Exploring the Enneagram: Relationship Reinforcement

I can’t handle it when others are upset. I throw myself into work to avoid emotions. I want to be left alone. No one understands me. I want everyone around me to be happy. Can you relate to any of these statements when it comes to how you operate in your world? Does this describe your reactions when relating to others? If so, there is good news! The Enneagram is a personality test that not only looks at your strengths and weaknesses, but also allows insight into relationships with others in order to strengthen compassion and connection.

Personality Test Popularity

For many of us, we’ve been exposed to personality tests in the past, whether it was part of high school psychology class, a component of starting a new job, or a viral quiz on social media. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was the go-to personality test for several decades starting in the 1940s when exploring a person’s extraversion, intuition, and decision-making skills. The Enneagram has been around almost as long, making an introduction in America in the 1950s. Praised as a tool for deeper awareness, self-understanding, and self-discovery, The Enneagram classifies personality into 9 categories or types, identified below by The Enneagram Institute as:

• Type 1: The Reformer

• Type 2: The Helper

• Type 3: The Achiever

• Type 4: The Individualist

• Type 5: The Investigator

• Type 6: The Loyalist

• Type 7: The Enthusiast

• Type 8: The Challenger

• Type 9: The Peacemaker

The Enneagram also claims that a person’s designation as one of the nine types is solidified in childhood based on traumatic or impactful experiences that reinforce behaviors that support feelings of safety and security.  For example, someone who tests at Type 2, The Helper, may have a core belief that “I am good and ok if I help others.” The authors of several Enneagram books, Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson further describe each person’s capacity to equally develop into any one type, however the type that ultimately defines us is reinforced by our environment at a very young age. Another example that can highlight this concept is the child who is praised for every positive performance or good grade, allowing them to feel pride when sharing their accomplishments at a young age. In continuing to seek that valuable praise to feel positively about themselves, they might find themselves pursuing various accomplishments throughout their life in a series of patterns of achievement, categorizing them as Personality Type 3, The Achiever.

Put it to the Test

So now that your curiosity is peaked, why not put it to the test and see for yourself? You might have an idea of your type just from the names above, however there are several options that can clarify your results.  The Enneagram Institute (enneagraminsitute.com) has an online test that can define your type and any other connections to other types based on your responses to a series of questions. A faster option can also be found in a free App called EnneaApp, that can allow you to explore your type and read more about what the results mean in shortened form, ideal for those who want family members and loved ones to also test and identify their personality types. The Enneagram has risen in popularity due to its use in various contexts to help people better understand themselves and others.

• Premarital Counseling

• Individual and Family Therapy

• Workplace Efficacy & Human Resources

As you can imagine, clarity about your type and The Enneagram type of others around you can help you rise to your fullest potential, including strategizing on projects in the workplace or connecting at a deeper level interpersonally. Therapists value the Enneagram due to its ability to start conversations about similarities and differences between people, as well as its ability to provide opportunities for growth and self-discovery.

Discovering Depth

Self-discovery with the Enneagram reflects the effort you put in the results and your ability to have an open mind. Designation of your personality type includes implications for balance and wellness by looking at the positive characteristics (which will please you) and the negative characteristics (which will make you want to hide). In other words, you will have positive traits that you feel fit your personality very well, and negative traits you will want to reject due to the painful accuracy of things you want to keep hidden from others due to embarrassment or shame.

Allow me to illustrate. If you are found to be a Type 8, The Challenger, you, like all the types, have both positive and negative characteristics. Some of your positive characteristics include having a powerful vision of your future, being vocal about your goals to get results, getting others cooperation in those goals, and being described as passionate.  So far so good right? You sound like a force to be reckoned with. On the other hand, your negative traits include speaking over others, a ‘my way or the highway’ mentality when challenged, being described as bossy and overbearing, and being intimidating when expressing anger. As you can imagine, balance between positive and negative characteristics is important in exploring shifts to support connection with others both personally and professionally as well as workplace success.

Enneagram Enhanced

The Enneagram can go much deeper into passions, difficulties, relationships, team work, and more. Just look for trainings in your community and online to move into further discovery after you identify your type or the type of those you value. By beginning your journey into The Enneagram starting with your own reflection, you will uncover unlimited possibilities regarding how to successfully connect with strengths in yourself and with others! 

 “The point of it isn’t to just be a type, but to use the awareness of our type as a kind of entry into a more full-bodied humanity and a greater and greater capacity to embody and flow with all the different qualities of our humanness.” Russ Hudson

Supporting Self-Esteem: Tools to Identify Strengths

“I don’t know what to say. I was raised not to talk about myself. I don’t want to sound cocky.” You are engaging your client in an intake session where you’ve created an intentional, positive shift from an otherwise heavy series of questions about symptoms including details as to why they are seeking therapy. Your new client appears caught off guard by your questions about strengths and they struggle to identify anything that is going well, or things they like about themselves. You make a note to identify a possible goal around self-worth and self-esteem, to be explored with the client upon building more rapport.

So how does one engage a client in exploring their strengths while acknowledging the vulnerability to do so? For many, talking about elements they like about themselves or their resiliency may be difficult when entrenched in negative emotions.  For example, a client experiencing a depressive episode may have a hard time identifying any emotions of hope or former pleasure based on their current negative cognitions around hopelessness and feeling stuck.

Look to the Past

For depression and being entrenched in symptoms, it can be easier for a client to recall the events or strengths of the past than experience the present or predict the future. By engaging a client in exploring what would formerly describe their circumstance, you can encourage the initial stages of cognitive reframing and thus rewiring from negative to positive thought. Some examples of questions to support access to the past can be found below.

• Is there a time you felt confident? Can you tell me more about that?
• When is a time you felt like everything was going well? What made it so?
• Wisdom, Sacrifice, Kindness. Can you share a time you demonstrated each of these strengths?
• What is one thing you are happy or satisfied with in your life?
• What is one thing you like about yourself?

Engaging a client in reflection on these elements can support new awareness and positive feeling through revisiting pleasant memories. By exploring former experiences, the client may be able to identify ways to rediscover those experiences in the present.

Likeable and Lovable

If a client continues to struggle with identifying their strengths, it can be helpful to engage them on the thoughts and statements of others that know them well.  You may find asking them what their mother, sister, friend, partner, or close colleague would say about them if those relationships are healthy. Here are some ways you could explore self-image through the eyes of others:

• What would your mom say is one of your strengths?
• What compliments have you received from others about your efforts at work?
• How would you be described by your best friend?
• What do you think your partner appreciates most about you?
• If you were represented by an actor for a movie, who would that be and why?

By encouraging the client to explore loved one’s statements or compliments as a reflection of their own strengths, it may remove some pressure to identify them on their own while still encouraging positive thought and reflection.

Sort and Seek

A reflection tool that can further encourage exploration of strengths and thus improve self-esteem is a value sort. A value sort instructs clients to review a list of values and narrow down their choices based on order of importance. This can allow clients to explore their values and make connections to how those values are being represented in their life. A favorite tool is the value card sort, currently being used by mental health professionals and some universities. In the value card sort, a stack of values is sorted into levels of importance including minimal, moderate, and most important. Client are instructed to go with their gut and sort quickly, supporting a narrowing of values to the top seven most important to the client. Reflection can then be encouraged by asking the client the following questions:

• How are these seven values represented in your life currently?
• How are these values represented in work, home, and relationships?
• What needs to be changed or improved to maintain these values for you?
• How would enhancing or improving these values in your life help you?

For many, exploring their values and current representation in their life can support a movement towards measurable goals to improve those values, thus improving sense of control, pursuit of happiness, and higher self-esteem.

Therapeutic Goal Setting: Measurable Motivation

As December comes to a close, your clients could be looking to the new year to create resolution or revisit their treatment goals in the hope of change. It’s a time to explore goals that are measurable and attainable; it’s a time to create small steps to build self-confidence so they remain motivated and hopeful. Perhaps your client comes into your office saying “I want to join a gym to help my depression.” You meet their disclosure with compassion and curiosity and ask them to share more. You learn they want to work out every day to help their mood but aren’t currently working out on a consistent basis, and not ever at a gym. So you find it important to explore with them their motivation as well as the perceived strengths and challenges of reaching their goal. Your client learns that smaller steps can support success and agrees to working on short-term goals to build confidence and to move towards their long-term goal of working out daily.

Monitoring Motivation

Why is it important to explore motivation around a goal? Research tells us goals around fitness and gym attendance peak in January and dramatically decline by February and March every year. Additional research tells us that we must do something consistently for a minimum of 30 days for it to become a habit. What this conveys to us as human beings is that we need to see results or progress to continue to work hard at a goal. You may normalize this for your client. You may also provide psychoeducation on the Stages of Change from Motivational Interviewing as a visual to support your client in identifying strengths and barriers to change. In meeting your client where they are at, consider the questions below to explore motivation with your client:

• What do you want to change? (Precontemplation to Contemplation)
• What makes that a problem for you? (Contemplation)
• Is it a big enough problem to want something different? (Contemplation)
• How would you achieve the desired change? (Preparation)
• What do you need to support change? (Preparation)
• What would help you to begin? (Action)
• How will you know when you are ready for change? (Action)
• What would help you keep going? (Maintenance)
• Who/What would hold you accountable?
• What would happen if you don’t succeed?

By engaging your client in exploring these questions, they can identify any current strengths or barriers to succeeding and further explore what is needed to progress through the stages of change.

Make it Measurable

It isn’t uncommon for a client to identify a goal but not know how to attain it, thus remaining in the stage of contemplation. It becomes our responsibility as their support to break down a long-term or larger goal into measurable, smaller pieces. Here are some examples of how to make it measurable when a client identifies a larger, more abstract goal in therapy:

Our therapeutic interventions can support short-term goals blending into long-term goals over time. By identifying and writing treatment goals that are measurable and can be reviewed with your client regularly, the effort it takes to achieve these goals can feel validated and attainable for your client.

Supporting Strengths

Validation can be a strong motivator. Helping clients slow down to identify their strengths throughout the process can be motivating in and of itself. It isn’t surprising that clients can find themselves stuck in the past, such as awareness of how they used to be able to achieve goals with no effort and frustration that they cannot find that same success today. Or perhaps they are so future focused they aren’t able to recognize the smaller changes that have taken place. One of the most rewarding elements of therapy can be reviewing goals and progress towards those goals. Your clients may be unable to recognize the small but important shifts in their functioning and therefore it can be impactful to help them remember where they started in this process and how their hard work is supporting healthy change. By identifying their strengths and supporting them throughout the process, clients can experience motivation and recognize goal progression, allowing the ongoing growth and change they seek.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Barack Obama.