The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

by Beatrice Chestnut

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is compos sui [master of himself] if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. —William James, Principles of Psychology

Being able to change your behavior is central to any personal growth effort, and at the same time it’s incredibly difficult, given the power of our unconscious habits. In order to change behavior to achieve personal growth, we must develop one capacity: We must develop the ability to create the mental and emotional space inside ourselves to observe and understand what we are doing and think about why we do it.

One of our deepest unconscious patterns is the false belief that we already know ourselves well enough to understand why we think, feel, and act the way we do.

Without conscious effort, we function to a large degree mechanically, according to habitual patterns, as we go about our everyday lives. Our “sleep” is the unexamined belief we all have that we live lives of relatively unlimited freedom, when the opposite is true: We respond in predictable, repetitive ways according to the dictates of our early programming, much like uniquely specialized machines. And like machines, we have no power to grow out of this pre-programmed condition as long as we have no conscious understanding of how our existence is limited by our programming. We don’t always understand what we don’t understand and we are limited to the degree that we don’t recognize our limitations.

But while it may be good for our survival and our comfort to avoid an awareness of our own pain and fear—especially early on in life—if we don’t examine the ways we do this as we get older, we fall asleep to who we are and all that we might be.

How does this habit of falling asleep to ourselves get started? How and why do we come to be this way? Human babies have the longest period of dependency of all mammals, so human children possess inborn, wired-in defense mechanisms that protect them from being too overwhelmed or harmed by psychological or emotional threats. Over time, early and necessary (and sometimes life-saving) defensive maneuvers and coping strategies evolve into “patterns” of thinking, feeling, and behaving. These patterns come to operate like “organizing principles,” or beliefs about how the world works and how we must act in order to survive or thrive. These patterned coping strategies turn into invisible and automatic “habits” that influence where your attention goes and what adaptive strategies you employ to interact in the world.

This misalignment between our ingrained habits and our yearning to live authentically and spontaneously becomes a source for all kinds of suffering, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness.

This “waking sleep” is also the starting point for the crucial process of waking up. The ability to wake up is not only possible, but also an inherent part of being human. We fall asleep as we come into this world and acquire a personality, but the potential for conscious growth and transformation is part of our makeup.

What has previously been the exclusive territory of spiritual directors and psychotherapists has entered the mainstream of thinking about what it means to be human and how we can develop our innate human capacities to achieve greater freedom and happiness. And it all begins with the simple idea of developing the ability to pay attention, and in doing so, generating a clearer understanding of what is going on inside you.

According to the wisdom tradition associated with the model, personality is seen as a “false self,” necessary up to a point to interact safely in the world, but also the means by which we lose touch with our “true self”—which gets buried in the background as our “false self” comes to the forefront to deal with life. According to the Enneagram, while the false self or personality is the “problem,” in that we get so identified with it and mistakenly think it is all of who we are, it is also the vehicle for getting back to the true self. As we learn to see through the automatic functioning of the false self or conditioned personality, we can learn to let it drop or we can work with it more consciously so that we become less fixated on a narrow perspective and become more creative and flexible. As such, the Enneagram contains a vision and a path for breaking out of old habits and realizing your true potential.

THE TERM “PERSONALITY” generally refers to the part of your character that develops to interface with the outside world. Our personalities are shaped through the intersection of our innate qualities and our early experiences with parents, caregivers, family, and friends, as well as other influences in our physical, social, and cultural environments.

As in Western psychology, the Enneagram views the personality as a “false self” that develops to allow your (vulnerable and young) “true self” to adapt, fit in, and survive among other humans. This perspective holds that personality is a “defensive” or a “compensatory” self whose coping strategies developed to help us fulfill our needs and reduce our anxieties.

Attributes you think of as “bad”—feelings of anger, jealousy, hatred, and inferiority—get relegated to your shadow and become unconscious. (People who tend to focus on their negative characteristics, conversely, may hide some of their typically “positive” feelings or qualities in their Shadow.) The Shadow represents everything we refuse to acknowledge about ourselves that nonetheless impacts the way we behave. Being blind to parts of ourselves means that there is often a difference between the person we think we are—or the person we would like to see ourselves as—and who we really are as we walk through the world.

Type Four Focus of Attention: Fours focus attention on their own feelings, the feelings of others, and interpersonal connection and disconnection. They feel a sense of deficiency about their own worth, so they seek idealized experiences of qualities they perceive as outside themselves. Patterns of Thinking and Feeling: Fours value authentic expressions of a wide range of emotion. Their thought patterns center on what is missing in a given situation and on longing for whatever they perceive as ideal and somehow unavailable. They appreciate meaningful interactions rooted in real feelings and have a keen aesthetic sensibility based on the translation of emotional experience into artistic expression, but they tend to overidentify with feelings and dwell in melancholy (or anger). Behavior Patterns: Fours can be reserved and withdrawn, or energetic and active, or both. They are emotionally intuitive, empathic, and intense. While specific behavior patterns vary according to subtype, Fours generally aren’t afraid of conflict, will work tirelessly when they feel passionately connected to something, and can see what’s missing and speak to it. Passion—Envy: Envy manifests as a painful sense of lack and a craving toward that which is felt lacking. For Fours, Envy grows out of an early sense of loss that leads to a perception that something good is outside the Four’s experience—and that this something is necessary but missing because of an inner deficiency.

Type Seven Focus of Attention: Sevens avoid unpleasant feelings by focusing on what feels pleasant and by keeping the mood upbeat to the point of reframing negatives into positives. A fear of being trapped in discomfort fuels quick thinking, creative problem-solving, and a focus on positive future possibilities. Patterns of Thinking and Feeling: Sevens have quick, synthesizing minds, with which they find links between the commonalities in different subjects, making rapid mental associations. Emotionally, Sevens like feeling happy or joyful emotions and dislike feeling fear, anxiety, sadness, boredom, pain, or discomfort. Their attitude is, “Why feel pain if you can feel happy instead?” Behavior Patterns: Sevens are energetic, fast-paced, innovative, and active. They usually have many interests and activities, which they pursue with enthusiasm. Sevens like planning for fun and maintaining many options, so they can keep their mood up and shift to the most pleasant option if one plan becomes undesirable or untenable. Passion—Gluttony: While we commonly think of gluttony in connection with food and eating too much, in the language of the Enneagram, gluttony is a passion for pleasure and a desire for more—an excessive indulgence in consuming whatever brings pleasure.

Fours Self-Preservation Four: “Tenacity” (countertype) The Self-Preservation Four is long-suffering. As the countertype of the Fours, SP Fours are stoic in the face of their inner pain and they don’t share it with others as much as the other two Fours. This is a person who learns to tolerate pain and to do without as a way of earning love. Instead of dwelling in envy, SP Fours act out their envy by working hard to get what others have and they lack. More masochistic than melodramatic, these Fours demand a lot of themselves, have a strong need to endure, and have a passion for effort. Social Four: “Shame” The Social Four suffers more, feels more shame, and is more sensitive than the other two Fours. Envy fuels a focus on shame and suffering as they employ a strategy of seducing others into meeting their needs through an intensification of pain and suffering. They experience a sense of comfort in feeling melancholy. Envy also manifests in lamenting too much, taking on the victim role, and focusing on a sense of their own inferiority. Social Fours don’t compete with others as much as they compare themselves to others and find themselves lacking. Sexual Four: “Competition” Sexual Fours make others suffer as an unconscious way of trying to rid themselves of painful feelings of deficiency. In denying their suffering and being more shameless than shameful, they express their needs more and can be demanding of others. In seeking to be the best, they express envy in its manifes...

Sevens Self-Preservation Seven: “Keepers of the Castle” The Self-Preservation Seven expresses gluttony through making alliances and creating opportunities for gaining an advantage. Pragmatic and self-interested, these Sevens find safety through networking and being alert to opportunities that support their survival. The name “Keepers of the Castle” refers to their way of establishing a partisan network of allies through which they create safety and satisfy their needs. Cheerful and amiable, they have a love of pleasure and tend to get what they want. Social Seven: “Sacrifice” (countertype) As the countertype, Social Sevens go against gluttony through conscientious efforts to be of service to others. Conscious of wanting to avoid exploiting others, they have a need to be good and pure and to sacrifice their own needs in supporting the needs of others. They have a passion for being seen as good for the sacrifice of their own desires. They express an ascetic ideal and make a virtue of getting by on little. They express idealism and enthusiasm as a way of making themselves feel active and valued in the world. Sexual Seven: “Suggestibility” Sexual Sevens express gluttony through a need to imagine something better than ordinary reality. Gluttons for things of a higher world, they are idealistic dreamers with a passion for living in their imaginations. Sexual Sevens look at things with the optimism of someone who is in love; they see the world through rose-colored glasses. “S...

In ancient Greece, math was studied as the foundation of all other fields of knowledge, from philosophy to art to psychology, because these early philosophers saw symbolic mathematics as providing a “map of our own inner psychological and sacred spiritual structure.”6

TYPE FOUR REPRESENTS THE ARCHETYPE of the person who experiences an inner sense of lack and a craving for that which is missing, and yet can’t allow for the attainment of what might provide satisfaction. This archetype’s drive is to focus on what is lacking as a step to regaining wholeness and connection, but through an over-focus on the experience of a flawed self they become convinced of an inner deficiency that prevents fulfillment. While this entails an understandable frustration with regard to deprivation, an overidentification with the frustrated, deprived state leads to an inability to take in that which would provide fulfillment.

While Type Threes overidentify with the persona, or the positive aspects of ourselves we highlight in the “public face” we show to the world, Type Fours overidentify with those parts of ourselves we’d rather others don’t see.

Although Fours may also recast their sense of deficiency as being “special” or “unique” as a way of valuing themselves on a surface level, they identify with a deficient self more than an idealized self.

The Four’s resonance with the Shadow can also be seen in the fact that they have a natural gift for understanding the deeper emotional level of experience and seeing the beauty in darker emotions that other types would rather not feel, much less acknowledge. This can make them feel dangerous to others on an unconscious level, as Fours may raise the issue of authentic emotions that others would often rather not deal with.

The natural strengths of Type Fours include their large capacity for emotional sensitivity and depth, their ability to sense what is going on between people on the emotional level, their natural feel for aesthetics and creativity, and their idealistic and romantic sensibility. Relatively unafraid of intense feelings, Fours value the expression of authentic emotion and can support others with great care, respect, and sensitivity when they are experiencing painful emotions. Fours are highly empathic and can see the beauty and power in painful feelings that other types habitually avoid.

Fours’ “superpower” is that they are naturally emotionally intuitive. Fours’ regular contact with their own emotional terrain gives them a lot of comfort and strength in being with intense feelings and empowering others to feel and accept their emotions.

Although it would be wrong to think that all Fours are artists or all artists are Fours, they do have an artistic impulse that enables them to see and respond to the poetry in life, and to highlight for others the way everyday experiences can b...

However, when they can wake up to the ways in which they dwell in suffering or dramatize their emotions as a way of distracting themselves from their deeper need for love, they can express a special kind of wisdom that is informed by deep emotional truth.

Only careful planning saves Odysseus from his own irresistible longing for this experience. Otherwise, the temptation to explore unfathomable emotional depth would have ended, as it so often does, in total self-destruction.

Hades and the Sirens are a dark passage of the Odyssey reflecting the pain and wisdom of Type Four. Longing, envy, and regret are seductive emotions from which some can never escape. But these emotions also bring us the unvarnished truth about our own needs and pains if we are brave enough to receive it. And facing these important emotions is an important part of the journey home to the true self.

LOCATED AT THE LOWER-RIGHT CORNER of the Enneagram symbol, Fours belong to the “heart-based” triad associated with the core emotion of sadness or grief. While Type Twos are in conflict with their sadness and Threes underdo grief, habitually numbing out their feelings so they don’t get in the way of their goals, fours overdo an attachment to grief. The three heart types also share a central concern with image—a self-consciousness about how they might appear in the eyes of others. While all three types in this triad have a formative, underlying need to be “seen,” they each act this out differently based on the ideals they try to fulfill in order to be recognized and appreciated by others.

The three heart types also share a central concern with image—a self-consciousness about how they might appear in the eyes of others. While all three types in this triad have a formative, underlying need to be “seen,” they each act this out differently based on the ideals they try to fulfill in order to be recognized and appreciated by others.

The sadness at the core of the heart type personalities reflects their feeling of not being loved for who they are and their grief over having lost touch with their real selves because they’ve disowned who they really are and created a specific image to try to get the love (or approval) they need.

In many ways, Type Fours are the most comfortable of all the types with the experience of emotions. They value connections with others based on authentic feelings. A Type Four’s relationship to their emotions is both primary and complicated, as the Four coping strategy involves an attachment to some emotions as a protection against the experience of others.

Most Fours report having suffered some sort of actual or perceived loss of love early in life. Things usually started out well, but at some specific point in time the Four child experienced some sort of abandonment or deprivation, and to make sense of this loss—and to achieve some sense of control in light of it—the young Four unconsciously became convinced that they somehow caused it. While this is almost never true in reality, it gives the Four child a feeling that they can do something to regain what was lost through their own efforts, even while their mistaken sense that something about them caused the rejection persists as a inner sense of unredeemable deficiency.

They dream of finding an idealized, special love connection that will make up for or reverse their loss. But because they can’t help feeling hopeless about ever regaining what they lost—both as a natural response to feeling deprived and a defense against being disappointed again—they often get stuck in feelings of grief, melancholy, and shame, which makes it difficult or impossible for them to really open up to receiving the love they long for.

The memory of something valuable that was lost also causes Fours to dwell on the past and continue to mourn what they once had.

Fours thus end up seeing themselves as “not good enough” to be loved as a way of defending against opening up to the possibility of love, because allowing themselves to hope for love leaves them vulnerable to the worst kind of pain: the re-experience of that early loss, and the confirmation of their worthlessness that goes with it. They dwell in painful feelings of hopelessness and melancholy to protect themselves from the sadness and shame that comes from believing they are essentially unlovable and so will never get the love they need and want.

But even while they fantasize about being loved as a way to soothe themselves, they thwart their attempts to receive love in the real world because they are so convinced that they aren’t worthy of actually being loved.

Overidentification with feelings of hopelessness and melancholy, together with the search for confirmation that they are special or superior, distracts Fours from the real way out of their particular defensive trap: actively taking the risk of hoping for real love and opening up to receive it. While they long for the love and acceptance they need, Fours habitually prevent themselves from realizing their quest for love because their false self (personality) firmly believes they can’t get what they are looking for.

Introjection is the Four’s primary defense mechanism. It is a psychological defense through which Fours internalize painful feelings as a way to protect themselves. As psychologist Nancy McWilliams explains, “Introjection is the process whereby what is outside is misunderstood as coming from inside.”9 Introjection is the inverse of projection, the primary defense mechanism of Type Six.

Introjection operates as a defense mechanism by allowing an individual to identify with and “swallow” another person whole. When you “introject” someone, you take that person inside you, and whatever that person represents to you becomes part of your identity. Through introjection, you give yourself a feeling of being able to control that person and whatever they do or stand for.

For instance, if someone important criticizes you and you introject that person, you now experience that person’s criticism as coming from inside yourself. And while you are still being criticized, at least you have a sense of control—the illusion that you can do something about it—since the critic is now a part of you. What was coming from the outside is now coming from the inside, giving y...

If we have been criticized, through introjection we can both take charge of the criticism and try to do better.

For type Fours, this means that they continue to subject themselves to experiences that were painful from the inside, both as a way of taking it in and trying to manage it and as an effort to protect themselves from being reinjured in a similar way.

Fours primarily focus their attention on their internal experience, their emotions, the emotions of others, and interpersonal connection and disconnection. I once asked a Four whether she put her attention more on herself or more on others, and she said she put her attention “on the space between us.” That said, Fours are more self-referencing than other-referencing, meaning their attention is aimed more at their own inner experience than at what is going on with other people. At the same time, Fours naturally tune in to the state of their connections and to their perception of the underlying emotional tone or status of their relationships.

That said, Fours are more self-referencing than other-referencing, meaning their attention is aimed more at their own inner experience than at what is going on with other people. At the same time, Fours naturally tune in to the state of their connections and to their perception of the underlying emotional tone or status of their relationships.

While Fours have an innate gift for being able to sense and appreciate a wide range of emotions, Fours can focus too much on their own feeling state at times, and they have the tendency to get lost in a narrow band of emotions—especially feelings of loss, longing, sadness, melancholy, or hopelessness. By paying a lot of attention to what they are feeling, they tend to over-identify with their emotions, and when absorbed in this way, they may find it difficult to shift their attention to other aspects of their experience.

In relation to others, Fours have a tendency to both feel like a misfit and want to stand out as unique and special. Focusing on the ways in which they don’t fit in can lead to fantasies of being judged negatively and found lacking, and focusing on being special often leads to fantasies of garnering praise from important people for their unique qualities.

Fours also tend to focus on what is missing in any given situation. In a relationship or in a specific circumstance, like a job or a class or a social gathering, Fours will automatically focus on what they see as ideal and absent—on what is missing that would make the situatio...

Sometimes Fours can get stuck either focusing on the outer world or on their inner world; they may find it difficult to switch back and forth. They frequently become preoccupied with a sense of envy: comparing themselves with others, thinking about what others have that they don’t have, and focusing on the...

In the face of feelings of dissatisfaction, they often lack a sense of agency. It may feel hard to them to change their feelings or the world through their own efforts or force of will. While they tend to focus on what isn’t working, it can be hard for them to take action, even though taking action might help them break them out of the focus of attention that is holding them hostage.