Figuring out your Enneagram number
As you may have read, I’m a big fan of the Enneagram. But how do you figure out which of the nine personality types fits you??
It’s not so easy. It’s not like it’s based on your birthday or year or anything external. You basically just have to figure it out. Here are some places to begin typing yourself:
1. Read whatever you can get your hands on until you realize which type you are (takes a long time)
2. Attend a program or workshop about the Enneagram and consult with a legitimate teacher (takes time and/or money)
3. Take any and all of the free Enneagram tests you can find online and see if a consensus emerges. The problem is, all the tests basically suck. There are just too many ways to interpret something like “I often refrain from acting, as I’m afraid of being overwhelmed.” Plus the tests are all constructed via the filter of the teacher and they all have slightly different takes. There are longer tests, but you have to buy them and I just don’t think it’s worth it. But if you take 5 free Enneagram tests and three times you come up as a 7, that might be a clue. Then if you read about 7s and still feel that it’s accurate, you could become even more confident.
I just went online and took 3 free tests just to see what would happen. I’m very confident that I’ve typed myself accurately as a 4 but one test typed me as a 5 first (4 came in 5th), another typed me as an 8 and a third was accurate.
4. Ask yourself the following questions:
*Do I consider myself a person who primarily runs on instinct, feeling, or reason? (8, 9, 1 are instinct types; 2, 3, 4 are feeling types; 5, 6, 7 are mental types)
*Very, very generally speaking, if I had to choose, do I move energetically toward, against, or away from people?
(Some Enneagram teachers believe that 1, 4, 5 move away from others; 3, 7, 8 move against; 2, 6, 9 move toward.)
So if you’re a head type who moves away, you might be a 5. Or if you were an instinct person who moves away, you could be a 1.
*When things aren’t going well, do I mostly get angry, anxious, or depressed?
(Instinct people get angry; head types become anxious; heart types become depressed.)
5. All of the above. (This is the best option.)
If it’s not too distracting, it can be very fun to try to type people in movies or tv shows. For example, I just say Michael Clayton and I believe George Clooney was playing a 9.
Feel free to ask me any questions you’d like.
6 comments
Susan,
Can you share with your website visitors the list of free Enneagram sites? When I tried looking for these before, I struggled to find *even one* that was actually free. Often the Enneagram sites start out claiming to be free but end up requiring a membership or paid subscription.
Of the existing free ones, can you recommend one that seems to give the most accurate assessment? Or do you recommend taking several tests, and then running through the basic self-analysis as you described in section 4 above?
Best wishes,
Bob
For sure: http://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html
I recommend taking several (or all, if you have time) and then running through the self-analysis.
Please let me know what you discover. And should questions/observations arise, let me know these too!
PS The first test, “Variant Test,” is about subtype. Each type has 3 subtypes. Although this test won’t tell you your type per se, it will indicate whether you lean toward self-preservation, social, or one-to-one subtype. Which is helpful. More about that later…
I find it much easier to see other people’s numbers than to see mine. The system was immediately useful to me in seeing my mother, my brothers, and many important people.
But for myself: that was hard. Too many trees to see the forest.
I’ve been typed as a nine, a four, a seven, and a five, by enneagram experts. My hunch is that I’m a four.
Reading your ideas made me think: yeah, maybe I’m a four. I did read all the books. But they contradict each other. One says that Kierkegaard is a five, and another says he is a four. Same thing for Kurt Cobain. It’s kind of tricky, as people have slightly different criteria for the different numbers.
I wish you had said which online tests typed you in which way and therefore which one is accurate. I do think it’s important to try to go back before you started working on yourself. I’m fifty now and am a professor at a small college (literature, philosophy, and composition). But thirty years ago it’s easier to see myself as a four. At 15, even easier. I definitely was not the fivish sort that I seem to be now. And as a kid: there’s no way I would have typed as a five.
So that part was helpful. People acquire a lot of armor as they get older, I suppose, and you have to make sure the armor isn’t what you are typing.
Nice to read your stuff!
P.S. I don’t know if this test is more accurate than any other one, but I like the layout. It was done by a retired Dutch jazz drummer who lives in Holland. Try this one! There are actually two versions of it, both free:
http://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/dotest.php
Kirby, many thanks for your comments. They inspired me to write more than just a comment back! http://www.susanpiver.com/2008/01/16/further-on-the-enneagram/
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