You don’t have to search far at all to see the effects of the Enneagram revolution. Instagram memes, Christian blogs, and best-seller booklists are all Enneagram-obsessed, and have been since the release of The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile.
For context, The Road Back to You is basically the Holy Scripture of Enneagram study. It argues, building off of ages-old research and practices, that there are only 9 basic personality types that humans fit into. Sounds simple, right?
It isn’t.
The Enneagram has many layers, and to a newcomer these layers can seem paralyzingly complex. After attempting to digest the hyper-specific—yet shockingly insightful—descriptions of each basic personality type, you have to start studying wings, triads, stress/health tendencies, subtypes, etc. Each aspect seems like an unnecessary addition until you discover how you fit in to it—and then you wonder how you ever functioned without it.
That is the main appeal of the Enneagram: its ability to reveal all of the hidden, confusing, problematic, and beautiful aspects of your personality. Cron and Stabile write in The Road Back to You, “[The Enneagram] has to do with self-knowledge. Most folks assume they understand who they are when they don’t… They’re asleep” (14).
In other words, we’re all dozing off in regard to our deepest selves, and the Enneagram is the alarm clock you never really knew you needed.
This is exactly what hooked me on the Enneagram during my sophomore year of college. As an anxious, exhausted, self-loathing college student, I was desperate to understand what I was missing about my own personality. After hearing vague yet enthusiastic descriptions of the Enneagram at a Bible study, my curiosity was insatiable. People were saying that the Enneagram “changed my life” or “transformed my marriage” or “brought me closer to Jesus in the most gritty but precious way.” Essentially, it seemed like the answer that I, a confused and angsty student from a tiny southern town, was seeking.
The first problem that I stumbled across is that you can’t really take an Enneagram test to determine your number. Instead, you have to do a deep-dive into all of the numbers and start playing an elimination game. “I love being alone and thinking, so maybe I’m a 5. But I also hate conflict more than anything, so maybe I’m a 9. I know I’m not a 4 or an 8…” On and on it goes, until you finally settle on your number.
This is precisely why the Enneagram is described as a “journey”—because it takes time. Time that I did not have and also did not want to invest. I’m a problem solver; I like simple, easy, and quick solutions to any and all problems.
The Enneagram? Not simple, easy, or quick.
The second problem is that The Road Back to You retailed around $22.00 at the time. I was supporting myself financially and struggling to eat, so buying this magical book for myself was just not an option. The libraries had this book on hold for months, as did all of my friends who graciously said, “You can borrow it! But first I have to get it back from this person who lent it to this person, who lent it to this person…” You get the idea.
Only after finally getting my hands on a copy of The Road Back to You did I realize that I am through-and-through an Enneagram 1.
This discovery transformed my interest from a casual curiosity into a full-blown obsession. I was typing all of my friends, typing fictional characters, attending Enneagram workshops in trendy boutiques and churches in Greenville, searching ceaselessly for the best Enneagram meme accounts, listening to all of the most insightful Enneagram podcasts, rolling my eyes and quickly correcting anyone who said they were a 6 wing 2, etc.
I quickly became known in my circles as an “Enneagram person”—and I loved it. I could answer other people’s questions about the Enneagram, point them to the most thorough resources, and even send them links to the cutest Enneagram mugs on Esty.
In short, the Enneagram was becoming my perspective on the world. Every morning I woke up, took a deep breath, looked out my apartment window at the blazing sun rising in the parking lot, and instinctually put on my Enneagram goggles, ready to see myself and the people around me strictly in terms of this intricate and profound system that I’d fallen in love with.
What could go wrong?
The Enneagram is advertised to be a tool for self-discovery and self-knowledge. As stated earlier, it is designed primarily for personal growth. However, it also has a secondary use: interpersonal growth.
To be quite honest, after a few months of my ceaseless obsession with the Enneagram I got… bored. Not with the system itself, but with me. With how I interact with my number, how my 2 wing came out when I cleaned the apartment or listened to friends crying, how my self-preservation subtype explained my entire childhood of rationing my energy, time, and resources out of a fear that, if I wasn’t careful, they would one day run out.
Essentially, I became so “familiar” with myself that I became exhausted with myself. So, naturally, I started turning my focus outward—towards other people. I have always had an insatiable curiosity to know exactly what makes people tick. Echoing Suzanne Stabile in The Path Between Us, “Quite frankly, I find other people fascinating and I like them… At the same time, every person I know is a mystery to me” (3).
And I, the high-achieving Enneagram 1, thought that I could crack the mystery. Thankfully, the people around me love me enough to openly rebuke me.
One Friday night in October, I was having dinner with my sister-in-law, Angie, at Chipotle in Clemson. The streetlights were starting to flicker on downtown, and shadows were growing long in the street between Chipotle and Moe’s (the main culinary rivals of the town, as any resident can tell you).
As we munched on our burrito bowls and fought over the last bits of guac, I made a joke about Angie’s Enneagram number. I genuinely do not remember what I said, which I think is probably the grace of God. However, I remember her reaction with remarkable clarity. She looked me straight in the eye and sternly said:
“Jahanna, do you just see people as numbers?”
It stung. I didn’t know what to say, because my first thought was, “Yes. I really do.”
The tool intended for deep connection was instead replaced with convenient categorization, and the result was a selfish satiation of my own curiosity. The Enneagram became dangerous for me—it allowed seemingly deep access into a person’s personality without necessarily taking the time to actually get to know them. Why lovingly invest in a person when you can just objectively and impersonally study them?
The tool intended for deep connection was instead replaced with convenient categorization, and the result was a selfish satiation of my own curiosity.
I thought I was happy living in this world—thinking that I knew everyone more than I actually knew them because of this powerful tool that I was misusing. I was avoiding real vulnerability in my friendships; side-stepping true empathy in the name of the Enneagram.
For most people, the appeal of the Enneagram over other personality tests (like Myers-Briggs) is that the Enneagram adds a level of complexity to an individual’s motivations that Myers-Briggs misses. In short, many people think that Myers-Briggs is “too simplistic to measure personality,” according to Joe Carter. Anthony Zurcher even argues that Myers-Briggs “has about as much insight and validity as a Buzzfeed quiz.”
Instead of merely describing action, the Enneagram interprets and predicts motivation in a way that intensely humanizes the individual. It is a multi-layered perspective that allows us to see other people as intensely broken and beautiful. According to Katie Jo Ramsey, “Studying the Enneagram can create empathy in our relationships… Learning about the nine types can build appreciation for others’ perspectives and produce sensitivity toward the wounds and narratives that have contributed to their unique style of living.”
Angie’s comment slowly began to take root in my mind, and I realized in horror that I was using the Enneagram to ignore the true humanity in the people around me. I was subconsciously reducing them to mere automatons, functioning mechanically and predictably under the specific characteristics of their number, wing, subtype, etc. I was misusing the tool, wielding it for the opposite purpose for which it was created.
Thinking that I can instantly understand a person just because I know their “number” is evidence of self-assured pride, not top-notch analytical skills or an impressive body of knowledge on a complicated typing system.
In the end, I realized the Enneagram is a fantastic tool for self-analysis—but that’s all that it is.
So, for now, my path towards growth in the Enneagram looks not like total avoidance, but instead like careful moderation. According to Katie Jo Ramsey, “the Enneagram makes sanctification specific by giving us a roadmap where we most need God’s healing.”
Ironically, perhaps the sanctifying roadmap that the Enneagram is giving me is not actually found within my number, but without—perhaps it is found in the process of learning humility and grace first as a human and child of God.
Only then can I approach myself as broken—and other people as people.
Jahanna Schwab 