Even if you have no clue what your Type is, you’ve probably at least heard of the Enneagram. Its popularity has surged in recent years, partly due the widespread hunger for tools for self-discovery, and partly due to its near perfect meme-ability on social media.
Back before the memes, I first learned about the Enneagram as a 17-year-old when a roommate shared her well-worn copy of The Wisdom of the Enneagram. She was tattooed and had this amazing pink spiked hair, and I probably would have read anything she handed to me. After a few hours with the book, I’d typed myself as a Type 1 and was busy typing everyone else I knew, eager to apply this new framework to all of my relationships. Both turned out to be wrong – I was not a Type 1 and you should never type others – but I was hooked.
I continued to think about and use the Enneagram on and off over the subsequent decades, but it came back more fully into my life when an executive coach I was working with a decade or more ago helped me confidently identify my Type and start making sense of how I was leading my life from it. Learning my Type guided me to how and why I was repeating the same frustrating patterns and expecting miracles, and it gave me a clear alternative path.
I didn’t instantly overhaul my life when I discovered my true Type, but I did finally have a roadmap – one that helped shape my subsequent therapy and personal work for the time ever since. My own therapist back then didn’t know much about the Enneagram, but that was okay. I shared with her enough to give her a cheat sheet into my psyche. And when my partner and I later started to struggle in our relationship, we used the Enneagram inside and outside of therapy as a way to try to find each other.
All the while, despite how clear it’s utility was to me for transforming our biggest stuck points, I honestly felt like I had to keep my Enneagram-affinity under wraps as a psychologist since it wasn’t yet widely accepted as a tool. But in recent years, as it started to gain even more traction around the globe, the clinical community started to catch up. Fast forward to today and there are now, incredibly, articles on the Enneagram in the Journal of Psychiatry and books published by academic giants like Daniel Siegel.
The Enneagram has finally more fully entered the clinical world, and I personally couldn’t be more thrilled. It’s time that we started welcoming the vast wisdom of the Enneagram into the therapy room.
How the Enneagram Explains Personality
What kept the Enneagram up from coming into therapy earlier, in my opinion, is that it takes a distinctly non-pathologizing stance on how humans develop. This, unfortunately, didn’t jive with traditional models of mental health that have been centered on dysfunction and diagnosis. But it’s also exactly why I’ve personally turned so often to the Enneagram in working with individuals and couples: it gives us a way of understanding how we came to be who we think we are without blame, shame, or isolation. Crucially, it also gives us a path forward.
For me, the Enneagram does a beautiful job of articulating and giving a framework for how we develop personality structures – something that has long been misunderstood, even by clinicians. Let’s take a minute to describe how we form our personalities, and then we’ll dive into the Types.
If you take a look at the actual symbol of the Enneagram, you’ll see that it’s a nine-sided geometric figure with an outer circle. The nine numbers around the circle represent the nine personality structures or Types that make up the basis of the system. Don’t get too lost in this part, as it’s simply a way of visually representing the framework.
What’s important to know is that the Enneagram symbol itself – the circle – represents the idea that when we are born, we are whole and complete. We have access to all of the qualities of all of the nine Types in this state, uninfluenced yet by our early relationships or the world.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t have tendencies and temperaments. We are indeed all born with certain innate qualities that drive us in certain directions. As I’ve discussed before, probably the most important difference across humans as infants is our degree of reactivity. Some of us are highly sensitive to our environments, while others are much less so. The degree of sensitivity and reactivity we have is much of what accounts for the “nature” part of the nature vs. nurture equation. We might call this our Core Self.
Our Core Self comes on this earth and, inevitably, encounters hardship. For some of us, that hardship is more significant and might even be called trauma. For others, it might have more to do with the very human challenge of trying to figure out how to stay close or accepted in our family or the world. The version of us who carries this pain is what famous couples therapist Terry Real calls our Wounded Child.
How Our Type Develops
Here’s where personality, or what we call our Enneagram Type, develops. Our Wounded Child figures out very early how to piece together particular strategies to navigate the world. These strategies help our Wounded Child to feel strong and safe instead of vulnerable, hurt, or disconnected. To use Terry Real’s term again, we can call the version of us that uses these strategies our Adaptive Child. I like to think about our Enneagram Type as the set of strategies that our Adaptive Child uses to navigate the world.
It’s like our Type is our set of armor. But it doesn’t feel like armor, because over time, the Type just starts to feel like who we are. This happens so strongly that we struggle to see any difference between the Type – which are really strategies – and our Core Self. But really it’s an Adaptive Child version of us – usually still a young version that feels that it can’t do anything different without risking going back to that vulnerable, hurt, disconnected feeling.
This is why I get concerned by the meme-ification of Enneagram Types – because it often just serves to reinforce our attachment to the limitations of our Type. Sure, I love to laugh at which cheese each Type would be most likely to eat too, but what we’re really trying to do with the Enneagram is to understand the patterns and strategies we once learned to use as protection – and then to learn to move beyond those strategies. Our goal in working with the Enneagram is self-awareness, but it’s also self-expansion.
It’s recognizing that we may always lead from one of the nine Types, but we are really working our way back to our Core Self – the place where we can actually move more freely among lots of different qualities and be a fuller human.
The Enneagram in Therapy
Understanding our Enneagram Type as a set of qualities we’ve adopted to meet our early needs, we can start to see how the process of therapy can help us take that awareness and do two things: first, recognize how that’s showing up in our daily life and potentially creating strain, and second, get unstuck from those patterns and start to practice new ways of being.
Let’s go through each of the nine Types and talk briefly about why that Type might come into therapy, and what some of the focus and positive outcomes might look like in a therapy process. Feel free to read just your own Type if you know it, or read through all if you are still in the process of trying to assess your Type. Also please keep in mind that the reflections below are solely observational and, again, this isn’t meant to be a formal diagnostic tool.
Type 1: The Reformer or Perfectionist
Type 1s are eager to create a world that feels more just, orderly, and ethical. They are driven by a desire to be good and ensure goodness in the world, and they orient to principles and standards to ensure that happens. They are skilled at bringing order, perhaps because of early experiences with learning to create structure out of what felt chaotic.
Might Enter Therapy When:
- Struggling with persistent self-criticism or perfectionism
- Difficulty managing frustration or resentment when things feel unjust or out of control
- Experiencing lots of tension or rigidity, both emotionally and physically
- Wanting to soften self-judgment and reconnect with joy or ease
You Might Hear Yourself Saying in Therapy:
- “I have a hard time relaxing—I always feel like there’s something I should be doing.”
- “I criticize myself before anyone else can.”
- “My own anger scares me. I don’t want to be out of control.”
Progress in Therapy Could Look Like:
- Welcoming true rest and relaxation with greater trust that the world will be okay without your vigilance.
- The ability to work with your own anger so that it doesn’t feel engulfing, but rather like healthy fuel.
- Greater kindness and compassion for both self and others and a softening in relationships that have felt tense.
Type 2: The Helper or Perfectionist
Type 2s are striving for a sense of closeness and belonging and learned early that their most direct path to this was by identifying and meeting the desires of others. They closely track others’ needs and align their own value to being able to respond to those needs. Meanwhile, they often struggle to articulate their own needs, and then can experience hidden feelings of resentment, as well as depletion.
Might Enter Therapy When:
- Feeling emotionally depleted from always caring for others
- Tired of feeling guilty all the time when considering setting boundaries
- Frustrated by feeling unappreciated or invisible in relationships
- Wanting to explore self-worth outside of being “needed”
You Might Hear Yourself Saying in Therapy:
- “Why am I always the one stepping in? I can’t do this anymore.”
- “I worry that if I stop giving, people wouldn’t even care about me.”
- “Why do I always attract people who need fixing?”
Progress in Therapy Could Look Like:
- Learning to identify and articulate your own feelings and needs to important others.
- Recognizing relationships that may be built on co-dependency or a fear of someone experiencing disappointment.
- Tending to your own needs alongside the needs of others and no longer caring to the point of burnout.
Type 3: The Achiever or Performer
Type 3s had some early sense that being who they were might not be quite enough, and so began striving to be seen as capable, successful, and worthy of admiration. They know how to be adaptable in order to meet the moment and generate positive feelings from others. But underneath what looks like a polished surface, Type 3s fear that they can’t stop accomplishing or may lose connection.
Might Enter Therapy When:
- Burnout from constant striving or pressure to perform
- Recognizing that relationships are lacking true intimacy and connection
- Experience some kind of perceived failure and sense of self feels wounded
- Longing to finally at peace with who they are, not just what they do
You Might Hear Yourself Saying in Therapy:
- “If I’m not successful, I feel like I’ll just disappear.”
- “People say they don’t really know me. I don’t know if I really know who I am either.”
- “Resting makes me feel guilty – and nervous.”
Progress in Therapy Could Look Like:
- The ability to take true breaks and to give yourself opportunities for real restoration
- Feeling more connected in close relationships, like they know they real you
- Experiencing a sense of ease without a constant drive to do more
Type 4: The Romantic or Individualist
Type 4s tend to be deeply introspective and emotionally rich. They are eager to understand themselves and to express their individuality in the world. This sense of being different than others can lead them to feel special at times, but sometimes also alienated from others. They can at times struggle with relationships due to feeling misunderstood.
Might Enter Therapy When:
- Recognizing these long-standing feelings of being misunderstood or “too much”
- Deep emotional highs and lows that feel hard to regulate
- Longing for meaning, but feeling stuck in comparison or shame
- Seeking clarity on identity and emotional grounding
Themes That Might Arise in Therapy:
- “I feel like there’s something fundamentally wrong with me.”
- “I often feel like an outsider, even with people I love.”
- “Why do I feel emotions so much more deeply than others?”
Progress in Therapy Could Look Like:
- Being in tune with your deep emotions but not as overwhelmed by them.
- Being able to experience the duality of feeling individual and deeply connected.
- Experiencing genuine self-acceptance and finding ways to creatively and adaptively express yourself.
Type 5: The Investigator or Sage
Type 5s learned to manage feelings or a sense of others intruding on their emotional or mental space by living mostly inside themselves. They are motivated to feel competent and self-sufficient, and tend to dive deep into intellectual pursuits or interests. They can seem to withdraw somewhat from others and be seen as independent.
Might Enter Therapy When:
- A partner or someone else asks them to come because they feel it’s hard to emotionally connect with them
- Feeling some anxiety about how depleted they are—emotionally, socially, or energetically
- Feel intellectually curious about therapy or themselves and want to learn more
- Recognizing that they get stuck in analysis paralysis and have a hard time actually making changes in their lives
You Might Hear Yourself Saying in Therapy:
- “I retreat into my mind when I feel overwhelmed.”
- “I do want connection, but I don’t know how to do vulnerability.”
- “Sometimes I think I could disappear and no one would notice.”
Progress in Therapy Could Look Like:
- Practicing real vulnerability in relationships after learning to identify and articulate emotions
- Starting to move from research and knowledge into actual action
- Feeling a greater sense of confidence, even without external sources to validate it, and letting inner knowing guide
Type 6: The Loyalist or Skeptic
Type 6s are strongly motivated by the desire to create stability and safety, both of which the 6 believe come through certainty. They attempt to create certainty for themselves by anticipating the future and assessing risks. They also work to create certainty through maintaining trust and loyalty in relationships, having a much harder time trusting themselves than other people.
Might Enter Therapy When:
- Persistent anxiety or overthinking becomes exhausting or prevents action
- Tired of struggling so much to trust others or one’s self
- Feeling stuck between self-doubt and needing reassurance
- Seeking a stronger internal sense of safety and clarity
You Might Hear Yourself Saying in Therapy:
- “I second-guess almost every decision I make.”
- “I struggle to feel safe—even when things seem okay.”
- “I overthink everything—it’s exhausting.”
Progress in Therapy Could Look Like:
- Rather than always looking for answers outside of yourself, you start to access self-trust and rely on your inner compass
- You are less future-focused and find you are able to stay present-centered more regularly
- You are able to imagine positive outcomes and start planning for those instead of worst case scenarios
Type 7: The Enthusiast or Epicure
Type 7s learned early on to move away from what is potentially painful by seeking out pleasure and possibility. They tend to be very forward-thinking and adventurous, often inspiring others with their enthusiasm. They can struggle to sit with what is uncomfortable and so may be in more constant motion, physically or emotionally.
Might Enter Therapy When:
- Feeling scattered or chronically unfulfilled despite staying busy
- Struggles with commitment or going deeper in relationships and wants to understand why
- Compulsive or addictive behavior is starting to cause problems in life
- Wanting to slow down and cultivate more grounded contentment
You Might Hear Yourself Saying in Therapy:
- “I stay busy and I don’t have to feel what’s underneath.”
- “I chase happiness, but for some reason it never feels like enough.”
- “I don’t want to have hard conversations. I don’t know why we have to get into all that”
Progress in Therapy Could Look Like:
- Allowing for greater stillness without rushing to change it
- Staying in situations and relationships longer in order to find the joy and satisfaction in going deeper with them
- Greater capacity for difficult emotions, both your own others’
Type 8: The Challenger or Protector
Type 8s are often thought of as natural leaders because they have a drive toward strength, control, and protection of others. They’ve often adapted this way because feeling more vulnerable was overwhelming and they saw the need for and value in being an advocate for others. They can come across as guarded or distant at times, even while they really long for greater closeness.
Might Enter Therapy When:
- Tired of feeling chronically misunderstood or often being in conflict with others
- Recognizing own difficulty accessing vulnerability or softer emotions
- Experiencing relational strain from being overly protective or controlling
- Wanting to explore deeper emotional intimacy without losing strength
You Might Hear Yourself Saying in Therapy:
- “I feel like I have to stay strong or everything will fall apart.”
- “Sometimes I bulldoze others without meaning to.”
- “Underneath, I think I’m afraid of being betrayed.”
Progress in Therapy Could Look Like:
- Coaching others to advocate for themselves rather than always feeling the need to step in on their behalf
- Feeling and being softer and able to express more of your vulnerable emotions
- Allowing things to happen without feeling the need to step in and without feeling agitation or resentment
Type 9: The Peacemaker or Mediator
Type 9s have always longed for internal and external peace, and they work very hard to manage the world and themselves to avoid conflict. They may have felt overwhelmed by others’ intensity early on and so learned to dissociate and disconnect from self when emotions heat up. They are skilled at helping others to feel understood and accepted, but struggle to fully know and accept themselves.
Might Enter Therapy When:
- Tired of feeling walked all over or invisible, even when recognizing that they aren’t speaking up
- Realizing that this avoidance of conflict is leading to passive resentment
- Feeling disconnected from purpose or personal goals
- Seeking a stronger sense of identity and self-advocacy
You Might Hear Yourself Saying in Therapy:
- “I bottle things up until I explode, and then I feel guilty.”
- “I don’t know what I really want most of the time.”
- “I feel invisible—like my presence doesn’t matter.”
Progress in Therapy Could Look Like:
- Becoming clearer on your own wants, needs, and desires and practicing communicating those without fear or shame
- Being more direct in getting needs met rather than doing so more covertly or cutting off the needs entirely
- Allowing others to experience their feelings without needing to prevent them from happening or rescuing
I hope that this overview gave you a sense of how each Type navigates the world, and the work involved in getting back to wholeness. Remember that this is just the very basics of what the Enneagram teaches us about personality and coming home to one’s self.
If you are interested in hosting a workshop or doing more in depth work, learn about our Enneagram programs.
