Levels of Integration
What is the Level of Integration?
The Level of Integration, also known as Level of Development, refers to the degree of self-mastery individuals have been able to achieve thus far in their personal development journeys in life. This is a temporal measure and will fluctuate and change as people invest in their personal growth but also as your circumstances become more or less challenging. At a low level of integration, a lot of behaviour is driven by a core fear or reactiveness that relates to a person’s main Ennea Type. At a moderate level of integration this may have “eased” to a core concern that is less reactive, but that still drives and motivates behaviour to a large extent. At a high level of integration, there is often a component of “letting go” of core fears and concerns as people come to understand and move beyond the limitations of their main Ennea Type.
At a high level of integration, it becomes more difficult to accurately type through a static test. At a high level of integration one moves towards the centre of the Enneagram, which may moderate the core motivations, behaviours, themes and fears of an individual’s main Ennea type significantly. At a high level of integration, working with an Enneagram coach can help individuals identify their type should a test be unable to do so.
Some Enneagram models, like that of Riso and Hudson, make use of nine levels of integration from a development perspective. The Integrative Enneagram Questionnaire broadly measures self-mastery according to three levels rather than nine. Even though all people may, at their best, be able to access a high level of self-mastery while accessing low self-mastery at their worst, there is likely to be a concentration of energy and behaviour at a particular level of self-mastery at any given point in time. The current context and level of strain a person is experiencing in all the different areas of their life is therefore likely to impact on the Level of Integration they are able to express.
