What is the Enneagram?

The Enneagram figure is a circle bearing nine evenly spaced points, connected by lines. Each point corresponds to a base personality. Three of these points form a triangle (3, 6 and 9); the other six are connected by a continuous line that draws a singular star (1, 4, 2, 8, 5, 7). These lines are not decorative: they are the paths we take when we are doing well or when we are under stress.

The roots of the figure are ancient; its modern psychological reading developed in the 20th century, notably with Oscar Ichazo and then Claudio Naranjo, before spreading into the world of training, coaching and personal development. ABP Consulting has taught it since 2003, as a tool for self-knowledge, never as a means of labelling people.

Each of us sees the world through the filter of our base: a core motivation (“to be loved”, “to be safe”, “to be beyond reproach”...) and a fear to be avoided structure our behaviour far more than we think. The base explains very different things: why one person needs recognition, why another needs calm, why a third cannot stand injustice.

Identifying your base is often an astonishing moment: you recognise your obvious truths, your sources of pride, and also your least glorious automatic patterns. It is the starting point, not a destination: the tool then serves to spot when we are acting “on autopilot”, and to regain choice.

The nine bases fall into three centres of intelligence. The instinctive centre (8, 9, 1) operates from the body: action, territory, anger in the background. The emotional centre (2, 3, 4) operates from the heart: relationships, image, sadness in the background. The mental centre (5, 6, 7) operates from the head: analysis, anticipation, fear in the background.

Each person favours one centre and underuses another. A large part of personal work consists in rebalancing the three: acting with the instinctive, feeling with the emotional, thinking with the mental, at the right time and for the right reasons.

Each base is connected to two others by arrows. The direction of integration indicates the type whose best qualities we borrow when we are secure, relaxed and growing. For example, the tense, critical Type 1 becomes, when secure, lighter and more joyful, like a fulfilled Type 7.

The direction of disintegration indicates the type whose difficult behaviours we borrow when stress lasts: the brilliant, effective Type 3 can become strangely passive and absent, like an overwhelmed Type 9. These movements are valuable signals: they warn us before the breaking point, in ourselves and in others.

A wing is one of the two bases neighbouring ours on the circle. Over the course of our life, we mainly develop one of the two: it shades the way we express our base. A Type 8 with a 7 wing will be more expansive and playful; a Type 8 with a 9 wing, calmer and more patient.

Concretely, the wings are used as resources: by understanding the qualities of your two neighbours, you have two additional registers with which to respond to situations. A relationship difficulty sometimes unblocks by “going into the wing” rather than by forcing through the habits of your base.

You do not find your base with a single test: questionnaires give a lead, not a verdict. The surest method is to read the profiles looking for the motivation and the fear that resonate most, including in their least flattering aspects. The real question is not “which type do I most resemble from the outside”, but “what are the motivation and the fear that have been running my life all along”.

The eye of a trainer or a coach trained in the tool, and panels where people of the same base describe how they function, are a great help. ABP courses devote the necessary time to this identification, without forcing anyone into a box.

The Enneagram does not say what we are, it describes the strategy we have built. Two people with the same base remain two different people, with their own history, culture and choices. Used with respect, the tool produces the opposite of confinement: understanding, patience towards others, and freedom towards oneself.