Enneagram 101: Enneagram Triadic Styles

by Rev. Rhonda Abbott Blevins, DMIN

Author’s note: This article is part of a series entitled “Enneagram 101.”

Previous Post: “Enneagram Wings”

In a previous article, I introduced the three centers of intelligence within the Enneagram of personality: the body or instinctive or gut center (types 8, 9 and 1), the heart or feeling center (types 2, 3, and 4), and the head or thinking center (types 5, 6, and 7). Your core personality will fall within one of these centers. For example, Type 6 anchors the head center, Type 3 the body center, Type 9 the heart center.

Whatever your dominant personality center, you also engage with the other two centers as well. This way you relate to the three centers is your “Triadic Style,” sometimes called your “TriType” (a phrase coined by Katherine Fauvre.) For example, someone whose core personality is in the heart center, can access the thinking center and the body center as well.

To help explain this concept, let’s consider someone who fixates at Type 2 and exhibits a dominant 1 wing (2w1). This person’s core personality is within the heart or feeling center. The same individual also resonates with Type 7 in the head or thinking center. And we already established that there is a dominant 1 wing, so this person has many qualities of a Type 1. The triadic style for this individual, then, is 2-7-1.

Here’s another example. Consider someone who fixates at Type 6, in the head or thinking center. This person resonates with Type 9 in the body or instinctive center and with Type 2 in the heart or feeling center. The triadic style, then, is 6-9-2.

These connections to all three centers of intelligence may explain the uncomfortable feeling we have when we are triggered or confused: our head might be telling us one thing, our heart another, and our gut something completely different.

Try this brief exercise. . .

• STEP 1: Consider your core personality, or your best thinking at this point in time.

• STEP 2: Think about the center of intelligence in which your core personality resides, whether body (types 8, 9 and 1), heart (types 2, 3 and 4), or head (types 5, 6 and 7).

• STEP 4: Move clockwise around the Enneagram’s outer circle to the next center of intelligence, consider the three personality types there, and determine which of those three personality types most resonates with you.

• STEP 5: Move around the Enneagram once again to the third center, and identify which of the three personality types in that center seems most like you.

• STEP 6: Now remember the three numbers: your core personality first, moving clockwise—the personality from within that center, and clockwise again—the personality from that center. You should have three numbers, representing your triadic style or “tritype.”

I’ll share my triadic style as one more example. My core personality is 7, in the head center. Moving clockwise, I also resonate with 8 (my dominant wing) in the body center. Clockwise again to the heart center where I resonate with Type 4. So my Triadic Style is 7-8-4.

As you can see, there are many variations within each personality type. My 7-8-4 personality will be quite different than another Type 7 with a 7-1-2 triadic style.

What’s your triadic style? How do you see the three centers working in your life?

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