The Enneagram in Context: Understanding Strain

6 April 2011

By Lucille Greeff

The Enneagram is a resonant model that connects individuals to their individual fears and motivations. The way in which individuals resonate with their Main Ennea Type, will however fluctuate over time and as their life circumstances change. It is an open systems typology. This means that the boundaries between one type and the next is permeable and open rather than fixed or closed. The different aspects of the Enneagram speak to each other and the Enneagram speaks with the broader context an individual lives and works in. This makes it impossible to use the Enneagram to “box” people. Once one starts understanding the multiple facets and depth of the Enneagram, its open systems nature becomes more evident.

There are three levels at which context is important when interpreting and working with any Enneagram profile. Firstly, one needs to consider the societal context within which an individual operates and the broader influence this has on their fears and motivations. Although the Enneagram has global and cross-cultural applicability, the environment an individual operates in will impact significantly on their profile.

As an example, an individual in Libya during March 2011 will be experiencing a huge amount of fear around personal safety and survival due to military conflicts aimed at overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Even though this will not change the archetypal orientation of individuals, it will increase the awareness around a lot of the Enneagram 6 fears and may enhance the way in which individuals and the broader Libyan society resonate with this type. Likewise, disasters that draw a community closer together in its time of need, as can be seen in parts of Japan affected by the tsunami that hit it in March 2011, may increase the resonance with Ennea 2 aspects around empathy, care and consideration for others while simultaneously also activating Ennea 3 behaviour that enables immediate action to start the process of rebuilding.

The nature and values of the national culture of any country, as conceptualised by Geert Hofstede, will also impact on the resonance of the different Ennea types within that culture. Aspects such as power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity within a culture will therefore enhance certain points on the Enneagram.

In considering context, the life circumstances and amount of stress an individual is experiencing at any given point in time will not only impact on the way in which they resonate with the Enneagram, but also in the access they have to the higher levels of integration. At a higher level of stress one may well find that some people are driven more directly by their core fears. Another individual may use times of high strain to overcome and resolve some of their core fears.