Discovering the Enneagram
This book describes a model for analysing human life in which self-knowledge is only a partial solution to an understanding of ourselves. The Enneagram typology is an old method that describes nine different characters. It shares with other typologies the crude reduction of human behaviour to a limited number of character types. Each of the nine types is defined as a need: to be perfect, to be needed, to succeed, to be special, to perceive, to have security, to avoid pain, to be against, and to avoid. An understanding of these nine types of humans is seen as the basis for accumulating self-knowledge, and identifying our compulsions and weaknesses. Includes notes and an index. Text originally published in Germany in 1989.