Intro to the Enneagram
The Enneagram of personality is a versatile and powerful personality type system. Mapped around an ancient symbol of perpetual motion, the Enneagram system describes nine distinct personality types and their interrelationships.Each personality type associated with the Enneagram represents a map of traits that highlights patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. By learning one’s type and the patterns and habits associated with that type, one can use of the Enneagram system as an effective tool for self-understanding and self-development.
Each Enneagram personality type, or style, is based on a pattern of where attention goes. By learning about what kinds of things one habitually attends to and puts energy into, one can observe oneself more accurately and develop more self-awareness. By enhancing one’s self awareness with the help of the Enneagram, one can exercise more choice about one’s functioning rather than engaging in patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior in an automatic, habitual, unconscious way.
Although its history and origins are somewhat unclear, the Enneagram symbol and the personality types associated with it appear to be rooted in very old eastern and middle eastern knowledge traditions. Traces of it can be found in the early mystical forms of many of the world’s spiritual teachings.
Today, knowledge of the Enneagram system is growing all around the world. The insights about human functioning and development are being applied in many varied areas including psychology and psychotherapy, business, the arts, health care, parenting, education, and spiritual growth.