Walking across a movie theater foyer, I heard, “There’s the woman who saved my life.” Looking for an EMT-type person and seeing no one on the ground level, my eyes rose up to see a woman descending the escalator, pointing at me.

Not all individual clients are so dramatically touched by the discovery of their innate Enneagram temperament. The woman on the escalator was not a client but had attended one of my Enneagram Seminars with a friend. Finding her Enneagram 4 Individualist style allowed her to change, “my whole wardrobe,” she told me. “I always dressed for my family, and now I wear purple, black, dramatic colors and feel like Me.”

Most people unfamiliar with the Enneagram attribute their quirkiness or difference from others as negative. Discovering that we are all born with certain attributes, both as gifts and burdens, can free many individuals from feelings of guilt and shame. An Enneagram 8’s take-charge stance can push people away by always taking over conversations, leadership, and other areas. Learning to recognize this trait as a gift to be used wisely is a boon to that powerful temperament style. Likewise, an Enneagram 2, who is sensitive to the emotions of others, can learn that apologizing repeatedly is not necessary and may even be annoying.

More than helping individual clients to understand their gifts and burdens, knowing the Enneagram helps a therapist to anticipate a client’s issues. An Enneagram 3 Achiever client will not suffer from inaction and may have blown through several intimate relationships due to a lack of attention to the other person. An Enneagram-informed therapist can help the Self-Starting 3 client to understand how her projects interfere with relationship building, encouraging more balance in her life.

An Enneagram 5 client will not want to crowd her life with many activities, but her sister, an Enneagram 7, will bemoan the stay-at-home attitude. A Contemplative 5 client can be shown by an Enneagram-wise therapist how to make room in her life for her Adventurous Enneagram 7 sister without overcrowding her pensive life.

Enneagram understandings can be instrumental in moving therapy forward during the first therapy sessions, as the client is in the discovery phase and the therapist is learning the underlying issues. Later, knowledge of temperaments becomes a tool for clients to understand others in their lives.

The Enneagram is complex, not merely one set of attributes, but other propensities are available in connections around the Enneagram circle. In the classes offered here, you can learn more about the Mandala Triads and Triangles, which show the way to a more wholesome life for each style.