Enneagram training in Portland.

The Enneagram is a personality framework that maps human character into nine interconnected types, each defined by a specific motivational pattern, characteristic strengths and limitations, and a set of healthy and unhealthy expressions. The model also includes wings (the influence of the two adjacent types), instinctual variants (self-preservation, social, sexual), and levels of development (from healthy expression to unhealthy expression within a single type).

What sets the Enneagram apart from most personality frameworks (MBTI, DISC, Big Five) is its depth and developmental structure. Where MBTI tells you what your type is, the Enneagram tells you what your type is, what motivates it, what it does in stress, what it does in growth, what it looks like at its healthiest, and what it looks like when it is struggling. This developmental quality makes it particularly useful for coaches, leaders, and team facilitators — but it also makes it harder to use well. The Enneagram is unusually easy to misuse with quick online tests that flatten people into stereotypes.