The Essential Enneagram: The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide -- Revised & Updated
By David Daniels and Virginia Price
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About this ebook
The First and Only Scientifically Determined Enneagram Personality Test and Guide
A centuries-old psychological system with roots in sacred tradition, the Enneagram can be an invaluable guide in your journey toward self-understanding and self-development. In this book, Stanford University Medical School clinical professor of psychiatry David Daniels and counseling psychologist Virginia Price offer the only scientifically developed Enneagram test based upon extensive research combined with a self-discovery and personal-development guide.
The most fundamental guide to the Enneagram ever offered, this book features effective self-tests to determine simply and accurately what your personality type is. Daniels and Price provide step-by-step instructions for taking inventory of how you think, what you feel, and what you experience. They then guide you in your discovery of what your type means for your personal well-being and your relationships with others, and they show you how to maximize your inherent strengths. Brimming with empowering information for each of the nine personality types—Perfectionist, Giver, Performer, Romantic, Observer, Loyal Skeptic, Epicure, Protector, and Mediator—this one-of-a-kind book equips you with all the tools you need to dramatically enhance your quality of life.
David Daniels
David N. Daniels, M.D. (August 30, 1934 to May 29, 2017) was a world-renowned Enneagram author, teacher, and thought leader, co-founder of The Narrative Enneagram and the International Enneagram Association, and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. As one of the founding fathers of today’s Enneagram, David N. Daniels, M.D. brought credence, rigor, and scientific validity to the Enneagram. In 1994, he led efforts to host and sponsor the first International Enneagram Association conference at Stanford University. In 2000, he released a Stanford University based scientifically validated Enneagram test, which still remains the only scientifically validated test today. David N. Daniels is the lead-author of the Enneagram bestseller, The Essential Enneagram (Harper Collins) updated and revised with vital new material in 2009, lead-author of The Enneagram, Relationships and Intimacy published in 2018 with co-author Suzanne Dion, and co-author with Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. of the upcoming book, Nine Paths to Wholeness to be released in 2021 by Norton. He also co-developed the outstanding DVD, The Enneagram: Nine Paths to a Productive and Fulfilling Life and The Enneagram in the Workplace. In private practice for over 40 years, David also taught the Enneagram system at Stanford University, in the community, and internationally on every continent for 30 years. David brought his knowledge of the Enneagram to individuals, couples and groups, and to a wide range of applications in clinical practice and the workplace. He has developed many innovative workshops, including The Dynamics of Vital Relationships, Anger and Forgiveness, Loss and Grief as Transformers, the Enneagram’s Gift to Love and Life, Intimate Relationships, Love and Will, and The Enneagram’s Gift to Mastering Conflict Constructively and Compassionately. His work is being carried on at www.drdaviddaniels.com.
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Reviews for The Essential Enneagram
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- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was an assignment for a work team building event, and it was actually very interesting! The concepts make a lot of sense, and I've been able to put the techniques into practice, not only in the workplace, but in my personal life as well. We were also very lucky to have the author present the material to us.
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Book preview
The Essential Enneagram - David Daniels
The Essential Enneagram
The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide—Revised and Updated
David N. Daniels, M.D. and Virginia A. Price, Ph.D.
Originally published as The Stanford Enneagram Discovery Inventory and Guide
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Helen Palmer
Section 1:
How to Discover Your Type
Part 1:
The Essential Enneagram
What Is the Enneagram?
What Is The Essential Enneagram?
The Process of Self-Discovery and Self-Development Using The Essential Enneagram
Essential Enneagram Test Instructions
Essential Enneagram Test
Linking Paragraphs to Types
The Enneagram Figure
How to Proceed
Understanding the Type Determination Pages
Detailed Explanation of the Type Determination Pages
Understanding the Type Description Pages
Detailed Explanation of the Type Description Pages
Part 2:
How to Discover Your Type and Its Key Features
Type One: The Perfectionist
Type Two: The Giver
Type Three: The Performer
Type Four: The Romantic
Type Five: The Observer
Type Six: The Loyal Skeptic
Type Seven: The Epicure
Type Eight: The Protector
Type Nine: The Mediator
Summary of Type Discriminators
How to Confirm and Verify Your Type
How to Build Self-Understanding
Section 2:
What to Do When You Have Discovered Your Type
Part 1:
General Practices and Principles for All Types
The Guidelines for Optimal Learning
Breathing and Centering Steps: Building Receptive Awareness
Five General Principles
Elements of Personal, Professional, and Spiritual Development: The Universal Growth Process
Part 2:
Specific Practices for Each Type
Practices for the Perfectionist (Type One)
Practices for the Giver (Type Two)
Practices for the Performer (Type Three)
Practices for the Romantic (Type Four)
Practices for the Observer (Type Five)
Practices for the Loyal Skeptic (Type Six)
Practices for the Epicure (Type Seven)
Practices for the Protector (Type Eight)
Practices for the Mediator (Type Nine)
Appendix A: Additional Enneagram Resources
Appendix B: Validity of the Essential Enneagram Test
About the Authors
Copyright
About the Publisher
Acknowledgments
We greatly appreciate all the individuals who participated in the development of The Essential Enneagram, originally published as The Stanford Enneagram Discovery Inventory and Guide (SEDIG), especially the Enneagram teachers who participated in typing hundreds of individuals. Special thanks go to Judy Daniels for her many hours of technical support and encouragement.
Major assistance in writing, formatting, and editing was provided by Peter Enemark, Carolyn M. Dawn, and Kit Snyder. Assistance in technical and data analysis was provided by Ghassan Ghandour and Michael Menke.
Our original publisher, Robb Most of Mind Garden, Inc., provided inspiration and support as well as guidance in design and marketing. We extend our thanks to our publisher, HarperOne, to John Loudon, who helped us move forward with our work; to Terri Leonard, executive managing editor, who encouraged us along the way; to Kris Ashley, for her encouragement, upbeat attitude, and constant availability; to Laura Lee Mattingly and Amanda Wood for their work and support on this updated and revised edition, and to Eric Brandt for encouraging this update and revision.
We used the methods of the Narrative Tradition of Self-Discovery and the substantive way of understanding the Enneagram developed by Helen Palmer. The Essential Enneagram is based on the understandings and philosophy of Helen Palmer, whose support, encouragement, and guidance we deeply appreciate. Heartfelt thanks go to my teaching colleagues, Peter O’Hanrahan and Terry Saracino, for their extensive contribution to my understanding of the Enneagram. I am especially grateful to Terry for co-creating the Universal Growth Process with me.
Lastly, I am eternally grateful to my coauthor and friend, Virginia Price, who passed away before this revision and update was envisioned. She remains an inspiration and guide.
David N. Daniels, M.D.
Foreword
The Essential Enneagram offers a groundbreaking and original approach to a key problem in personality study. How do you correctly find your place within a rich and complex system when the choice itself requires knowing yourself beforehand? In bringing their combined talents and deep scholastic commitment to the question of self-identification, David Daniels and Virginia Price have made it a whole lot easier to correctly discover your Enneagram personality profile, thus opening a wealth of information for both psychological and spiritual development.
Their innovative method looks like a guided tour to discovering, confirming, and verifying your personality type. You are provided with key checkpoints along the way to make sure you stay on track, and a set of sensitive, practical exercises to aid your personal development once you’ve discovered your type. David and Virginia are the first authors to bring both scientific validity and reliability studies to the Enneagram. Their method of determining personality type is based on seven years of research with more than 900 subjects.
In Section 1, they provide you with the user-friendly, short-paragraph test that their subjects used. They next show you the probability that the type you chose is correct, and probabilities are the absolute best that any depth psychometric instrument can provide. You are then shown how to confirm your choice, and exactly what steps to take if this checkpoint leads you to believe you are not the type you originally chose.
Once you’re certain of your Enneagram profile, you move ahead to Section 2, where the authors give excellent daily practices that assist you in becoming more consciously aware of how your type is organized, its positive features, and how to break free of the limits your type imposes upon you. The Essential Enneagram is based on principles of self-awareness that I have long advocated. By providing elegant and precise descriptions of how different types of people are organized and motivated, this book guides you in exploring how your placement of attention and use of energy focuses your worldview, how you deal with stress and anger, and what you can do to develop yourself and receive support from others.
I first had the pleasure of teaching with David when we initiated the Enneagram Professional Training in 1988, using the panel method of personal inquiry. During our now many years of collaboration, I have consistently experienced his inspired clinical acumen, warmth and care, and profound understanding of human behavior and development. He is perhaps the most personally respected contributor in today’s emerging field of Enneagram studies.
Virginia likewise brings extraordinary insight and clinical expertise to this work. For more than twenty years she has pioneered, and authored several works about, the theoretical and practical aspects of modifying type A personality behavior. Her research and clinical experience, her understanding of the theoretical basis of personality function, and excellent writing skills have contributed greatly to this field of study.
The section of this book entitled What to Do When You Have Discovered Your Type
is rooted in David’s and Virginia’s extensive clinical experience and their understanding of people from the inside out. Their presentation of general methods for personal change and their type-specific practices are exceptionally valuable.
This long-awaited work is a must for anyone interested in effective communication, compassionate relationships, freedom from the confinement of repetitive behavior, and, ultimately, the freedom to be a complete human being.
Helen Palmer
January 2000
Berkeley, California
SECTION 1: How to Discover Your Type
PART 1: THE ESSENTIAL ENNEAGRAM WHAT IS THE ENNEAGRAM?
The Enneagram is a powerful and dynamic personality system that describes nine distinct and fundamentally different patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. Ennea
is Greek for nine, and gram
means a figure or something written. Hence, the Enneagram personality system is represented by a diagram of a nine-pointed star within a circle. Each of the nine patterns is based on an explicit perceptual filter and associated driving emotional energy. This is congruent with the way our neurons operate according to the interwoven flow of information and energy. These patterns determine what individuals of each personality type pay attention to and how they direct their energy and behavior. Underlying each of the nine patterns is a basic proposition, or belief, about what we need in life for survival and satisfaction.
Each one of us developed one of the nine patterns to protect a specific aspect of the self that felt threatened as our own personality was developing. As you discover your Enneagram personality type, you will discover more about your original whole self. You will also understand more about the unconscious motivation from which you operate.
Discovering your Enneagram personality type can help you learn how to bring positive change into your life. It can help change the way you relate to yourself and others as well as give you a greater understanding of the circumstances and issues facing you. Moreover, it can give you powerful assistance in integrating the personal and spiritual aspects of your life, integration being the linkage of differentiated elements.
What Is The Essential Enneagram?
We developed The Essential Enneagram as a simple and accurate way for individuals to identify their Enneagram personality type and as a guide for further personal, professional, and spiritual development.
The Essential Enneagram Test consists of nine short paragraphs that describe the fundamentals of each of the nine personality types. You administer this test to yourself by reviewing the nine paragraphs and choosing the three paragraphs that seem most like you. Next, you put the three selected paragraphs in order, beginning with the one that is the most like you. This process takes only a short time to complete.
You then proceed with an adventure in self-discovery by following the process described in this book, which guides you through the basic terminology of the Enneagram, the determination of your personality type, a comprehensive description of your type, the key discriminators differentiating each type from every other type, and a series of practices for self-development—including practices tailored specifically to your type.
A distinctive feature of the Essential Enneagram Test is its validation by extensive research. We conducted a validity study of just under one thousand individuals. The results of our research show that the Essential Enneagram Test has a high level of validity and reliability. We have included a summary of this research in appendix B.
By using The Essential Enneagram in the way