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Boston Globe article about the Enneagram

Love by the Numbers

Enneagram system of personality types gains popularity among partners seeking a window on themselves and their relationships

By Carol Stocker, Boston Globe Staff Writer, 12.29.94

Each number on the nine-pointed star of the Enneagram brings different strengths and problems to a relationship:

A One, sometimes called "The Perfectionist" might have honorable intentions, but can also be oversensitive and critical.

A Two, often nicknamed "The Giver" might be emotionally supportive of a mate, but also chamleon-like and manipulative.

A Three, "The Achiever," might be an enthusiastic and practical breadwinner, but have a hard time hanging out and watching a sunset.

A Four, "The Tragic Romance," can offer passion and supercharged emotional intimacy, but sometimes expects a relationship to be a series of peaks and turns peevish and cold when there are plains and valleys as well.

A Five, "The Observer" can be a thoughtful and dependable mate, but perhaps emotionally remote.

A Six, "The Questioner," can be committed and loyal, but often finds relationships draining and is prey to fears and negativity.

A Seven, "The Epicure," is Fun, Fun, Fun! But don't come to him or her with your problems.

An Eight, "The Boss,"is exciting, intense, and lusty, but can also be abusive if they don't get their way in everything. All the time.

A Nine, "The Mediator," is terrific at hanging out and will adapt to their mate in a caring and attentive way, but can become passive-aggressive when things aren't going well.

Finding one's core number can be difficult, however, because most people can't view themselves objectively and because the Enneagram looks at motives as well as actions. There is no foolproof written test, so the most reliable way of getting typed is a paid session with a certified teacher. Also, each core number can be modified by several other numbers, depending upon its position in the Enneagram diagram.

Professional Usage

The Enneagram has held very little standing in the professional counseling community, which most often uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator among the many systems available for psychological typing.

But now some Boston-area psychotherapists are using the Enneagram, especially for couple's counseling. "It's easier to understand than Myers-Briggs and infinitely more useful," said Pearce. "It helps me anticipate what draws couples together and the problems they're going to have with what seems to be amazing accuracy," says psychologist Andy Hahn, who practices in Newton.

Stanford Medical School's department of psychiatry sponsored the 1st It'll. Enneagram Conference, which drew over 1400 participants (I was there -wz).

Helen Palmer said she teaches the Enneagram as a "personalized road map for spiritual experience." The theory is that by identifying your particular defense mechanisms, you can recognize and dissociate from the repetitive thoughts and emotions they get you stuck in.

How Numbers Relate

Much of Palmer's book, "The Enneagram in Love and Work," is devoted to a directory of how each number relates to every other number, and the problems they might have with each other at home or in the office. Many couples at Palmer's conference said the Enneagram has given them a specific blueprint on how their spouse's way of seeing the world differed from their own.

No Changing the Numbers

What teachers of the Enneagram do offer are ways of becoming a better Six who can, for instance, reality-test fears, or a better Seven who can stay still and get serious when something important comes up, instead of compulsively escaping into good times, every time.

Teachers of the Enneagram are loath to say that any single number is a better companion than any other, though one conference attendee quipped, "Eights are awful to be married to" Palmer maintained that a "self-aware person of any number be can be an excellent companion."

Opposites still attract

So in the world of the Enneagram, and perhaps in real life romance, likes attract, but complementary pairings may be more apt to endure and be healthy.

Being hitched up with someone whose view of the world is different, even seemingly opposite, like a worrying Six and a good-time Seven, may inevitably create friction, but it can also create a dynamic that fosters person growth in each.