The Nine Types

The enneagram of personality sorts people into nine types arranged around a nine-pointed figure inscribed in a circle, with connecting lines indicating how each type moves toward another under stress and under security. Each type is defined by a core motivation, fear and desire (the Reformer, the Helper, the Achiever, the Individualist, and so on), and the lines and "wings" add nuance to the basic nine.

The figure itself was introduced to the West by G. I. Gurdjieff in the early twentieth century as a symbol of process, without the personality typology; the application to character was developed later, chiefly by Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo from the 1960s and 1970s.