Enneagram

Enneagram

The Enneagram is a personality typing system that consists of nine different types. Everyone is considered to be one single type, although one can have traits belonging to other ones. While it's uncertain whether this type is genetically determined, many believe it is already in place at birth.

The nine types (or "enneatypes", "ennea" means "nine") are universally identified by the numbers 1 to 9. [...] People of a particular type have several characteristics in common, but they can be quite different nevertheless.

What's yours? Box yourself in here:

http://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test.php

On such tests I usually come out 5w4 (thinker who tends to withdraw and observe) of the sx instinctual variant (interested in one-on-one contacts). Not totally sure I agree with the sx since 5w4 is much more suited to sp, the self preservation variant, but hey, maybe.

The "w" part of the type is which way you lean. In my case I'm a type 5 with some 4 characteristics. The "wing" is always immediately next to the type.


On the whole I don't know very much about enneagram (more a fan of MBTI), but it's interesting as a way of talking about people sometimes. In particular, there's the theory of how types grow: they "integrate" to other types.

I am apparently a 6w5, not sure what I think about this, the description of a 6 makes them sound a little mentally ill...

Yeah, enneagram isn't a very feel-good typer. Mine, e5, says in the first line, "people of this personality type essentially fear that they don't have enough inner strength to face life". Lol, but true, probably. Some of the types sound cool, like e8, but they all end up being double-edged in some way. Personality, apparently, is supposed to be that way: no one is "balanced", everyone leans more heavily one way than another and gains something by that but also loses something.

I thought of enneagram because it--or more exactly, "personalty"--makes a difference to responses to things like "We'd like to speak English to you."

I have no idea what the point of this was but I am apparently a 1w9...which seems to make me a nice, caring person...who is patient with people...and when Borkya reads this she will die from laughing too hard...

Ennaegram is one of those things. Where personality typing systems like, say, MBTI come off as clinical, enneagram appeals more to the humanist. It seems to categorise people in terms of developmental paths and apparently allows for a more nuanced view. If you look, frinstance, at the enneagram circle, the lines indicate paths of integration and disintergration. Which line is which not indicated on that page, but for example 5w4 integrates to e8 (the leader, woohoo!) and disintegrates to e7 (the enthusiast).

Integration is when the good and bad characters of your enneagram type come together to make something positive (5w4 collects information together and one day overcomes the fear of the world to act positively in it as a director or guide) while disintegration is when the pressures build up in the wrong way and attempts to do well are abandoned in favour of the immature aspects of the disintegration type (5w4 becomes a messy party animal).

Posting about enneagram might have made more sense if I'd attached it to the thread that started me thinking on it.  And, as always, personality typing does NOT indicate who can or cannot handle given tasks, such as say English teaching or importunate English learners who wish to converse past your interest limit, but [something something something] [personal freedom]. Let's hold hands and sing.


ETA: found a link...

How the Enneagram Works...

its a strange human trait to want to know what we are like, by taking tests like these we get allured into a confirmation of what we should really know anyway. or am i missing the point?

Just because its not the wife who is pointing out my foibles i take it more seriously when a bit of software gives me kudos or not.

I welcome the day when the result is either 'prick' or 'not a prick' that would give me sufficient gusto to continue my life in a spirit of confidence.