Overview of the Enneagram personality system

The Enneagram is a powerful and dynamic personality system that describes nine distinct and fundamentally different patterns of thinking, feeling and acting.

The word “ennea” is Greek for nine and “gram” means model or figure. Hence, the Enneagram is a diagram or star with nine points representing the nine personality patterns. Each of these nine patterns is based on an explicit set of perceptual filters that determine our worldview. Underneath each of the nine patterns is a basic proposition or belief about what you need in life for survival and satisfaction.

As you discover your personality type and the underlying basic proposition, you also will discover what motivates you, your coping strategy and keys to personal development.

The Enneagram can provide numerous, often immediate, practical applications in virtually all areas of life including intimate relationships and family life, spiritual development, therapeutic settings, business, education, government and non-profit organizations.

A dynamic system, the Enneagram provides a universal language of type that underlies race, religion, nationality, culture, gender and any other form of group identity. This universality helps foster greater understanding of what we all have in common.

Learn more

Tour the nine Enneagram types

Watch free video clips of the nine Enneagram types

Take an online Enneagram test to determine your type

Buy Enneagram books, tapes and DVDs

Visit Enneagram Worldwide, the authoritative website on the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition founded by Helen Palmer and David Daniels, M.D.

Read a sample of TALK JOURNAL, our monthly e-newsletter

Go to a collection of links to Enneagram sites around the world

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