Podcast - Episode 0385 - Combining Enneagram And Myers-Briggs® (with Dr. Beatrice Chestnut)

33 comments

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  • Sue Lamb
  • June 4, 2021 at 1:47 am

  I always come out as a 5 any time I have done the Enneagram over my 63 years. I definitely agree with the Ni discussion as related to “5s or 7s”. I am an IFJ and yes, my Ti 10-year-old DOES follow the observations Antonia has made. It’s cool to have already become sure of both my MBTI and Enneagram profiles, and to now be part of this discussion without worrying that I am superimposing a preferred profile I am hoping to be. I appreciate both Personality Hacker and my exciting new resource in Ms. Chestnut! I have to wonder if that name, and the metaphors often associated with it aren’t perhaps an interesting synchrony?

  Sue

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  • Matt
  • June 3, 2021 at 12:46 pm

  As someone who is a 5w4 INFJ, that is an interesting breakdown of the numbers going to each type. The wings certainly can play a factor in how people work with the system (i.e. – I am very much inverted intuition and drift into inverted thinking. I detest introverted feeling).

  I know it often can confuse people when they look at the enneagram, but you always have to consider the wings as well.

  Good stuff though!

• 

  • Alisha Mitchell
  • June 2, 2021 at 12:39 am

  I was excited to see this podcast since I recently had a thought about the relationship between my enneagram type and MBTI type that made me a bit more confident in my types.

  NOTE: It was a long thought process I went over, and I even tried to cut it down, but keep things that seemed important, so this ended up pretty much an essay—-
  I believe I’m an INFJ 9w1. For both of them, I feel like a lot of things resonated really well, but then a few things that seemed like very important things didn’t.

  For the INFJ, my biggest problem was that I didn’t feel like certain Ni aspects fit, even though it would be my driver/dominant. I’m confident in being an IxFJ. I really felt Ni when it came to things like pattern recognition and looking into meanings. But, a big piece seems to be this ability to have near-clairvoyant moments (at least occasionally) that are almost always described with a level of confidence in them. Like INFJs have things that they KNOW will happen. And I didn’t really feel that. I like to consider what may happen and try to help positive outcomes, but I tend to worry if I try to guess what happens. I often don’t have the confidence to assume a lot of things (I can ask a lot of questions about details at work) because I’m always pretty sure I don’t know all of the information. I can imagine the outcome being okay, but I can also imagine that there’s some detail that I don’t know or I’m forgetting that could make my decision look completely stupid.

  As for Si, I didn’t really resonate with much. Almost everything I relate to Si are things that I don’t really care much for. Traditions, rules, standards and loyalty (in the “ride-or-die”/“I’d hide a body for you” sense) are all things that I don’t inherently care for. It’s not that I’m particularly against them, but I need to see meaning to actually care for them.
  Also, even though Si isn’t necessarily about having a good memory, I’m sure it has some relation. Si values memories and past experiences, and it’s still a sensing function, so it still connects to the senses to reference them. Si seems like it would have a lot of memories, and remember vividly. Other mental and biological issues could affect it, but I don’t think there’s any defectiveness in my lack of memory. I’m just not usually in the moment. Very few memories I have feel sensory, if that makes sense. I feel like I make notes on memories, and “remembering” is essentially recreating the memory with my notes. Some of my childhood memories, I’m not even sure are authentic in how I see them. Like, it’s probably more of a mix between what my parents said happened, some picture I saw, and my imagination making the movie.

  That said, I tend to feel like I’m INFJ by process of elimination. Like every time I hear someone say “INFJs are often mistyped INFPs, ENFJs, ISTJs, etc.” I have to look into them again and MAKE SURE I’m my type.

  On the Enneagram side, it’s similar. I feel like the 9 resonates with me most. The core desire of peace, the “super power” of seeing all sides, the stress/growth arrows, feeling like I don’t know myself, having a separation between “Feeling/Thinking” and “Doing”, etc. But other things that seem important don’t fit well.
  The core fear (loss and separation) didn’t really resonate with me. I don’t fully agree with the “ignored anger” (except for with people; I’m frustrated until I can take time to see their side, then I have trouble being okay with staying angry.) There also tends to be a piece of “You don’t matter,” that I don’t agree with. I don’t feel I have “low” self-esteem or that I’m less than others, but equal. At the same time, I felt that putting someone else’s needs sometimes is a kind and caring thing to do. In action, though, I am usually happy to give to others, but need assured that they’re not inconvenienced when they offer to help me. I don’t think that I’m less than others, but I operate like I do.
  I also don’t truly resonate with any of the three subtypes. In every description I read, I agree with maybe half of each instinct. And even comparing it to the cognitive functions, I feel like I only resonate with the “inferior Se” side of SP9 (indulging in eating, sleeping; lack of deep feelings and ambitions). I think every description I’ve read also emphasizes that they don’t care much for the abstract, which isn’t me at all. I feel like I am drawn to routines and value them in theory, but I can never really stick to them. I either forget them or procrastinate on them after only a day or two.
  The SO9 is probably completely just high Fe for me. I don’t really desire to be part of the group. I just want other people to feel cared for. I’m nice, and have a habit of dropping my tasks to help others when asked, but it’s often because I feel like it’s a better use of my time, especially if I don’t put high value on my work (looking at any Te tasks).
  The SX9 is much like the SO9. I’m generally nice and unassertive (and I think some descriptions mention being more imaginative and dreamy). I don’t feel like I really “merge” with people so much, although I can be impressionable in some mannerisms. But, I feel like what I do connect to could just be contributed to Ni.

  In addition to all that, I know that for both typologies, the descriptions aren’t going to be completely accurate. So, on one side, I’m okay with some discrepancies, but the discrepancies that I see feel big enough to be potential mistyping, and I’m not sure what I’m reading into.

  In Riso & Hudson’s “Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery” book, they had a table with Jungian Correlations. They had the Nine corresponding to the Introverted Sensation type. I read that a while ago and it wasn’t until a few days ago that I considered the possibility that it could be why I’d be confused, and that it was probably more likely that I’m an INFJ 9. Odds are, if my MBTI type was Si dominant AND my Enneagram type was correlated with Si, then Si would be more obvious and relevant to me.

  It makes sense to me that having an Si-correlated enneagram type could account for me not feeling as strong as I should be in my Ni (while Se is the the “complete” opposite, Ni as 1st function means that Si is 8th function). IIRC, there’s also a component of “validation” in Si (I can’t remember if it was ever stated, or if I assumed it because experts are valued), and I felt like the fact that I’ve been really interested in ways to conclusively prove type* and that I could never fully trust that I typed myself correctly was a big push for being ISFJ over INFJ on it’s own.

  But, when trying to merge them and imagining them interacting, instead of dividing my traits between them, it makes sense to me that as a 9, who “falls asleep” to their wants, desires, etc, I wouldn’t have confidence in it. I’m aware that I don’t really know myself. I’m aware even people that are even more self-aware than I am tend to judge themselves inaccurately. I’m aware that my answer is based only on what I know and understand, and so it’s not using “expert-level” knowledge of either typology. So, even though I’ve thought it through and feel like I’ve got the right type, there are so many ways where I could be wrong.

  Then, I also realized that this is a thought process that happens a lot for me, and wondered if the future-predicting element if Ni wasn’t this feeling that goes beyond a person’s natural level of confidence, and it went into a whole tangent of “lack of confidence” vs “disinterest”. Essentially, I considered the idea that if I “didn’t want to do something” simply because I didn’t have the confidence to do it, that doesn’t actually mean I didn’t want to do it—I just didn’t want the risk that came with it. And maybe I don’t know what I want to do in life because if I’m not confident enough to do it, I immediately translate that to “I don’t want to”.
  In that case, the lack of skill in that area of Ni would be explained in that I try to make predictions, and then consider all of the factors that I know that I’m missing, and I cut myself off from trying to predict it, especially if I need to take an action that I can imagine will cause even a minor conflict (even just them thinking “Why would she do that?!”)

  *Like Dr. Nardi’s brain scans evidencing (if not actually proving) that we have definitive driver functions is super exciting to me.

  Separate note about cognitive functions compared to enneagram types, I was curious about a few things:
  (1) I though it was an interesting—and possibly a testament to how things can correlate in only one way—that, unless I missed it, the enneagram 9 and Ni weren’t really put together. I definitely notice a lot of differences, but it seems like a huge marker for both (the 9’s “super power”, and the Ni’s nick-namesake) is the ability to see from all sides. I believe people say 5’s also have that ability, but from a more analytic standpoint. Surface-level, it feels like INFJ 9s and INTJ 5s would be could either happen a lot, or just be really good at the “Perspectives” (maybe not the full Ni and just that piece of it)

  (2) Another enneagram 9 question—they say that INFP 9s are very common. Does the dominant Fi and “forgetting self” merge in an interesting way? I’m sure knowing yourself is more than just being in touch with your feelings, but as someone who’s not great at that, I’m curious as to what that means.

  (3) I haven’t been able to find much on people talking about Riso & Hudson’s correlations. (Granted, I tried “Riso Hudson function correlations” and didn’t get much, then I was searching for “Wisdom of the Enneagram” before realizing that wasn’t the audiobook I had. And when talking about Enneagram and MBTI correlations, the book name “Personality Types” is much less search-refining.)
  I noticed that you guys had some different correlations (and the book had a few odd ones). I wanted to hear your opinions/analysis/understanding of it, and if you already know, was curious if it’s considered “outdated”—that either they didn’t have much info when doing it, or the understanding of functions have changed, etc.

  For quick reference they had:
  One – Extroverted Thinking
  Two – Extraverted Feeling
  Three – Not compared to any
  Four – Introverted Intuition
  Five – Introverted Thinking
  Six – Introverted Feeling
  Seven – Extraverted Sensation
  Eight – Extroverted Intuition
  Nine – Introverted Sensation

• 

  • William (ISFJ)
  • June 3, 2021 at 11:51 pm

  Hello Melissa,

  This answer to your question is one from someone who is somewhat knowledgeable, but by no means an expert, on both models, so please take this as one person’s perspective rather than actual fact.

  As for whether the first is a Ni/Ti loop, I personally don’t think so. I would say that it is probably because of the placement of your Fi function in your stack. ISFJs such as myself have Fi as the 6th function as well as INFJs like you, and I have heard from other ISFJs that prioritizing can be difficult, because they are somewhat lacking in both the Te quality of prioritizing by “Effectiveness” and the Fi quality of prioritizing by “Authenticity.” I struggle with this myself. Would you say that you would find “measurable results” if you took the time to figure out what just feels right to you as a person, and then took that and found the most effective way to bring that about?

  As for whether or not the second is a boundary issue with Fe, I would agree. As an ISFJ, who also uses “Harmony” as a co-pilot, I certainly struggle with basically the same thing. I’ve never heard that quote before, but it does really click with some of places I let myself fall into. I would also say that it probably has to do a bit with your Enneagram type. One big motivator to people with the 9 type tends to be getting in harmony with the world around them. This sometimes results in an issue of being too much of a people-pleaser. This is one of those things that they mentioned in the podcast; often, the stuff that would be helpful to work on based on your Enneagram fits somewhere in your Myers-Briggs type. I would say that this is one of those.

  Personality Hacker has a lot of info on setting boundaries for different types, especially IxFJs. If you’re interested, I’d recommend checking some of it out!

  I’m going to restate what I said at the beginning: this is 1) from someone who is not an expert authority on this topic, and 2) from someone who can’t completely know where you’re coming from. I hope I was helpful, but if I wasn’t, please feel free to pass over anything that doesn’t seem to click.

  Sincerely,
  William

• 

  • Matt
  • June 3, 2021 at 12:42 pm

  As someone who is a 5w4 and an INFJ, I can say this: The 7 and 8 is what they usually call the “unhealthy” or “healthy” side of the 5, or the “regression” and “progression” side. In all things, I am always going to drift to the analytical, but in order to be more growth oriented, it is going to look more like an 8. If I am being more pessimistic, then I am going to be more like a 7. This doesn’t mean that I am those numbers, but I will have characteristics of those said numbers.

  You also have to look at the wings (w) that tell you what else can influence you. A 5 will have a 4 and a 6 influence their behavior. You’ll often see that you can drift from wing to wing, but in general people have a dominant wing and a weaker wing.

  All in all, it can get complicated, but as long as you get the base of your number down (what is your core motivation), then you can find the outlying systems later.