English Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Dutch French German Italian Japanese Russian Spanish
Home › Blogs › Dave's blog

Personality Type Bias in Psychology and the Enneatypes

I've often wondered if the reason that personality theories and interpretations are so different is due to the interpreter's own personality style. Here are some examples of what I mean.

In non-Enneagram psychology for example, Karen Horney has been identified as an enneatype 2. Do her interpersonal coping strategies arise from an enneatype 2 perspective? Type 2 is generally seen as moving toward people. She contrasts this with moving against people (type 8) and moving away from people (type 5).

With the Enneagram, the inner lines are explained in Helen Palmer's books as representing stress and security points. Whereas, originally in Don Riso's books, he explained the lines as directions of integration and disintegration. Helen Palmer has been typed as a 6w5 and Don Riso as a 4w3. The inner lines connecting point 6 look different than the inner lines connecting point 4.

Some Enneagram authors and tests seem better at understanding certain Enneagram types. Is this due to the author's or test creator's own personality style? If so, then maybe it's best to read different authors when trying to understand different Enneagram types (both Enneagram authors and psychology authors).

Anyway, here's a list of some Enneagram interpreters and non-Enneagram psychologist/counselors that I'm fairly certain about as to type (at least what I remember reading somewhere or popular consensus).

Enneatype 1

Enneatype 2

Enneatype 3

Enneatype 4

Enneatype 5

Enneatype 6

Enneatype 7

Enneatype 8

Enneatype 9

Discuss this in the forum...