Note: This was originally published on 12/9/07.
Every so often, someone comes along to critique the Enneagram (or, at least, an interpretation of the Enneagram) on the basis that it is too negative. One such critic is Susan Rhodes. In her article "Let's De-Pathologize the Enneagram" in the October 2006 issue of Enneagram Monthly (downloadable, for free, here), she writes, "I never liked the idea of looking at personality as a way to measure pathology. I liked looking at personality as a way to explore individual differences. That's why the MBTI appealed to me so much.
When I encountered the enneagram, I tried to use the MBTI personality descriptions as a reference point for enneagram descriptions. But I found this almost impossible to do. It wasn't because the two systems had a different number of types or even a different way of determining the types. It was because the enneagram descriptions read more like 'neurosis types' than personality types. They seemed to reflect such a pessimistic philosophy of human nature."
I have a different perspective. I am a big fan of the Myers-Briggs system, but I think the Enneagram has a huge advantage over it, precisely because of the "pessimistic philosophy" which is, indeed, present within it. Here's an apt quote from The Enneagram: A Journey of Self-Discovery, by Maria Beesing, et al, "In the beginning of this Enneagramic journey into the self what is being asked is the willingness to acknowledge oneself as a sinner. Compulsions are selfish as is typical of sin. They amount to a distortion in being as one ought to be. All the nine types are sin types... If the Enneagram is to be useful, one must discover the negativity of one's personality. Only then can one begin the process of being freed from the compulsion."
This, to me, is the brilliance of the Enneagram. First, it lures you in with what seems to be a neutral to positive description of personality. To a five, it says, Would you agree that your mind is your strongest asset? Would you agree that privacy is something that you value? To the two it says, Would you agree that your personal relationships are of utmost importance to you? Would you characterize yourself as a helpful person? And so on for all of the types.
Next, it says, okay, if you agree, with that, Five, then how about this: Here are all the ways that greed manifests itself in your life. Two, pride is killing you. And so on for each of the types. This second piece is that much harder to dismiss because the first piece was so compelling, and with true realization of the cost of sin comes the willingness to change.
I remember being in Russ Hudson's Psychic Structures and the Superego workshop , learning to meditate, learning to cultivate Presence, growing in compassion, and thinking (as a skeptic and, until recently, an atheist), If it weren't for the Enneagram's precision as a psychological descriptor, I wouldn't even be here to listen to its spiritual implications. And, oh, how I needed to be there!
Showing posts with label MBTI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MBTI. Show all posts
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Recap of the January 7th Spirit of the Enneagram Class
For those of you who were there, or who wished you could be there, here is what happened at the January 7th Spirit of the Enneagram class:
First, we introduced ourselves and chatted a little about our previous experience (if any) with the Enneagram. While some folks were old hands, most were relatively new to the system. A lot of people did have experience with the MBTI, though, so we talked a bit about how the two systems differ. I issued my usual dire warnings about how you probably won't be able to determine your Enneagram type by taking a quiz.
Our historian, Mary Beth, went over the events leading to the e-gram as we know it. Click here for a history lesson. Then, I talked about the meaning of the e-gram symbol itself, quite apart from its application to personality. A version of that information (plus a little recap of Star Wars) can be found here.
Next, we did a little self-reflection exercise. Participants were asked to write on the following topic:
Describe a person you know or know of who is very different from you. This person could be a friend, family member, or coworker, or even a character you have read about in a book. Explain how this person is different from you and what you think led to those differences.
We self-reflected for as long as we could stand it, which turned out to be about 20 minutes.
Being unable to put off an actual discussion of personality psychology any longer, we briefly introduced the types by talking about their characteristic sins and virtues. Highlights included Mary Beth's discussion of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a type 3, and David's characterization of type 9 as a "chair warmer."
We assigned the following homework:
Make some attempt to determine your Enneagram type, or to at least narrow it down to a couple of possibilities. Mary Beth's advice on how to go about doing so can be found here.
This lesson corresponded primarily to pages 7 - 26 in The Wisdom of the Enneagram, and we do recommend that you get the book.
First, we introduced ourselves and chatted a little about our previous experience (if any) with the Enneagram. While some folks were old hands, most were relatively new to the system. A lot of people did have experience with the MBTI, though, so we talked a bit about how the two systems differ. I issued my usual dire warnings about how you probably won't be able to determine your Enneagram type by taking a quiz.
Our historian, Mary Beth, went over the events leading to the e-gram as we know it. Click here for a history lesson. Then, I talked about the meaning of the e-gram symbol itself, quite apart from its application to personality. A version of that information (plus a little recap of Star Wars) can be found here.
Next, we did a little self-reflection exercise. Participants were asked to write on the following topic:
Describe a person you know or know of who is very different from you. This person could be a friend, family member, or coworker, or even a character you have read about in a book. Explain how this person is different from you and what you think led to those differences.
We self-reflected for as long as we could stand it, which turned out to be about 20 minutes.
Being unable to put off an actual discussion of personality psychology any longer, we briefly introduced the types by talking about their characteristic sins and virtues. Highlights included Mary Beth's discussion of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a type 3, and David's characterization of type 9 as a "chair warmer."
We assigned the following homework:
Make some attempt to determine your Enneagram type, or to at least narrow it down to a couple of possibilities. Mary Beth's advice on how to go about doing so can be found here.
This lesson corresponded primarily to pages 7 - 26 in The Wisdom of the Enneagram, and we do recommend that you get the book.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Thoughts on the MBTI Personality Styles of the Candidates
Much has been made of the differences between the temperments of Barack Obama and John McCain. Obama is calm, cool, collected (distant?) and McCain is fiery, a maverick (erratic?). I have been observing the two men closely during the debates and I am convinced that Obama is a Myers-Briggs INTJ and McCain is an ESTP. With three out of four preferences being opposite, no wonder they come across so differently!
First, let's look at how introversion versus extroversion plays out in these two candidates. Obama is an introvert. People close to him say he is hard to get to know; by contrast, those aboard the extroverted McCain's Straight Talk Express bus say he is constantly talking, often telling the same jokes and stories over and over. During the debates, McCain interrupted Obama more than Obama interrupted McCain, although McCain did show a lot of polite restraint. During this last debate, I noticed that McCain used his notepad a lot more than Obama did. He wrote things down -- either what Obama was saying that he wanted to respond to, or the things he himself planned to say -- processing the information externally. It wasn't simply a matter of being more diligent; if anything, I thought Obama's responses were more targeted toward what the interviewer asked and what the other candidate said, but Obama processed the information internally -- he made the notes inside his head. Critics of Obama sometimes say that he hesitates as he begins to speak (I have heard people say he must be lying or making it up, since he has to think so hard about it, but we introverts know that internal processing takes time.)
The combination of introversion plus the judging trait made Obama's responses have the following well-organized pattern: first, a statement that establishes what I am talking about; then, a statement of my position on that issue; then, a transition to the side issue the other candidate raised; then, a statement of my position on that issue, etc.
McCain, an extroverted perceiver, speaks very differently. Sometimes, he moved from one idea to another so quickly that I had trouble following the line of thought. One example -- he was talking about the need to end our dependence on foreign oil and the role that offshore drilling would play in reaching that goal; mid-sentence, he thought about how it was fine to buy oil from Canada, and he said so, and that made him think about how Obama wanted to add some regulations to our trade agreement with Canada, so he mentioned that, and also how he disagreed with telegraphing our intentions to other nations by saying such things and how that might lead to bad relations, so he said all of those things right then and totally lost the thread of his plan to eliminate our dependence on middle Eastern oil.
A result of this speaking style is that McCain gets more ideas into a smaller space of time, but they are expressed less fully and less coherently. Not only is McCain's speech more dense with ideas, his ideas are more specific. This is because he has the sensing preference, so he focuses on facts -- specific bills, particular incidents, concrete proposals. The first question of the third debate was about the country's economic woes. In answering, McCain focused narrowly on the mortgage crisis, and outlined a specific plan to renegotiate mortgages based on the reduced values of homes so that people could afford to stay in their houses.
Obama, by contrast, took the question more broadly. He talked about housing prices, but he also talked about job creation, tax relief, and investing in the future of our economy with educational programs. This is because Obama has the intuitive preference. He focuses on overarching ideas and principles. Critics of his say he is vague and never outlines concrete plans for achieving his goals, and he never defines what "change" means. As a fellow intuitive, I am not bothered by this. I think that once you establish the principles by which you will lead, you can apply those principles to the particulars as they come up; I don't need to hear all the details of every little policy. My criticism of McCain is an intuitive's criticism of a sensor -- much of what he talks about seems small, boring, obscure and tedious. Where is his vision for the country?
First, let's look at how introversion versus extroversion plays out in these two candidates. Obama is an introvert. People close to him say he is hard to get to know; by contrast, those aboard the extroverted McCain's Straight Talk Express bus say he is constantly talking, often telling the same jokes and stories over and over. During the debates, McCain interrupted Obama more than Obama interrupted McCain, although McCain did show a lot of polite restraint. During this last debate, I noticed that McCain used his notepad a lot more than Obama did. He wrote things down -- either what Obama was saying that he wanted to respond to, or the things he himself planned to say -- processing the information externally. It wasn't simply a matter of being more diligent; if anything, I thought Obama's responses were more targeted toward what the interviewer asked and what the other candidate said, but Obama processed the information internally -- he made the notes inside his head. Critics of Obama sometimes say that he hesitates as he begins to speak (I have heard people say he must be lying or making it up, since he has to think so hard about it, but we introverts know that internal processing takes time.)
The combination of introversion plus the judging trait made Obama's responses have the following well-organized pattern: first, a statement that establishes what I am talking about; then, a statement of my position on that issue; then, a transition to the side issue the other candidate raised; then, a statement of my position on that issue, etc.
McCain, an extroverted perceiver, speaks very differently. Sometimes, he moved from one idea to another so quickly that I had trouble following the line of thought. One example -- he was talking about the need to end our dependence on foreign oil and the role that offshore drilling would play in reaching that goal; mid-sentence, he thought about how it was fine to buy oil from Canada, and he said so, and that made him think about how Obama wanted to add some regulations to our trade agreement with Canada, so he mentioned that, and also how he disagreed with telegraphing our intentions to other nations by saying such things and how that might lead to bad relations, so he said all of those things right then and totally lost the thread of his plan to eliminate our dependence on middle Eastern oil.
A result of this speaking style is that McCain gets more ideas into a smaller space of time, but they are expressed less fully and less coherently. Not only is McCain's speech more dense with ideas, his ideas are more specific. This is because he has the sensing preference, so he focuses on facts -- specific bills, particular incidents, concrete proposals. The first question of the third debate was about the country's economic woes. In answering, McCain focused narrowly on the mortgage crisis, and outlined a specific plan to renegotiate mortgages based on the reduced values of homes so that people could afford to stay in their houses.
Obama, by contrast, took the question more broadly. He talked about housing prices, but he also talked about job creation, tax relief, and investing in the future of our economy with educational programs. This is because Obama has the intuitive preference. He focuses on overarching ideas and principles. Critics of his say he is vague and never outlines concrete plans for achieving his goals, and he never defines what "change" means. As a fellow intuitive, I am not bothered by this. I think that once you establish the principles by which you will lead, you can apply those principles to the particulars as they come up; I don't need to hear all the details of every little policy. My criticism of McCain is an intuitive's criticism of a sensor -- much of what he talks about seems small, boring, obscure and tedious. Where is his vision for the country?
Friday, August 8, 2008
A Fairly Clear History of the Modern Enneagram
Continuing with the IEA conference, Mary Beth and I next attended a session called Historical Evolution of Enneagram Theory. This was probably my favorite session of the conference. The speaker was Patrick O'Leary. Here is part of his bio:
"Patrick H. O'Leary, M.S., M.Div., co-authored the first Enneagram text, The Enneagram: A Journey of Self-Discovery, in 1984... O'Leary integrated his studies in environmental biology, physiology, psychology, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), individual counseling, spiritual direction and organizational development into his understanding of the Enneagram. He began offering various seminars on the Enneagram in 1972."
O'Leary is both a scientist and a theologian (he is a 3 and as is typical, seems to have changed course many times throughout his life, but in this seminar, he was emphasizing his scientific point of view.) As such, he attempted to trace the history of the development of the modern Enneagram using evolution as a metaphor. (i.e., ideas were passed from person to person in a "genealogy" and "tested by the environment" via lawsuits, etc.) I tried to follow the main thread of this "genealogy", but at times, O'Leary sketched out some interesting offshoots that "became extinct." I will not discuss those here, as my goal in recounting his presentation is to clarify the events leading up to the Enneagram materials and schools that are available now.
O'Leary was an interesting speaker in that he could provide a first-hand account of events that I have only read about. He noted that he had met all of the key figures (other than Gurdjieff and Ouspensky) in the development of the modern Enneagram. Here is the history, as O'Leary recounted it:
The first important figure was G.I. Gurdjieff, a mystic who gathered ancient wisdom. Gurdjieff had the Enneagram symbol, but was concerned primarily with cosmology (an attempt to explain all things), not psychology. Although he did develop "the work" -- a system of spiritual transformation, he never applied the Enneagram symbol to psychology. We only know about Gurdjieff second-hand, primarily through P. D. Ouspensky.
According to O'Leary, Oscar Ichazo learned about the Enneagram from a Gurdjieff group. (This point was disputed by an individual in the seminar; I will write more about this issue later.) Ichazo then took a group of disciples to Arica, Chile. An American group of 60 people (known as "Chile Peppers") also came to study. The Arica Institute, which still exists, was formed in Chile. It was Ichazo who first connected the Enneagram to psychology. He added the fixation/ passions and virtues to the diagram.
One of those who studied with Ichazo was Claudio Naranjo. Naranjo is a psychiatrist and he connected the Enneagram to modern psychological understanding. Interestingly, it was he who added the arrows connecting points 3, 6, and 9 on the Enneagram diagram. These arrows were not present in any earlier version of the diagram and ran in the opposite direction of the ones we see now (indicating the directions of integration and disintegration for the primary types). When asked about the arrows later, Naranjo said they were "a doodle."
Naranjo left the Arica study group before the teaching was complete and went to Esalen in California. He began teaching in the San Francisco Bay area and Helen Palmer learned from him. Naranjo was using panels of exemplars of the types, which Palmer observed. Today, she is the primary practitioner of this method of teaching.
Robert Ochs, a Loyola University professor, also studied with Naranjo. In 1971, Ochs taught a graduate class on Religious Experience. Patrick O'Leary and Jerome Wagner were students in that class. As student questions along the lines of "Who am I?" and "Why do I have problems relating to others?" began to emerge, Ochs began to talk about personality types 1 - 9. The material was compelling. Religious Experience II became a course in the Enneagram.
O'Leary described a great excitement about the Enneagram among these students. Much like myself and Mary Beth, they had hundreds of acquaintances in common, and thus, hundreds of exemplars of the types to study and discuss.
O'Leary noted that Ochs did not want the information about the Enneagram to be disseminated casually. However, he did decide to open the teaching up beyond the Loyola campus by offering a class over spring break in 1972. A group of Jesuits from Milford, Ohio attended. This group included Richard Rohr (author of The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective and Experiencing the Enneagram) and Maria Beesing. Another group of Jesuits, these from Toronto, were also in attendance. Don Riso learned about the Enneagram from them. Later, Riso would found The Enneagram Institute and bring in Russ Hudson as a co-teacher.
(Note: See the comment thread concerning the accuracy of the previous paragraph.)
From studying with Ochs, O'Leary had produced a series of handwritten notes. He was also doing some counseling and using the Enneagram types in role play with clients who then asked about how he came to his understanding of personality. O'Leary's notes began to be photocopied. Some of the people who got ahold of them were missionaries, and in this way, knowledge of the Enneagram spread around the world.
Eventually, O'Leary joined with Maria Beesing and began teaching a series of workshops. Robert Novosek was a student who took detailed notes. Together, the three of them wrote the book The Enneagram: A Journey of Self Discovery. (Here, we have the 3 - 6- 9 arrows in their current form.) Published in 1984, this book was the first to bring the Enneagram to the public at large. (I will have much more to say about the surprising history of this book in a later post.)
In 1988, the Arica Institute sued for copyright infringement. In 1990, the suit was dismissed with prejudice and the writers were ordered to acknowledge Ichazo's contribution.
Riso and Hudson published their book Personality Types in 1987. Palmer followed with The Enneagram in 1988.
Today, we have three major schools of Enneagram thought in the United States: (1) Helen Palmer teaching with psychiatrist David Daniels on the West Coast, (2) O'Leary and Beesing in the Mid-West, and (3) Riso and Hudson on the East Coast.
At first, these authors. teachers did not communicate much with one another. However, this changed in 1994, when Palmer invited them all to attend an Enneagram conference in Stanford. 1500 people met there. The IEA was founded shortly thereafter, in 1995.
O'Leary went on to talk about "mutations" to Enneagram theory that are still needed. In particular, he talked about the need for more intuitive ways to self-discover type. With this, I heartily agree.
"Patrick H. O'Leary, M.S., M.Div., co-authored the first Enneagram text, The Enneagram: A Journey of Self-Discovery, in 1984... O'Leary integrated his studies in environmental biology, physiology, psychology, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), individual counseling, spiritual direction and organizational development into his understanding of the Enneagram. He began offering various seminars on the Enneagram in 1972."
O'Leary is both a scientist and a theologian (he is a 3 and as is typical, seems to have changed course many times throughout his life, but in this seminar, he was emphasizing his scientific point of view.) As such, he attempted to trace the history of the development of the modern Enneagram using evolution as a metaphor. (i.e., ideas were passed from person to person in a "genealogy" and "tested by the environment" via lawsuits, etc.) I tried to follow the main thread of this "genealogy", but at times, O'Leary sketched out some interesting offshoots that "became extinct." I will not discuss those here, as my goal in recounting his presentation is to clarify the events leading up to the Enneagram materials and schools that are available now.
O'Leary was an interesting speaker in that he could provide a first-hand account of events that I have only read about. He noted that he had met all of the key figures (other than Gurdjieff and Ouspensky) in the development of the modern Enneagram. Here is the history, as O'Leary recounted it:
The first important figure was G.I. Gurdjieff, a mystic who gathered ancient wisdom. Gurdjieff had the Enneagram symbol, but was concerned primarily with cosmology (an attempt to explain all things), not psychology. Although he did develop "the work" -- a system of spiritual transformation, he never applied the Enneagram symbol to psychology. We only know about Gurdjieff second-hand, primarily through P. D. Ouspensky.
According to O'Leary, Oscar Ichazo learned about the Enneagram from a Gurdjieff group. (This point was disputed by an individual in the seminar; I will write more about this issue later.) Ichazo then took a group of disciples to Arica, Chile. An American group of 60 people (known as "Chile Peppers") also came to study. The Arica Institute, which still exists, was formed in Chile. It was Ichazo who first connected the Enneagram to psychology. He added the fixation/ passions and virtues to the diagram.
One of those who studied with Ichazo was Claudio Naranjo. Naranjo is a psychiatrist and he connected the Enneagram to modern psychological understanding. Interestingly, it was he who added the arrows connecting points 3, 6, and 9 on the Enneagram diagram. These arrows were not present in any earlier version of the diagram and ran in the opposite direction of the ones we see now (indicating the directions of integration and disintegration for the primary types). When asked about the arrows later, Naranjo said they were "a doodle."
Naranjo left the Arica study group before the teaching was complete and went to Esalen in California. He began teaching in the San Francisco Bay area and Helen Palmer learned from him. Naranjo was using panels of exemplars of the types, which Palmer observed. Today, she is the primary practitioner of this method of teaching.
Robert Ochs, a Loyola University professor, also studied with Naranjo. In 1971, Ochs taught a graduate class on Religious Experience. Patrick O'Leary and Jerome Wagner were students in that class. As student questions along the lines of "Who am I?" and "Why do I have problems relating to others?" began to emerge, Ochs began to talk about personality types 1 - 9. The material was compelling. Religious Experience II became a course in the Enneagram.
O'Leary described a great excitement about the Enneagram among these students. Much like myself and Mary Beth, they had hundreds of acquaintances in common, and thus, hundreds of exemplars of the types to study and discuss.
O'Leary noted that Ochs did not want the information about the Enneagram to be disseminated casually. However, he did decide to open the teaching up beyond the Loyola campus by offering a class over spring break in 1972. A group of Jesuits from Milford, Ohio attended. This group included Richard Rohr (author of The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective and Experiencing the Enneagram) and Maria Beesing. Another group of Jesuits, these from Toronto, were also in attendance. Don Riso learned about the Enneagram from them. Later, Riso would found The Enneagram Institute and bring in Russ Hudson as a co-teacher.
(Note: See the comment thread concerning the accuracy of the previous paragraph.)
From studying with Ochs, O'Leary had produced a series of handwritten notes. He was also doing some counseling and using the Enneagram types in role play with clients who then asked about how he came to his understanding of personality. O'Leary's notes began to be photocopied. Some of the people who got ahold of them were missionaries, and in this way, knowledge of the Enneagram spread around the world.
Eventually, O'Leary joined with Maria Beesing and began teaching a series of workshops. Robert Novosek was a student who took detailed notes. Together, the three of them wrote the book The Enneagram: A Journey of Self Discovery. (Here, we have the 3 - 6- 9 arrows in their current form.) Published in 1984, this book was the first to bring the Enneagram to the public at large. (I will have much more to say about the surprising history of this book in a later post.)
In 1988, the Arica Institute sued for copyright infringement. In 1990, the suit was dismissed with prejudice and the writers were ordered to acknowledge Ichazo's contribution.
Riso and Hudson published their book Personality Types in 1987. Palmer followed with The Enneagram in 1988.
Today, we have three major schools of Enneagram thought in the United States: (1) Helen Palmer teaching with psychiatrist David Daniels on the West Coast, (2) O'Leary and Beesing in the Mid-West, and (3) Riso and Hudson on the East Coast.
At first, these authors. teachers did not communicate much with one another. However, this changed in 1994, when Palmer invited them all to attend an Enneagram conference in Stanford. 1500 people met there. The IEA was founded shortly thereafter, in 1995.
O'Leary went on to talk about "mutations" to Enneagram theory that are still needed. In particular, he talked about the need for more intuitive ways to self-discover type. With this, I heartily agree.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
We are not aMUSEd
The Enneagram muse seems to have temporarily left me, so I'll just pass on this link to personality type related humor. Most of it is Myers-Briggs related, but there is some Enneagram stuff at the top and bottom of the page. I especially like the top 10 lists at the bottom, and I can verify that the one for type 5 is 100% accurate.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Susan Rhodes on a More Positive Enneagram
What follows is Susan Rhodes' email response to my blog post "The Power of Negative Thinking." My comments on her comments appear in brackets. -- Cindi
"I enjoyed reading your article and agree with you wholeheartedly that negative thinking is extremely powerful. The problem, as I see it, is that it's a little too powerful. Yes, the enneagram is more powerful than the MBTI, which I believe is due to its esoteric origins, particularly its geometry. This is why the enneagram can so powerfully penetrate someone's defenses and create an opportunity to experience a life-changing shift in perspective."
[I am certain that you know more about the origins and geometry of the enneagram than we do and would love to have you elaborate on what you mean. Mary Beth and I both find that, when we try to read up on that stuff, our minds just sort of slide right off the page. ;-) Although... Mary Beth is working on an article on Gurdjieff. - C]
"However, when a tool has this kind of power, a little bit of insight goes a long ways. In other words, it's really easy for people to get overloaded with information, and when that info is mainly negative, it can potentially act like a powerful (and psychically destabilizing) drug. That's the short-term problem with studying the enneagram from a negative perspective.
I see the long-term problem as more serious. It's the problem of negative framing. Negative framing is what happens when we encounter a system that is intrinsically negative in orientation. If the system is powerful, and we if use it a lot in our daily lives, it will tend to make us look at things from a negative perspective. Take the example of "fire and brimstone" preachers--their attention is so oriented toward (avoiding) hell that they never seem to get around to embracing heaven. They might believe in heaven, but how can they make it a living reality, so long as hell is their primary focus?"
[A good metaphor. I agree with that. - C]
"I got the idea of advocating a more positive approach after I met so many experienced enneagram users and teachers who seemed disheartened about their type. Whatever breakthroughs they had made when they initially encountered the system, after years of working with it, many seemed to arrived at a place of rueful resignation. They still appreciated the system, but from my perspective, it no longer seemed to be helping them find greater freedom in their lives."
[Understood. I think some of the differences in our perspectives stem from the differences in the people we discuss the enneagram with. You seem to be surrounded with enneagram teachers and long-term users, but most of the people I speak to about the enneagram are beginners. They haven't become disheartened yet, because they might still be in denial of their type, or embracing their type in an ego-driven "I'm an 8, so of course I'm gonna be like such-and-such" way that doesn't take the type's pitfalls seriously. - C]
"And that's the whole problem with an approach that has a negative orientation: Where do you go after the first big breakthrough? Once you know the shortcomings of type, what do you do next? How do you proceed?"
[I will say that, for myself, reminding myself of the shortcomings of my type (5) has been enormously beneficial. Once I became sufficiently cognizant of the 5's lack of generosity, I was able to remember more and more often to be just a beat more generous -- with my time, my energy, my attention, my help, and my knowledge -- than I would be as a default. This simple move has paid off richly in vastly improved relationships. There's a lot to be said for "catching oneself in the act", and then stopping it. -- C]
"In my articles, I like to cite one of my favorite Sufi quotes: 'First remember your faults, then forget them.' Yes, knowing the shortcomings of the type can be helpful. But dwelling on them is not. ( How well I know this as a Four!) If we start with a value-neutral framework--one in which we can look at both positives and negatives--then we can look at type in many different ways, depending on the need of the moment."
[I can see that, as a 4, you might not need anyone to draw your attention to the negative! The negative aspects of truth are pretty difficult for the positive outlook types -- 2, 7, and 9 -- to see, though.
I agree that there is definitely value in looking at positive aspects of type. Knowing the healthy attributes of your particular type helps you "know which way is up", as Mary Beth would say. And seeing the positive attributes of the other types reminds you that you can borrow a strategy that works when your preferred strategy does not. -- C]
"I'd like to briefly comment on the idea of using positive type info to initially attract peoples' interest (in your words, to 'lure' them) and then hitting them with the stuff that's not so positive: I would not recommend this approach, because it does not respect the free will of those we are trying to attract. I think that each of us has to decide for himself whether he is ready for a big change in life. Why should I want to try to trick another person into changing? This is their responsibility, not mine. It's hard enough for people to change when they are already highly motivated.
Susan"
[Perhaps "lure" was a poorly chosen word -- but that's how it seemed to happen to me! I first encountered the enneagram through Baron and Wagele's The Enneagram Made Easy, which definitely puts a positive spin on things. Then I proceeded to Helen Palmer's writings. Palmer also draws her anecdotes from mostly high-functioning people. At that point, I found the enneagram fun, accurate, and interesting, but not much of an impetus for change. I saw some of the Riso/Hudson material and Margaret Keyes' book Emotions and the Enneagram, but those works struck me as real downers. It wasn't until I reached a really low point in my life that I started to look at the enneagram from a "Gee, maybe I'm doing something wrong here" perspective. I swam with that hook in my mouth for nearly a decade!
That said, I would never advocate purposefully presenting positive only, and then suddenly hitting up a prospective enneagram student with the negative. My experience is that people hear what they need to hear, when they're ready to hear it. On this blog, we present a balance of fun and serious, light and dark. People are free to take what they want and leave the rest.
Thanks for your comments, Susan.
Everyone -- Please visit Susan's website: http://www.enneagramdimensions.com/. -- C]
"I enjoyed reading your article and agree with you wholeheartedly that negative thinking is extremely powerful. The problem, as I see it, is that it's a little too powerful. Yes, the enneagram is more powerful than the MBTI, which I believe is due to its esoteric origins, particularly its geometry. This is why the enneagram can so powerfully penetrate someone's defenses and create an opportunity to experience a life-changing shift in perspective."
[I am certain that you know more about the origins and geometry of the enneagram than we do and would love to have you elaborate on what you mean. Mary Beth and I both find that, when we try to read up on that stuff, our minds just sort of slide right off the page. ;-) Although... Mary Beth is working on an article on Gurdjieff. - C]
"However, when a tool has this kind of power, a little bit of insight goes a long ways. In other words, it's really easy for people to get overloaded with information, and when that info is mainly negative, it can potentially act like a powerful (and psychically destabilizing) drug. That's the short-term problem with studying the enneagram from a negative perspective.
I see the long-term problem as more serious. It's the problem of negative framing. Negative framing is what happens when we encounter a system that is intrinsically negative in orientation. If the system is powerful, and we if use it a lot in our daily lives, it will tend to make us look at things from a negative perspective. Take the example of "fire and brimstone" preachers--their attention is so oriented toward (avoiding) hell that they never seem to get around to embracing heaven. They might believe in heaven, but how can they make it a living reality, so long as hell is their primary focus?"
[A good metaphor. I agree with that. - C]
"I got the idea of advocating a more positive approach after I met so many experienced enneagram users and teachers who seemed disheartened about their type. Whatever breakthroughs they had made when they initially encountered the system, after years of working with it, many seemed to arrived at a place of rueful resignation. They still appreciated the system, but from my perspective, it no longer seemed to be helping them find greater freedom in their lives."
[Understood. I think some of the differences in our perspectives stem from the differences in the people we discuss the enneagram with. You seem to be surrounded with enneagram teachers and long-term users, but most of the people I speak to about the enneagram are beginners. They haven't become disheartened yet, because they might still be in denial of their type, or embracing their type in an ego-driven "I'm an 8, so of course I'm gonna be like such-and-such" way that doesn't take the type's pitfalls seriously. - C]
"And that's the whole problem with an approach that has a negative orientation: Where do you go after the first big breakthrough? Once you know the shortcomings of type, what do you do next? How do you proceed?"
[I will say that, for myself, reminding myself of the shortcomings of my type (5) has been enormously beneficial. Once I became sufficiently cognizant of the 5's lack of generosity, I was able to remember more and more often to be just a beat more generous -- with my time, my energy, my attention, my help, and my knowledge -- than I would be as a default. This simple move has paid off richly in vastly improved relationships. There's a lot to be said for "catching oneself in the act", and then stopping it. -- C]
"In my articles, I like to cite one of my favorite Sufi quotes: 'First remember your faults, then forget them.' Yes, knowing the shortcomings of the type can be helpful. But dwelling on them is not. ( How well I know this as a Four!) If we start with a value-neutral framework--one in which we can look at both positives and negatives--then we can look at type in many different ways, depending on the need of the moment."
[I can see that, as a 4, you might not need anyone to draw your attention to the negative! The negative aspects of truth are pretty difficult for the positive outlook types -- 2, 7, and 9 -- to see, though.
I agree that there is definitely value in looking at positive aspects of type. Knowing the healthy attributes of your particular type helps you "know which way is up", as Mary Beth would say. And seeing the positive attributes of the other types reminds you that you can borrow a strategy that works when your preferred strategy does not. -- C]
"I'd like to briefly comment on the idea of using positive type info to initially attract peoples' interest (in your words, to 'lure' them) and then hitting them with the stuff that's not so positive: I would not recommend this approach, because it does not respect the free will of those we are trying to attract. I think that each of us has to decide for himself whether he is ready for a big change in life. Why should I want to try to trick another person into changing? This is their responsibility, not mine. It's hard enough for people to change when they are already highly motivated.
Susan"
[Perhaps "lure" was a poorly chosen word -- but that's how it seemed to happen to me! I first encountered the enneagram through Baron and Wagele's The Enneagram Made Easy, which definitely puts a positive spin on things. Then I proceeded to Helen Palmer's writings. Palmer also draws her anecdotes from mostly high-functioning people. At that point, I found the enneagram fun, accurate, and interesting, but not much of an impetus for change. I saw some of the Riso/Hudson material and Margaret Keyes' book Emotions and the Enneagram, but those works struck me as real downers. It wasn't until I reached a really low point in my life that I started to look at the enneagram from a "Gee, maybe I'm doing something wrong here" perspective. I swam with that hook in my mouth for nearly a decade!
That said, I would never advocate purposefully presenting positive only, and then suddenly hitting up a prospective enneagram student with the negative. My experience is that people hear what they need to hear, when they're ready to hear it. On this blog, we present a balance of fun and serious, light and dark. People are free to take what they want and leave the rest.
Thanks for your comments, Susan.
Everyone -- Please visit Susan's website: http://www.enneagramdimensions.com/. -- C]
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Katherine Chernick Fauvre on Type 6
I am pleased to note that Katherine Chernick Fauvre has made her way to our humble blog. (Granted, I pointed it out to her, but still...) Here's what she had to say about the blog, the difficulty of typing 6s, and her Enneacards Tests:
"Thank you, I appreciate your reference. Typing is an intriguing process. I I loved the 6 observation. Friendly, funny and nervous certainly is 6 from the outside...... I'm sure that is why 6s make great comedians. In my experience, the phobic 6 tends to know that they are a 6 earlier that the counter-phobic 6. [From the Enneagram Institute website: "Sixes tend to use two different methods of coping with their anxiety: a phobic response or a counterphobic response. Sixes who are more phobic often deal with their fears through a dependent stance. They are more aware of their anxiety and turn quickly to others, particularly authority figures, for support...Sixes who are more counterphobic are much more likely to question, or even rebel against authorities. They are quicker to confront others and are more prone to suspiciousness than phobic Sixes. They are more determined to be independent and resist turning to others for support. " -- Cindi] The one that has the most difficulty is the social 6."
[If you don't know what a "social 6" is, check out this link on instincts. -- C]
More from Katherine:
"Both 6 and 9 struggle with identifying themselves in testing instruments as doubt is built into the defense strategy. As you know, 6s seek certainty and 9s have the believer/doubter dichotomy. They also both tend to seek balance. In the complete Enneacards Test, only the 6 (and sometimes 9) will choose one card in one selection and another in the second sort. When interviewed they say that they are trying to be fair and it depends on the situation, knowing that they can be either. They do best taking the sampler test 3 times as they relax and feel more comfortable choosing the 6 cards. Since it is free, I recommend it to everyone as it is a process in and of itself.
I have found that the 6 might relate to the responsibility of the type 1, the helpfulness and giving of type 2, the professionalism of type 3, the romantic nature of the type 4, the reserve of the 5, the flexibility and optimism of type 7, the fight for justice of the type 8, and the humbleness of type 9 with the cautiousness and/or rebelliousness type 6. The social 6 is the only type that uses all of these words. The social 6 also has tremendous difficulty confirming their type as they can be any of these qualities... because for them, it truly does depend of the situation.
The 9 tends to identify with aspects of many of the types as well. I find that 3, 6 and 9 all seek this balance as they are the primary types [central types of each emotional triad -- C] and out of touch with the focus of their center i.e., the 3 modulates feeling to keep doing, the 6 doubts what they know and the 9 is passive-aggressive rather than showing their anger. The 3 seeks balance by trying to adapt to people and situations so as to be seen in a positive light. The 3, however, is strongly identified with being successful so they do not struggle as much as the 6 and the 9 in confirming their type.
The Enneagram is a wonderful system and I never tire of learning more about the subtle distinctions within type. The Trifix [according to the Enneagram Explorations site, a person's trifix is his or her "dominant Enneagram type in each of the three centers: head, heart, and gut." -- C] research has yielded incredible data about out we see ourselves. Since the potential Trifix is given in the complete Enneacards Test, I am able to correlate the data with the Enneaspread. It is in the Enneaspread that we can see the 6 even if they do not choose 6 as their final card. In all fairness to the 6s, their defense strategy is to be evasive to stay safe. The 6 Enneaspread will have a 'poker' hand of cards that are consistently inconsistent. The inconsistency is the pattern. For example, their last two cards may be 5 and 7 which are their wings. The Enneaspread and Trifix will have the 6 in it but not necessarily as their first choices. Usually, in the Trifix it is the third choice. The combination of information is very revealing. For example, a 6 that has the 694 Trifix tends to be even more doubting and reserved as a 6 than the 683 which is more assertive and confident. The social 694 is often shy even if extroverted. And, if they are a ENFP they are often quite romantic and 7ish, the INTJ is more 5ish and withdrawn. Add the instincts and it yields a lot of information.
Good luck with your blog,
Katherine Chernick Fauvre"
[If you are interested in more correlations between the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs typology, check out "The Enneagram and the MBTI: an Electronic Journal." There is a wealth of info available there. -- C]
"Thank you, I appreciate your reference. Typing is an intriguing process. I I loved the 6 observation. Friendly, funny and nervous certainly is 6 from the outside...... I'm sure that is why 6s make great comedians. In my experience, the phobic 6 tends to know that they are a 6 earlier that the counter-phobic 6. [From the Enneagram Institute website: "Sixes tend to use two different methods of coping with their anxiety: a phobic response or a counterphobic response. Sixes who are more phobic often deal with their fears through a dependent stance. They are more aware of their anxiety and turn quickly to others, particularly authority figures, for support...Sixes who are more counterphobic are much more likely to question, or even rebel against authorities. They are quicker to confront others and are more prone to suspiciousness than phobic Sixes. They are more determined to be independent and resist turning to others for support. " -- Cindi] The one that has the most difficulty is the social 6."
[If you don't know what a "social 6" is, check out this link on instincts. -- C]
More from Katherine:
"Both 6 and 9 struggle with identifying themselves in testing instruments as doubt is built into the defense strategy. As you know, 6s seek certainty and 9s have the believer/doubter dichotomy. They also both tend to seek balance. In the complete Enneacards Test, only the 6 (and sometimes 9) will choose one card in one selection and another in the second sort. When interviewed they say that they are trying to be fair and it depends on the situation, knowing that they can be either. They do best taking the sampler test 3 times as they relax and feel more comfortable choosing the 6 cards. Since it is free, I recommend it to everyone as it is a process in and of itself.
I have found that the 6 might relate to the responsibility of the type 1, the helpfulness and giving of type 2, the professionalism of type 3, the romantic nature of the type 4, the reserve of the 5, the flexibility and optimism of type 7, the fight for justice of the type 8, and the humbleness of type 9 with the cautiousness and/or rebelliousness type 6. The social 6 is the only type that uses all of these words. The social 6 also has tremendous difficulty confirming their type as they can be any of these qualities... because for them, it truly does depend of the situation.
The 9 tends to identify with aspects of many of the types as well. I find that 3, 6 and 9 all seek this balance as they are the primary types [central types of each emotional triad -- C] and out of touch with the focus of their center i.e., the 3 modulates feeling to keep doing, the 6 doubts what they know and the 9 is passive-aggressive rather than showing their anger. The 3 seeks balance by trying to adapt to people and situations so as to be seen in a positive light. The 3, however, is strongly identified with being successful so they do not struggle as much as the 6 and the 9 in confirming their type.
The Enneagram is a wonderful system and I never tire of learning more about the subtle distinctions within type. The Trifix [according to the Enneagram Explorations site, a person's trifix is his or her "dominant Enneagram type in each of the three centers: head, heart, and gut." -- C] research has yielded incredible data about out we see ourselves. Since the potential Trifix is given in the complete Enneacards Test, I am able to correlate the data with the Enneaspread. It is in the Enneaspread that we can see the 6 even if they do not choose 6 as their final card. In all fairness to the 6s, their defense strategy is to be evasive to stay safe. The 6 Enneaspread will have a 'poker' hand of cards that are consistently inconsistent. The inconsistency is the pattern. For example, their last two cards may be 5 and 7 which are their wings. The Enneaspread and Trifix will have the 6 in it but not necessarily as their first choices. Usually, in the Trifix it is the third choice. The combination of information is very revealing. For example, a 6 that has the 694 Trifix tends to be even more doubting and reserved as a 6 than the 683 which is more assertive and confident. The social 694 is often shy even if extroverted. And, if they are a ENFP they are often quite romantic and 7ish, the INTJ is more 5ish and withdrawn. Add the instincts and it yields a lot of information.
Good luck with your blog,
Katherine Chernick Fauvre"
[If you are interested in more correlations between the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs typology, check out "The Enneagram and the MBTI: an Electronic Journal." There is a wealth of info available there. -- C]
Friday, November 30, 2007
Self-Typing Advice from Cindi
When people ask me how they can determine their Enneagram type, I almost always give the same advice: go out and get a really good book on the Enneagram, one with really detailed type descriptions, read it cover to cover, and pick out the type that seems most like you. Pretty simple, huh?
Well, almost everyone rejects this advice in favor of either: (a) taking every Enneagram test they can find and getting conflicting results [this way lies madness], (b) attempting to apply whatever out-of-context remark they happen to hear about a person of any of the types to themselves (i.e., "If that guy's a 7, then I'm not one! He's a Republican!"), or (c) some combination of a and b. It can go on for years.
I recognized my type (5 - the Observer) upon reading Helen Palmer's book The Enneagram in Love and Work; a friend of mine recognized his type from Riso and Hudson's Understanding the Enneagram. You could also use Palmer's The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and Others in Your Life or Riso and Hudson's Personality Types. These are all serious, detailed works that do a good job of capturing the gestalts of the types.
Here's how it works: You read various type descriptions, you might even recognize some of the people you know in them, and you think, "Oh, how horrible! Why, if I thought like that, everything would be all screwed up! I mean, behaving that way is just gonna make it impossible for you, or anyone else, to win." And then, you come upon something different -- a perspective that doesn't seem so bad. In fact, it just seems true.
Everyone IS always interrupting you, just as you're about to discover something really important! (type 5) Those bastards ARE always taking from you and never giving back! (type 2) The world IS falling apart because no one ever cleans out the lint tray! (type 1)
But strangely enough, this perfectly reasonable way of looking at the world is written out here, along with eight other worldviews that suck. And you don't see what sucks about it, at least not at first, until it hits you. That's your type, and it's just as bad as all the others. And you've been doing it relentlessly for a long, long time. The sinking feeling in the stomach. The sick feeling. The ringing bell.
These epiphanies can also occur while you are listening to a teacher describe your type. I am happy to report that, when last we taught, Mary Beth and I were able to induce the sick feeling of recognition in several of our students.
These approaches work because they are holistic -- they give you more or less the whole thing all at once, the sum as well as the parts. A good description is thorough, nuanced, and anecdotal. Recognizing yourself in it is like identifying with a character in a book or a movie. You might be of a different age, sex, race, life situation, and political affiliation than that character, but somehow you just know that, at an archetypal level, that person is like you.
Enneagram tests often fail because they are too analytical and too straightforward "I am an avaricious person. Strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, or strongly disagree?" How's a person supposed to respond to that? Plus, there's no guaranteeing that the test-taker will believe his or her results, since, if the question is faulty, he or she might not even fully believe the data he or she fed the test. Garbage in, garbage out.
I am interested in developing more holistic approaches to typing. I am sure I will be blogging about them, at length, soon enough. In the meantime, you might try the method shown above. If the spinner lands on zero, you have to promise to go away and amuse yourself with Myers-Briggs typology exclusively for at least one year. Then, you can spin again.
How to determine your Enneagram type: some recommendations
Because I am such an Enneagram enthusiast, I often find myself emailing back and forth with new acquaintances, old friends, etc., to try to help them determine their type.
First, I send them the link to the Eclectic Energies Enneagram Tests. There are two tests there, and I recommend you take them both. The format of the questions is different, and I find them equally illuminating. Results are provided in the form of a list of potential types in their order of likelihood.
After the person sends me copies of their results and we discuss them (usually via email), I send them Riso and Hudson's QUEST. This one's good because it's quick to take, and it doesn't even try to pick out your type: it ranks the nine types into a top three, middle three, and bottom three in terms of likelihood. The prediction is that one of the top three has an 80% likelihood of being your type. This is a good check on the Eclectic Energies results; if, say, Eclectic Energies suggests a type but it's in the bottom tier of the QUEST, it's probably not the one.
After that, I recommend they read my favorite Enneagram book, The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Riso and Hudson. Other good introductions are Personality Types by Riso and Hudson and The Enneagram by Helen Palmer.
The subtext of what I've been saying is that determining your Enneagram type isn't always easy. Some people are able to figure theirs out immediately upon picking up The Wisdom of the Enneagram, but others have a harder time, and there are several people in our Enneagram discussion group whose types are still mysteries to the group.
You'd think it'd be easy to figure out -- you'd just take a test, like with the Myers-Briggs. But it's not that easy -- the Enneagram is not really a science. (Ignore for the moment that there are those who say the same thing about the Myers-Briggs!) In my experience, the MBTI will tell you your type, it'll be correct and it will stay stable over time. But the Myers-Briggs schema consists of continua between four poles. It's obviously much easier to write a test in the forced-choice format for four pairs of opposites than it is for nine types based on 7 deadly sins plus 2! This is why I've never been very impressed with the RHETI (Riso and Hudson's other test), which uses the forced-choice format.
Here's my story of figuring out my own type. It spans the decades:
In 1987, I saw Riso and Hudson's original Personality Types and just had to have the book. (I've always been very interested in both personality and testing.) I read it, and sort of enjoyed it, but didn't much understand it. The types didn't remind me of the people I knew, and I certainly couldn't pick myself out. I wanted to be a 5, cause that seemed like the smart one, but I didn't relate at all to the idea of the withdrawn observer. (My self-image at that time was of someone who was both talkative and needy.) I thought maybe a 4, because it seemed pretty interesting to be the artistic one, but that one was a withdrawn type, too, plus it just didn't feel right. Of all of them, I thought the 7 might be closest, even though I knew that wasn't right either, really, because I was the opposite of a compulsive do-er -- I was more of a compulsive non-doer. I just didn't see any of these patterns in myself or others I knew.
So 12 years pass -- 12 years in which I read every Enneagram book and take every Enneagram test I come across, and get a little better at seeing the patterns in others, and still I don't know my type, although I suspect 7w6. (The RHETI said I was either 7 or 2.) I have a friend named Jeff who likes the Enneagram too, and one day his sister Suzy and I are both hanging out with him on the same day, and we talk about the Enneagram. I told her I didn't know my type, and she says "Oh, you're a 6." I asked how she knew, and she said I just was, and she'd been to an Enneagram conference, and I reminded her of the other 6s, and she'd heard that 6s never knew they were 6s anyway, so if you don't know, it's a good guess. (Pretty good advice, by the way -- if you can't tell, consider 6 or 9.)
Two years later, I met Cindi. We started talking about the Enneagram, and she, too, said "Oh, you're a 6." I asked how she could tell. She said "friendly, funny, nervous." And she's right; I am 6w7.
My reading of profiles of The Loyalist hadn't really evoked "friendly, funny, nervous." That said, the 6 is a particularly hard one to grasp compared to, say, the 1 or the 2. But there's something to the idea that the types can sometimes be easier to identify from the outside. Not only are Enneagram tests just hard to write, but also, you need to see yourself fairly clearly in order to answer the questions correctly. And seeing yourself clearly is why you need the Enneagram in the first place!
Think about it: if you're in the "trance" of your style, and you saw yourself clearly, you wouldn't like what you saw, and you probably wouldn't be choosing those particular strategies. People at the unhealthy levels usually have justifications for their behavior, sometimes elaborate ones, that skew their perspective. [Example from the current news: Lori Drew (the 47-year old woman who pretended to be a 16-year old boy, had an internet flirtation with her 13-year old neighbor that ended in the 13-year old's suicide) thinks: I am a good person, good people don't do bad things, therefore I didn't do anything wrong, therefore why did you attack my Foozball table with an ax? I'm going to the police!]
That's all for right now.
First, I send them the link to the Eclectic Energies Enneagram Tests. There are two tests there, and I recommend you take them both. The format of the questions is different, and I find them equally illuminating. Results are provided in the form of a list of potential types in their order of likelihood.
After the person sends me copies of their results and we discuss them (usually via email), I send them Riso and Hudson's QUEST. This one's good because it's quick to take, and it doesn't even try to pick out your type: it ranks the nine types into a top three, middle three, and bottom three in terms of likelihood. The prediction is that one of the top three has an 80% likelihood of being your type. This is a good check on the Eclectic Energies results; if, say, Eclectic Energies suggests a type but it's in the bottom tier of the QUEST, it's probably not the one.
After that, I recommend they read my favorite Enneagram book, The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Riso and Hudson. Other good introductions are Personality Types by Riso and Hudson and The Enneagram by Helen Palmer.
The subtext of what I've been saying is that determining your Enneagram type isn't always easy. Some people are able to figure theirs out immediately upon picking up The Wisdom of the Enneagram, but others have a harder time, and there are several people in our Enneagram discussion group whose types are still mysteries to the group.
You'd think it'd be easy to figure out -- you'd just take a test, like with the Myers-Briggs. But it's not that easy -- the Enneagram is not really a science. (Ignore for the moment that there are those who say the same thing about the Myers-Briggs!) In my experience, the MBTI will tell you your type, it'll be correct and it will stay stable over time. But the Myers-Briggs schema consists of continua between four poles. It's obviously much easier to write a test in the forced-choice format for four pairs of opposites than it is for nine types based on 7 deadly sins plus 2! This is why I've never been very impressed with the RHETI (Riso and Hudson's other test), which uses the forced-choice format.
Here's my story of figuring out my own type. It spans the decades:
In 1987, I saw Riso and Hudson's original Personality Types and just had to have the book. (I've always been very interested in both personality and testing.) I read it, and sort of enjoyed it, but didn't much understand it. The types didn't remind me of the people I knew, and I certainly couldn't pick myself out. I wanted to be a 5, cause that seemed like the smart one, but I didn't relate at all to the idea of the withdrawn observer. (My self-image at that time was of someone who was both talkative and needy.) I thought maybe a 4, because it seemed pretty interesting to be the artistic one, but that one was a withdrawn type, too, plus it just didn't feel right. Of all of them, I thought the 7 might be closest, even though I knew that wasn't right either, really, because I was the opposite of a compulsive do-er -- I was more of a compulsive non-doer. I just didn't see any of these patterns in myself or others I knew.
So 12 years pass -- 12 years in which I read every Enneagram book and take every Enneagram test I come across, and get a little better at seeing the patterns in others, and still I don't know my type, although I suspect 7w6. (The RHETI said I was either 7 or 2.) I have a friend named Jeff who likes the Enneagram too, and one day his sister Suzy and I are both hanging out with him on the same day, and we talk about the Enneagram. I told her I didn't know my type, and she says "Oh, you're a 6." I asked how she knew, and she said I just was, and she'd been to an Enneagram conference, and I reminded her of the other 6s, and she'd heard that 6s never knew they were 6s anyway, so if you don't know, it's a good guess. (Pretty good advice, by the way -- if you can't tell, consider 6 or 9.)
Two years later, I met Cindi. We started talking about the Enneagram, and she, too, said "Oh, you're a 6." I asked how she could tell. She said "friendly, funny, nervous." And she's right; I am 6w7.
My reading of profiles of The Loyalist hadn't really evoked "friendly, funny, nervous." That said, the 6 is a particularly hard one to grasp compared to, say, the 1 or the 2. But there's something to the idea that the types can sometimes be easier to identify from the outside. Not only are Enneagram tests just hard to write, but also, you need to see yourself fairly clearly in order to answer the questions correctly. And seeing yourself clearly is why you need the Enneagram in the first place!
Think about it: if you're in the "trance" of your style, and you saw yourself clearly, you wouldn't like what you saw, and you probably wouldn't be choosing those particular strategies. People at the unhealthy levels usually have justifications for their behavior, sometimes elaborate ones, that skew their perspective. [Example from the current news: Lori Drew (the 47-year old woman who pretended to be a 16-year old boy, had an internet flirtation with her 13-year old neighbor that ended in the 13-year old's suicide) thinks: I am a good person, good people don't do bad things, therefore I didn't do anything wrong, therefore why did you attack my Foozball table with an ax? I'm going to the police!]
That's all for right now.
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