The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types

by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson

Book Overview

The first definitive guide to using the wisdom of the Enneagram for spiritual and psychological growth

The ancient symbol of the Enneagram has become one of today's most popular systems for self-understanding, based on nine distinct personality types. Now, two of the world's foremost Enneagram authorities introduce a powerful new way to use the Enneagram as a tool for personal transformation and development. Whatever your spiritual background,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553378201
• ISBN13: 9780553378207
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Probably the best book on the Enneagram

Of the many Enneagram books available, this book is the one I return to over and over again. It is a large book on a large subject and the authors are very thorough and expansive. It is a good introduction to the novice, and also a good reference book for the serious student. I always recommend this book to "feeling" types who are being introduced to the Enneagram because it is very "juicy" in its approach.

Fantastic Introduction

I have a confession to make. In the early 1990's I automatically hated 99% of all Dallas Cowboys fans other than myself. Why? Because those same Cowboys "fans" were wearing Silver and Black, Burgundy and Gold or, most likely, nothing at all to do with the NFL during the 1980s. It was just me and a couple of other hardcore guys who suffered through the last days of Danny White, the only days of Steve Pelleur and even, that's right, Paul Palmer and Steve Walsh. It hardly seemed fair for the other jerkwads who stuck their head in the sand to enjoy the benefits of three Super Bowls in four years. But finally, I realized it was their problem, not mine. If they could live with themselves doing that, more power to them. The same is sort of happening now with the Enneagram. It's become, suddenly, the hipster's guide to psychology, and like anything that becomes such a tool, gets twisted and distorted to some peoples' own purposes much like the Cowboys' fan club did in the 90s: to make people feel better about themselves. Having been a student of the enneagram for almost a decade now, I hate to see something so important to psychology and my own personal worldview become another passing fad. But, much like the real Cowboys fans of the early nineties, it's the popularity poser, not the true student of the enneagram, who will have to live with themselves being bandwagoners. Which brings me to this excellent book by one of the authors who helped bring the Enneagram into the modern age. The Enneagram, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is a personality matrix (for lack of a better word) of nine personality types. The types interconnect in a variety of ways and range from very healthy to very unhealthy along each type. While this book does go into some detail on each type, it's main function serves as what to do once you know what type you (and others) are. It gives both practical and ideological advice for moving yourself into healthier ranges of your type, and breaks down each type into different manifestations. Some, but not many, types of meditations are included. For example, being an average type seven, I know that I'm prone to do anything to avoid dealing with anxiety. The more anxiety I have, the "busier" I become, the more I eat, the more I indulge, because it becomes harder to avoid it. Several of the meditations for sevens had to do with learning to focus on what that anxiety is rather than jump from one project to the next to the next in a futile effort to avoid the anxiety. It's been quite helpful for me, though the learning process is a long one. After all, it took almost 30 years of habit to perfect the avoidance. Riso warns several times in the book about using your type as an excuse, a part that I'm sure will be skipped over by most fives, nines and ones. Regardless, the warning is there, and it serves it's purpose as I sometimes drift into making excuses for myself. But that's the best part of the enneagram in my opinion. N

Best for beginner and expert

As someone who believes the Enneagram is the most profound and practical way of understanding ourselves and others, I use the Enneagram to help me increase personal and spiritual growth, enhance my work as a psychotherapist, and relate & communicate more appreciatively with others. Wisdom of the Enneagram is my favorite Enneagram book and the one I reccomend for both beginners and experts (though Don and Russ's other books are 5 star as well). I'm constantly impressed by how Don Riso and Russ Hudson can write such a comprehensive far ranging book of great depth and make it so readable and appealing. Especially since it is so well organized with many very interesting tables, charts, and sections; this is a book you will read and refer to again and again.

The book to get!

If you only read one Enneagram book in your life, it ought to be "The Wisdom of the Enneagram". It gives you clear and concise explanations of the system and the types along with tests and exercises to not only figure out your own type, but to learn from it and grow! Every time I read this book I feel that God is speaking directly to me through these words and I am able to let go of some more of my baggage. The message is brought forth with compassion and clarity without ever being condescending. It is an invitation to live a more fulfilling life. Don't say no! Read this book!

The most readable, comprehensive explanation yet available.

Use of the Enneagram, a remarkable tool for personal understanding and spiritual growth and development, has been limited by its appearance of overwhelming complexity. Despite the book's remarkable depth, Riso and Hudson have managed in WISDOM to explain the system in an easy-to-read format which incorporates most of the refinements they have introduced (such as levels of development and instinctual variants) which make it possible for almost any reader to find themselves in the system and begin to grow through it. As a bonus, the authors have added a validated self-assessment tool, as well as elucidating common mistypings. The final section contains recommendations for incorporating Enneagram work into a spiritual practice aimed at personal transformation. This book is, in my opinion, the ONLY one you need to begin your personal journey.

A must read for all enthusiasts of personality typing!

Those of us who have been following Riso's (and Hudson's) writings with gratitude and anticipation will celebrate their latest contribution to our growing understanding of the Enneagram. Each successive book, enriched with fresh insights, has explored this complex system of personality typing from a new angle. What's new about The Wisdom of the Enneagram? Correctly identifying one's personality type is often difficult because the same traits can stem from very different, largely unconscious, inner dynamics. Both theorizing Fives and practical Ones, for example, can appear detached and logical. Based on matching two choices drawn from each of 2 sets of 3 descriptions, the new QUEST tool (pp. 13-18) is both simpler and more effective than their detailed RHETI questionnaire. The first group actually distinguishes Horney's assertive, withdrawn and compliant styles; whereas the second (or Harmonic) group corresponds to the authors' positive outlook, reactive and competency categories (pp.60-68). (It would be worth the effort to polish the wording of these 6 descriptions further to make them as accurate, neutral and balanced as possible.) You can then confirm your initial diagnosis by jumping to your specific Type Attitude Sorter (TAS) which rates your responses to 15 attitudes characteristic of your suspected type.By distinguishing 9 (= 3 grades of healthy, average and unhealthy) levels in each type, Riso's 'vertical' analysis explained how an empathetic, people-pleasing Two, for example, could disintegrate into its seeming opposite, namely a domineering, self-centered Eight. This classification made it difficult to account for the curious ways in which healthy and unhealthy traits from different levels often combine to create contradictions characteristic of each type. In this regard, Helen Palmer's more 'intuitive' approach offered more colorful descriptions of the 'trap-door' mechanism through which principled Ones flirt with their repressed desires (compare p.114 on 'escape hatches'), or of the push-pull attraction that makes for the stormy relationships of tragic romantic Four. Now, by disassembling each type into a cluster of well-defined 'signatures' and focusing separately on each trait in turn, Riso and Hudson have largely recovered this lost territory. Such welcome nuances are seen in the application of new concepts such as Acting Out and the Security Point. Under stress, cerebral Fives act out, in the manner of unhealthy Sevens, the neglected appetite for sensory stimulation. The tough domineering Eight reveals its hidden vulnerability and tender feelings within the familiar circle of loved ones. This is a positive addition to Riso's previous critique and synthesis of Freudian, Hornevian, DSM-III(R) and other mainstream psychological theories. Riso was a Jesuit for thirteen years, and Hudson is an accredited specialist of East Asian religions. While endeavoring to demonstrate the centrality of the Enn