early conclu-
sion made in reaction to their childhood environment and
nurturing. Couples also discover how they were attracted
to aspects of one another in order to make up for deficits in
their own core-styles.
Case Study
Elliott sought counseling after his wife, Raylene moved out
in order to give them space to work on their problems. Elliott
avoided intimacy at every corner and besides being competi-
tive he sought status in his job and society and was overly
concerned with how he was coming across to others. He
worked long hours and it was rare for him to take a day off
or a vacation. His childhood consisted of a “needy” mother
who continually missed her workaholic husband. While Elli-
ott’s mother smothered him, he was starving for the atten-
tion and emotional nurturing of his father, who was rarely at
home. His only way of feeling accepted by his father was by
succeeding at tasks in order to get his attention. Elliott did
this through competitive performance at school, in sports,
and then in succeeding at work. Even though his father died
in mid-life due to a heart attack, Elliott continued this pat-
tern and even began working longer and harder to avoid the
emptiness and hostile feelings toward his father. Elliott and
Raylene’s daughter had just left for her first year in college.
Since then, tension seemed to increase between Elliott and
Raylene, which would lead to conflicts. Their daughter Anita
was not taking her parent’s separation well and was acting
out at school. She had received a warning from the dorm
director for her excessive “partying,” and one of her profes-
sors was concerned that she had an alcohol-abuse problem.
The counseling implications are how we can use the
enneagram as a tool of assessment for this family’s situation.
How can we introduce the enneagram to Elliott and the other
family members without labeling them or making them feel
stereotyped? How can this new knowledge and awareness
help lead each of them through this challenge, while also
helping them discover new patterns for intimacy? How can
the enneagram be used to empower these individuals in a
way that they can use it after therapy?
First Session
After establishing rapport with Elliott and Raylene, I asked
if I could show them a tool that I thought would be help-
ful. They quickly conceded as I pulled out my portable dry
eraser board to draw the enneagram and briefly explain its
nine styles. First, I described to the couple how the ennea-
gram was a tool for self-remembering, which can help enrich
our relationship to ourselves, others, and the world around
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UNCORRECTED PROOF
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Contemporary Family Therapy
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us. Often times from our childhoods we are encouraged to
live up to our parents’ and other’s expectations. We may
experience love based on conditions and as a result forget
and deny our own needs (our essence) in order to meet the
expectations of others. If this becomes a habit it can be prob-
lematic by creating an automatic response for our behavior,
and thus limiting our choices in how we behave in certain
circumstances. I emphasized how the enneagram could be of
help observing ourselves as we interact with those around us,
whether at work or with family. I drew the geometric shape
of the enneagram and labeled the nine styles, while writing
out some of the strengths of each style. I asked him and her
to take a short enneagram test to help determine which style
he and she most identified with, thus indicating his and her
home-style. This information would help us to determine a
treatment plan and the goals they wanted to work on.
Second Session
In between sessions I thought about what Elliott and Ray-
lene talked about from their childhoods and some of the
challenges they faced in their relationships with their par-
ents. From this I drew my own a conclusion on which was
their home-style on the enneagram. For Elliott I suspected
he was in the performer-style (point three) and for Raylene
I suspected she fit in the helper-style (point two). At the
beginning of this session I asked each of them to read several
short paragraphs and choose which one best described them
during the time that they were in college or right after. This
enneagram test was developed by Daniels and Price (2000)
from Stanford Medical School in order to help one discover
his or her home-style. This took about 15min and we discov-
ered that Elliott chose the performer-style and Raylene the
helper-style of personality. As a starting point I pointed them
back to the diagram I drew and explained to them some blind
spots about his and her styles. Both the helper-style and the
performer-style fit in the feeling triad, which means that feel-
ings are their blind spots. For instance, the performer-style
tends to be overly concerned with self-image and which can
result in acquiring a competitive attitude, often resulting
in being less aware of how feelings can affect behavior, in
a negative way, if not regulated. Elliott confirmed this by
describing how he performed for his father to get his atten-
tion. The helper-style tends to over express feelings by being
helpful and thus is more aware of how others feel than they
themselves feel. The underlying emotion for each of these
styles is the emotion of shame.
Next, we looked at what the basic fear and desire was
for each of his and her styles. For Elliott (performer-style)
he had a fear of not being recognized for his usefulness and
compensated for this fear with the desire to be productive
and successful. For Raylene (helper-style) she had a fear
of not being of worth unless she was helping others and
compensated for this by creating the desire to be needed. For
homework I asked them to write about their fears and desires
as if they were separate entities that had protected them and
helped them cope insituations that were out of their control
when they were children in their family environments.
Third Session
We began the session by going over what they had written
about the core fears and desires of his and her style. I then
asked each of them if they could see how these tendencies
(what the enneagram calls trances) hindered his and her rela-
tionship from being satisfactory from time to time. I chal-
lenged them to ask themselves how—with just this little bit
of awareness from the enneagram—it would change their
day to day interactions with each other. We then looked at
their potential trance or fixation. For Elliott, the trance was
deceit. His tendency was to deceive himself into believing
that he is what he does. He may devalue himself by gaining
a sense of worth from what he does, how effective he is, and
how overtly successful he becomes. His movement toward
integration is toward the loyalist-style’s (point six) charac-
teristics. By being less image conscious, Elliott may want
to practice checking in with himself, so as not to neglect his
own needs but to also notice and recognize the needs and
concerns of those around him. Raylene’s trance is to over
extend herself and let others become overly dependent on
her. There is a certain sense of pride and power which go
along with knowing you are indispensable because people
feel like they need you. Raylene had a tendency to gain a
sense of worth by being needed by others. Raylene’s move-
ment toward integration is toward the helper-style (point
four) characteristics, which is to pay more attention to her
own uniqueness and set personal boundaries for herself so
as not to debilitate others by taking care of everything for
them. I ended the session by giving each of them a home-
work assignment to try to “catch themselves in their trances”
during the week and then write a brief synopsis of what
happened.
Fourth Session
I began the session by asking Elliott and Raylene about their
week and any situations they had to report from their home-
work. Elliott reported that he was starting to be more inten-
tional about taking a lunch break and making it more of a
social occasion with others. This way he was more aware of
his colleagues around him and their concerns and feelings.
Raylene worked on stepping back more at work and with
her family to allow them more autonomy; if they wanted
her help she would let them ask her first, rather than antici-
pating their every need. We discussed awareness and how
if we are not aware then no real choice is possible; instead
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UNCORRECTED PROOF
Journal : Large 10591 Article No : 9471 Pages : 11 MS Code : COFT-D-18-00026 Dispatch : 26-6-2018
Contemporary Family Therapy
1 3
we are on auto pilot and in reaction mode. For Elliott to
be aware meant he needed to recognize those times when
he was not paying enough attention to his feelings and was
over fixated on how he was coming across to others and
their approval rating, in order to feel good about himself. For
Raylene to be more aware meant she needed to recognize her
own feelings and needs and not to forget herself by helping
other people and tapping into their feelings at her expense.
I recommended a book by Palmer and Brown (1997) on the
enneagram which is a concise introduction to the nine styles
and how to use the wisdom from the enneagram in their
own lives. This was an attempt to give them the reins and
empower them to use this tool for themselves.
Fifth Session
The session began with a checkup on how they were doing
and anything they wanted to talk about concerning the
enneagram or its theory. They said that they were think-
ing about moving back in together. I was not surprised as
they both became more differentiated and independent that
a new found attraction would appear between them. I told
them that there was one thing missing which they had not
considered, their daughter. I asked them, for practice, to try
and speculate what style their daughter’s home-style might
be. They agreed that it would help them to get along with
their daughter better if they were more aware of some of
the reasons why she would react in certain situations and to
certain stimuli as she did. The couple explained that their
daughter was always the peacemaker and would go along
with others so as not to disturb the flow or upset plans. Every
once in a while she did have a streak of anger that would
come up, usually in the form of passive-aggressive behavior
or rebellion of some kind. She tended to be taken advantage
of because she did not always share how she was feeling or
stand up for what she believed. With this information, we
came to the conclusion that she may fit in the peacemaker-
style (point nine) of the enneagram.
Now we wanted to look at strategies to deal with a young
peacemaker-style person. I asked Elliott and Raylene if they
were both willing to look at themselves and how their home-
styles on the enneagram corresponded with their daughter’s
home-style. After agreeing, I suggested that they encour-
age their daughter to become more assertive and give her
positive strokes as she learns to do this. Work on asking her
what she thinks about situations in her life, school, and the
family, while encouraging her to express her views, even if
this means her expressing anger and frustration. The couple
agreed to allow her to express her feelings, especially anger,
in appropriate ways. We developed a strategy for the three
of them to work on with their family and agreed that if they
needed any follow-up appointments they would call.
Researcher suggested that between 30 and 60% of outpa-
tient psychotherapy clients prematurely terminate from ther-
apy (Werner-Wilson and Winter 2010). As a result clients
suffer when they drop out of therapy because problems often
remain unresolved. One way to mitigate early termination
from therapy is to introduce interventions that encourage
engagement in therapy. In a recent study, Choucroun (2012)
investigated the experiences of ten licensed clinicians who
regularly used the Enneagram with couples. He found five
challenges that were exhibited by couples when starting to
work with a therapist.
1. Initial resistance—in the early stages couples can be
difficult to engage, defensive, and secretive about their
history.
2. Power struggles—for couples who remain in therapy
couples may often collaborate and work against the
counselor.
3. Unrealistic expectations—couples often do not perceive
how they view their conflicts differently and may resist
renegotiating their expectations toward one another.
4. Hypersensitivity—couples often resist experiencing vul-
nerability because they are sensitive to their partner’s
reactions due to preexisting relationship patterns.
5. Aggression—if sensitivity ensues, they may feel criti-
cized and become defensive by arguing and escalating.
Counselors may find the Enneagram helpful for manag-
ing these challenges by encouraging clients to discover their
own perspective in a nonjudgmental way. Because clients are
encouraged to type themselves this can increase self-respon-
sibility and provide the clinician with various options for
discussion. These discussions can lead to identifying com-
munication styles, fears, and coping strategies, especially
during times of stress (Bartlett 2003). The Enneagram can
provide a game-like experience to help protect clients from
being too vulnerable early in treatment (Choucroun 2012).
Limitations
Personality typologies have been around for years, beginning
with Greek philosophers (Riso and Hudson 1996). The need
to categorize and explain can be helpful for learning why
people continue harmful habits and patterns.
A limitation of the enneagram is that it could be viewed
as another way to label and stereotype clients. For those who
choose to compare it to other personality type indicators, it
is merely that, a labeling system. Another limitation is that
it is complex in nature and can be difficult to grasp by clients
who do not have a higher cognitive level of functioning and
a desire for personal growth. Once introduced, the client
could eventually be expected to pursue his or her own level
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UNCORRECTED PROOF
Journal : Large 10591 Article No : 9471 Pages : 11 MS Code : COFT-D-18-00026 Dispatch : 26-6-2018
Contemporary Family Therapy
1 3
of knowledge about the enneagram and how to integrate the
knowledge into his or her own life. Another limitation is the
lack of empirical research to this point. There are mostly
books written about the enneagram, which tend to speak
favorably about the enneagram’s effectiveness with reference
to case studies. Most of the proof is anecdotal in nature and
difficult to measure.
The enneagram can also be a helpful tool for the coun-
selor to determine which counseling theory to be used with
the client. The enneagram can be used as a conceptualizing
tool for the counselor to form a hypothesis concerning the
client’s situation, even if the client chooses not to embrace
the enneagram. Without a strong therapeutic relationship
between the counselor and client, it is not recommended to
introduce the enneagram, simply because the client could
misunderstand the counselor’s intent. The enneagram is pri-
marily an interpersonal tool to aid a client in his or her rela-
tionships and therefore a client must be ready to be empow-
ered to do self-work with the support of the counselor.
Though the enneagram may appear simple in its applica-
tion, it may yield powerful insights for the client. As with
any tool that challenges a person’s cognitive framework and
accelerates a person’s self-awareness, there are positive and
negative insights the person must contend with. Clients must
have adequate ego-strength to integrate the information dis-
covered about themselves. “As you become more aware of
your fixations, you do have to deal with the fallout—the
unconscious material that comes up-through good psycho-
logical work” (Schwartz 1995, p.401).
Conclusion
We create our lives by the quality of choices we make. As
personality is formed, a person tends to over compensate
for areas in his or her life which lack quality from unmet
needs. These deficient areas may be a result of trying to
fulfill the needs by making choices which result in dysfunc-
tional behavior. These choices may inhibit a person’s ability
to respond from his or her authentic sense of self. Attention
and the shifting of awareness is the key to transformational
change. For a person to transcend his or her fixation (trance)
is to be able to observe his or her behavioral patterns through
the enneagram tool and then determine whether or not a
person is acting out of the corresponding fear on his or her
enneagram style. This awareness can help a person remem-
ber that he or she has more than one choice from which to
respond to a situation. The goal of all the nine styles is to
move from a place of self-forgetting to self-remembering
of genuine self or essence (a process called integration). In
self-remembering a person is able to shift his or her attention
toward the development of the positive traits of each of the
nine styles. Carol Campbell, a Marriage and Family Thera-
pist (2017) suggested the Enneagram was useful in therapy
for these reasons:
1. First, it validates that a client is not alone. From the
perspective of the Enneagram a client will learn to view
his or her challenges differently. It also makes a client’s
behaviors more predictable, yielding more choices to
engage experiences in a more positive manner.
2. It can be liberating for a client to understand that all
nine-styles are part of human nature and there is no right
or wrong, good or bad; only what is effective for the cli-
ent and/or couple.
3. The Enneagram is multifaceted in the sense that it offers
a pathway to growth and healing. It can be used as a
personality type indicator or as a guide to go more in
psychological depth, as well as an instigator for spiritual
growth (Matise 2007; Maitri 2009; Zuercher 2008).
The result of increased self awareness does not guarantee
liberation from problematic patterns of behavior, but may
enable clients to make different choices and determine the
best action in a given situation. “The enneagram is compre-
hensive and can act as a framework for other typologies,
even though it cannot be reduced to any one single psycho-
logical explanation” (Riso and Hudson 1996, p.432).
Counselors may benefit from using the enneagram as
a tool to help conceptualize a client’s pattern of behavior
in relationships, while helping the client to integrate more
positive traits of the nine styles of the enneagram to increase
his or her quality of life. No matter which style a person
identifies with on the enneagram, people share in the full
spectrum and experience of human potential. To the extent
that this awareness is used for healing and growth, a new
level of human potential may emerge to expunge the old
paradigms of fear.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of interest The author declares that he has no conflict of inter-
est.
Appendix
See Fig.1.
AQ2
AQ3
AQ4
AQ5
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Appendix for
Enneagram Styles
9
54
1
2
3
8
7
6
Doing/Moving Triad
Thinking TriadFeeling Triad
(anger based)
(fear based) (shame based)
Direction of Direction ofIntegrationDisintegration
1-7-5-8-2-4-1-9-3-6-9 1-4-2-8-5-7-1-9-6-3-9
Fear
Desire
Trance
Fear
Desire
Trance
Fear
Desire
Trance
Fear
Desire
Trance
Fear
Desire
Trance
Fear
Desire
Trance
Fear
Desire
Trance
Fear
Desire
Trance
Fear
Desire
Trance
"Conflict"
"Harmony"
"Over accomodation" "Being dependent"
"To be in controll"
"Disregard for others to
maintain control"
"Pain"
"Pleasure"
"Busyness to avoid
the unpleasant"
"Being wrong"
"Being right"
"Self-righteous/critical"
"To not be needed"
"To be helpful"
"Overhelping to
feel worth"
"Being useless"
"To be productive"
"Competitive win/lose
attitude"
"Not being secure"
"To be loyal"
"Blind obedience
to authority"
"Being incompetent"
"To understand"
"Over analyzing"
"Being defective"
"To be unique"
"Envy that others have
what they lack"
Peacemaker
Perfectionist
Helper
Performer
IndividualistObserver
Loyalist
Dilettante
Controller
(under expresses anger)
(internalizes anger)(over expresses anger)
(externalizes fear)(over expresses
feelings)
(projects fear)(out of touch w/
feelings)
(internalizes fear)(under expresses feelings)
Fig. 1 Derived from Palmer (1988) and Riso and Hudson (1996) models
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Journal : Large 10591 Article No : 9471 Pages : 1MS Code : COFT-D-18-00026 Dispatch : 26-6-2018
Journal: 10591
Article: 9471 1 3
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