Explore the Enneagram

Discover a powerful tool for personal and collective transformation

We recommend you start to work with the Enneagram by first discovering your own type. When each of us explores our own unconscious patterns, core beliefs, coping strategies and path of development, we begin to discover how our personality, or type structure, limits our experience.

Core Faculty Member Renée Rosario often says, “You have a personality, but you are more than your personality.”

Throughout our site, we offer many tools, resources and programs to help you with this exploration and invite you back to your true self.

9 enneagram types labeled
enneagram symbol with 9 types

The Enneagram Diagram

Stemming from the Greek words ‘ennea’ (nine) and ‘grammos’ (a written symbol), the nine-pointed Enneagram symbol represents nine distinct strategies for relating to the self, others and the world.

A dynamic system: The diagram itself reveals the depth and power of the Enneagram. The points on the circle and the connecting lines indicate the patterns or pathways that each personality type tends to follow.

We divide the symbol into three parts to show the three centers of intelligence – head (5-6-7), heart (2-3-4) and body (8-9-1). Each Enneagram type has a home base in one of these centers that shapes our way of being in the world.

The Narrative Enneagram

There’s no better way to learn about the Enneagram than through listening to representatives of each personality type share their personal stories, struggles and strengths. The Narrative Enneagram brings the Enneagram alive through videos on this website and our unique method of panel interviews in in-person and online programs

The Narrative Enneagram focuses on these three important aspects of personal development: psychological, spiritual and somatic. Using the Enneagram as a map in all these areas increases the effectiveness of personal growth work.

Learn More

  • Discover Your Type

    Explore our step-by-step process for identifying and working with your Enneagram type.

  • Three Centers of Intelligence

    Learn how each Enneagram type’s home base – head, heart or body – shapes our way of being in the world.

  • Tour the Nine Enneagram Types

    A great place to start. In the Narrative Enneagram, we learn about the types as they share about their lived experience.

  • Type Comparisons

    Discover similarities and differences among all of the types, and see how motivations are quite different even when two types may demonstrate similar behavior.

  • Instincts and Subtypes

    Explore the 27 subtypes, three instinctual variations for each of the nine types – self-preservation, social, and one-to-one – each with its own distinctive flavor.

  • Common Enneagram Questions

    Find the answers to such questions as: How can people of the same type be so different? How important are subtypes? Do people ever change their type?