The Enneagram in Love and Work: Understanding Your Intimate and Business Relationships

by Helen Palmer

Book Overview

New from Helen Palmer, a "leading teacher and practitioner of the Enneagram" (San Francisco Chronicle), the first Enneagram book to give practical advice, in fascinating detail, on how to have the best possible relationships in love and business.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062507214
• ISBN13: 9780062507211
• Release Date: December 1995
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

I was astounded...

I borrowed this book from an instructor who was teaching the Enneagram to a small group of interested people. When I read the chapter on 4's I was amazed at the accuracy of the personality "type" to my own. It felt as if a clinical psychologist had followed me though my emotional and traumatic years and recorded all of my triumphs and tribulations in a concise, analytical manner. Better still, it explained why my instincts to react were so different from those around me. I learned to see that people have very different motivations than my own which meant that I needed to realize that I could not change them but I could now appreciate why they saw things in other ways.As an added benefit I learned to understand (and accept) more about myself through Helen Palmer's book than I had through many years of professional psychogical therapy. Wish I had this knowledge 20 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of money.The sheer simplicity of the book lends itself to the everyday language in which it was written. There is none of the false pretentiousness present in many of the books that share similar self-help messages. However, it does not feel as if it were written to stoop to the lowest common denominator either.It should be noted that Palmer emphatically states that no-one should presume to "type" others as a method in which to judge what personality is most compatible to one's own purpose. As with any personality profiling there is the inevitable dilution of the original message that leads to generalizations and oversimplification.My personal assessment is that the book is an easy and fascinating read for anyone wishing to better understand human behavior and interactions. I highly and heartily recommend it.

Application of enneagram in work and love-interesting study

While many books on the Enneagram have been published, Helen Palmer has done one where the Enneagram is applied against the the dynamics of relationships and the workplace. Palmer first gives a synopsis of the nine types . However, she gives different names of the types, different from Riso, although the focus of attention each types corresponds to Riso's analysis. I've listed Palmer's designation, followed by Riso's, and on the whole, I like Palmer's designations better, with the capital vice and antidote to each type.1 Perfectionist, Reformer, anger, meekness2 Giver, Helper, pride, humility3 Performer, Motivator, [deceit], [truthfulness]4 Romantic, Individualist, envy, charity5 Observer, Investigator, avarice, poverty6 Trooper, Loyalist, [fear], [courage]7 Epicure, Enthusiast, gluttony, abstinence8 Boss, Leader, lust, chastity9 Mediator, Peacemaker, sloth, zealLike Riso, she covers George Gurdjieff, who pioneered the Enneagram in the West, but here's a fresh spin. She takes Dante's areas of Purgatory and Geoffrey Chaucer's virtue listed in The Parson's Tale. Each type is characterized by a certain passion, or a capital vice, and Chaucer's virtue is an antidote to that. The brackets above indicate that they are designations from Oscar Ichazo, who further developed the virtues. Palmer then uses Gurdjieff's centers of intelligence (mental, emotional, and body-based) to identify the focus of attention on each group. For a four, it's melancholy on the mental, envy on the emotional, and competition, shame, and recklessness on the body-based.Palmer then covers each type in terms of worldview, spiritual path, concerns, personality bias, subtype focus, focal issues, security and risk, intimacy, positive and negative signals, leadership style, conflicts, conflict resolution, employee participation, and team building. In particular, I like the brief sentences used to describe the worldview. In my case, a Type 4, it is "Something is missing. Others have it. I have been abandoned." The sense of shame on feeling unworthy proceeds from that feeling that something is missing.She does use Riso's dynamics for change in each group using the 142857 cycle. For example, a secure Type 4 shifts to a Type 1 on a positive, but an insecure Type 4 slides down to a Type 2.Finally, Palmer creates a directory of relationships, love and workplace, playing each type against each other, e.g. 1's with 5's, 4's with 8's, etc. However, she steps away from Keirsey's notion that one type is optimal with another type, i.e. Rationals with Idealists, stating, "It would be a mistake, therefore, to categorize types according to compatibility or incompatibility. Your best match in intimacy and team building is actually any psychologically mature person."As director of the Center for Enneagram Studies, and having written The Enneagram and The Pocket Enneagram, Helen Palmer is ideally placed to write this book.

Makes a great gift

Palmer's books remain the best in a growing field. Her grasp of the subject is head and shoulders above the rest, simply because she trusts the voices of her interviewees to speak their truth rather than draw conclusions about personalities based on observation and abstraction. This is my greatest contention with Riso. His books are too "orderly" about type... people just don't fall into such tidy categories in the real world. While I agree with other reviewers' critiques of her writing style, her grasp of the material is enormous and the insights on relationships - given the limited context of a book - are almost spooky. I've given a few copies of this book as a gift and had one couple report that the description of their types in the "Directory of Relationships" read like a psychologist's summary after meeting with them for a year. This section of the book is an ambitious undertaking by Palmer - pairing all the tupes and describing typical strengths, issues and characteristics of the combinations - and I found myself tantalized by her summaries, wanting more of her insights.On the whole, I believe this is her best book on the subject. Some have taken a more abstract approach (Riso), others a bit more humorous one (Baron & Wagele), but Palmer's treatment of a complex system like the Enneagram is thorough, serious, and yet remains accessible. I strongly recommend this title, especially as a gift to those new to the Enneagram.

Fast and complete!

This is the best enneagram book I've found. It's easy and fun to learn about yourself, your mate, and the people you work with. It's very helpful in every area of life by helping you understand what makes us who we are. It's perfect to help build teams at work, and making any relationship better.

Extremely helpful in understanding my significant others

I've read many books on the Enneagram, and I found this book to be very helpful in understanding my present and past significant others and coworkers. My significant other is a 9, and my boss is also a 9 - pure heaven for us 7's! This book indicated how I can keep enhancing these relationships, and what to watch out for so that the relationships do not deteriorate. This book is also enlightening regarding past love and work relationships. I made a lot of mistakes in dealing with people in my past, and this book taught me to come to terms with these mistakes. I could see how my ex-husband (a 5) and I pushed each other's buttons. I could also see how I went head to head with my tyrannical ex-boss (an 8), who made most women subordinates cry when he was angry. This book brought to light more constructive ways of dealing with such people.