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In this episode, Joel and Antonia chat with enneagram expert Dr. Beatrice Chestnut about her experience with Myers-Briggs® at the Personality Hacker Profiler Training live event.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Guest host Dr. Beatrice Chestnut joins.
- Beatrice’s experiences as an Enneagram expert diving deeper into Myers-Briggs® at our Profiler Training live event.
- How does Beatrice initially think the two systems may correspond?
- The complexities of matching up the two systems – and why this isn’t simply a 1-1 correlation.
- What was it like for Beatrice to be profiled live on stage?
- The additional insight Beatrice gained through understanding her Myers-Briggs® type at a deeper level.
- What are some more challenges of merging the two systems?
- How do some of the enneagram types initially seem to match up with the cognitive function descriptions?
- The correspondences Joel and Antonia have found between their Myers-Briggs® and Enneagram types.
- Why is it possible that the two systems match up more closely in their “prescription” than in their “description”?
- How the instinctual variations of the Enneagram types bring additional nuance.
- Diving deeper into how the systems align – plus how the functions lower in our stack could align with our Enneagram type.
- A note on finding growth paths – the power of discovering your type in both systems.
- Find Dr. Beatrice Chestnut at https://cpenneagram.com
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33 comments
I loved this conversation and it really reminded me of when I found my enneagram type. I had known my Myers Briggs type for a couple years (INTP), and found my enneagram type pretty quickly.
The funny thing is, despite the fact that INTP and 9 don’t have the strongest correlation, I found myself thinking that the descriptions I was reading for type 9 sounded the same to me as several function-based INTP descriptions. What stuck out to me were my strengths and weaknesses—such as conflict avoidance. The things that stuck out in both descriptions and resonated most strongly for me were, as you put it, my growth path—and it was the same in both.
Very interesting to hear you articulate it that way!
The correlations between MBTI and the Enneagram are well-known and well-studied. The reality is that many people mis-type in the Enneagram. Women want to be 2’s, men want to be 8’s, etc. See https://www.typologycentral.com/wiki/index.php/Enneagram_and_MBTI_Correlation
and many other sources.
From listening to the podcast, I would surmise that Beatrice may actually be a self-pres 6 rather than a 2, and Uranio a social 7 rather than a social 5. 2’s are rarely Perceivers and 5’s VERY rarely Extroverts.
Hi a friend of mine is Enneagram certified by Beatrice’s program and so we’ve geeked out together a lot around that. Someone sent me your podcast recently and now I’m doing the same over this personality profiling and want to take the next training you offer. :)
Anyway.. for research’s sake.. my friend is a 7 so/sx and an ENFP. I’m a 5 sx/sp and an INTP (although I’ve tested INTJ as well in the past).
Anyway.. for research’s sake.. my friend is a 7 so/sx and an ENFP. I’m a 5 sx/sp and an INTP (although I’ve tested INTJ as well in the past).I know two other female 5’s .. one is INTP and the other is INTJ. My Enneagram 5 group on FB took an informal poll and there were more INTx than any other Myers-Briggs types.
Anyway.. for research’s sake.. my friend is a 7 so/sx and an ENFP. I’m a 5 sx/sp and an INTP (although I’ve tested INTJ as well in the past).I know two other female 5’s .. one is INTP and the other is INTJ. My Enneagram 5 group on FB took an informal poll and there were more INTx than any other Myers-Briggs types.Another mutual friend is 8 sx/so and an ENTJ.
Anyway.. for research’s sake.. my friend is a 7 so/sx and an ENFP. I’m a 5 sx/sp and an INTP (although I’ve tested INTJ as well in the past).I know two other female 5’s .. one is INTP and the other is INTJ. My Enneagram 5 group on FB took an informal poll and there were more INTx than any other Myers-Briggs types.Another mutual friend is 8 sx/so and an ENTJ.My partner is a 9 so/sp and an ESFJ.
Anyway.. for research’s sake.. my friend is a 7 so/sx and an ENFP. I’m a 5 sx/sp and an INTP (although I’ve tested INTJ as well in the past).I know two other female 5’s .. one is INTP and the other is INTJ. My Enneagram 5 group on FB took an informal poll and there were more INTx than any other Myers-Briggs types.Another mutual friend is 8 sx/so and an ENTJ.My partner is a 9 so/sp and an ESFJ.Love the dynamics of both systems and think if there was a way to combine them that would be amazing… but appreciate them independently as is.
I really do hope you keep pursuing a map or other model of how the MBTI & Ennegram can work together for personal growth. I have been quite interested in the Ennegram since first hearing one of your earlier podcasts about it, but I struggle to figure out where I fit in it. I think some of the ideas you discussed in this podcast could help with that as they get further fleshed out and ground truthed.
I have gotten pretty confident in my ISTP type being the right one as I have learned more about how the cognitive functions work. Initially I tested as a couple different types when I ran through several online tests and felt like a couple of the different descriptions fit different aspects of my life but viewing it from the car model perspective and how the different cognitive functions work in the different positions, I have come to see how does fit ISTP me and how I judge and perceive the world as well as how my tertiary and inferior functions fits into the puzzle as well (and even the 5th through 8th functions too). It explains quite a lot.
The Ennegram has given me a lot more trouble figuring out what my best fit type might be even though I have read through a number of books on it including Dr. Chestnut’s big one (the Complete Ennegram). I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on how the system itself works, at least from an amateur’s perspective but still am not sure what type I actually am. I had been wanting to try out the Ennegram Roadmap course you offer but think that may be a little premature right now as I am not sure more material on the system will be all that useful for personal growth when I am still not sure what my starting point is.
It may be the descriptions of the types that are hanging me up, which is where I am thinking that some way to tie them to the cognitive functions would be handy. Not in a one to one fashion of saying that if you use these functions in these positions you are most likely this Ennegram type…I agree that this would be a much too superficial way of looking at both systems and would be unlikely to have a good correlation. But perhaps a way as you were suggesting to check via growth paths or aspects that are common to both systems that you are at least on the right track figuring out a best fit type. Given the emphasis that Ennegram puts on childhood trauma/wounding for developing your personality and that even with the same MBTI stacks. different Ennegram types are very likely to evolve due to the infinite number of different personal experiences everyone has but I would be very interested to see what sort of patterns are more likely to evolve.
Josette mentioned an idea that cognitive loops might be something that informs ones coping skills which seems like it could play a big role in developing ones Ennegram type and that seems like it could be a very good potential entry point to tying the systems together.
So far, I do think I likely am probably a self-preservation variant of whichever type I am as that piece did resonate. I am also pretty confident that I am not one of the heart types. A five or seven seem the most likely matches though I can also see aspects of the 8, 1 & 6 in me at times as well. I know most of the material says that there are at least some aspects of each type in all of us but they also say people don’t change types through life and one of them is suppose to resonate a lot more strongly with you than the others do.
Being an Ti primary with a Ni tertiary an Ennegram 5 seems like the most obvious choice as the its description is very much the stereotypical introverted thinker type and also strongly has the introverted intuition getting stuck in your head aspect to it as well. While, I do resonate with the need to conserve a finite energy store by avoid social interactions and commitments that I know will suck resources away, there are a number of the other parts of the 5 type that don’t fit as well. If the Ennegram type 7 was not so strongly written for extroverts I would easily say it was the right fit for me. The physical parts of the type, wanting a lot of new and different sensory experiences and the freedom to go out and do things when I want to without being tied to commitments of others all resonate very strongly. Though the extroverted social interaction pieces don’t fit at all which are the core of most 7 type descriptions.
For the other maybe types. The not wanting to be vulnerable part of the 8 definitely fits me though not necessarily the most common ways that the 8 is described as trying to accomplish that. The perfectionism streak of the 1 makes me consider that type as well though as I learn more about being an ISTP, I think it is probably more a matter of equating competence to having value and a taught trait more than an inherent one. That just being competent isn’t enough, you need to be the best at something or at least extremely competent at it to gain worth from that skill. The 6 aspects of problem solving and contingency planning (figuring out where things might fail so you can respond to them when they do) is probably either a wing of either the 5 or 7, a Ni ten year old tendency or likely both.
So testing out the primary/tertiary cognitive loop (Ti & Ni for me) may inform your Ennegram type theory and that the path of growth for both systems can end up being the same then maybe 5 is the right answer. The times when I do get stuck in a Ti/Ni loop is when I do most resemble the Ennegram type 5 description and my MBTI path of growth is to use Se more which definitely resembles the parts of 7 I most identify with and 7 is suppose to be the growth path for 5, at least the way that Dr. Chestnut describes with integration/disintegration arrows of the Ennegram (which makes the most sense to me of the various explanations of the system that I have read). It also would make sense that I would stumbled on some of the weaknesses/limitations of the type 7 along the way too…that even though it is suppose to be the path of growth, I wouldn’t have necessarily always defaulted to the higher levels of the type. Also, with 8 being the other point connected to 5, the desire to avoid vulnerability especially when stressed or feeling uncertain of myself or my place in a group would make sense. It is interestingly, most often triggered by Fe (my inferior function) related things and probably also made worse at time by trying to over use Ni (tertiary) techniques to understand and do better at Fe things without as much say from my primary & secondary functions as I should be applying.
I’m very wary of trying to tie up mbti and enneagram because I believe we’re only going to perpetuate the stereotypes rather than to fully embrace the nuance of the 27 subtypes, sequencing, wings, level of awareness etc.
For instance, how do you explain that I am a SO8/INFJ? And, the most famous example of a SO8/INFJ is MLK, and some would say Mother Teresa as well. I find in my experience, it is actually quite often the case that SO8 can be INFJ or ENFJ – with dominant introverted intuition or extroverted feeling – as an 8. Which does not seem to be mentioned on this podcast. So, unless you are very careful and begin to incorporate the effect of countertypes and instincts into the equation, I think this will be a recipe for a lot of misinformation.
Truthfully, I have already had clients walk away from these tools because they have read too much of this kind of bias. I appreciate the high level conversation but it really can be damaging to the Integrity of both tools. i have been trying very hard to teach people that the stereotyping is harmful, and not to believe what they read, but I’m thinking if we now try to put everyone back into a box, I may need to throw both systems away.