Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery

This is probably TMI, but my husband & I have been married for 21 years and we were struggling (not unlike most long-term marriages or relationships at some point or another). We mutually decided he needed to embark on a modern-day Aboriginal Walk-About for 30 days. I helped him pack up our travel trailer and off he went to a local RV park to live on his own...time needed to figure himself out (and time for me to re-center my soul & enjoy some alone time). He embarked on journaling and meditation (neither of which he'd ever done before) and spent time "being" with himself....a journey of self-discovery & self-reliance. I purchased two books for him to take on his journey and this book was one of them. I stumbled on this book entirely by accident through a review of another book I was considering getting for him. After reading countless reviews for this book it seemed like it might be a good read. I knew nothing about Enneagrams so the profound change that came from his reading this book was a complete fluke. My husband dove into this book his first week away. He was completely obsessed with it. He would call me in the evenings crying (he NEVER cries). It was like an awakening for him and suddenly all of his struggles and personal bewilderment became crystal clear and he understood himself for the first time in his entire life (his words). He would read to me from the book every night. It piqued my curiosity (I hadn't even opened the cover when I bought it, I just packed it into the trailer for him to read while he was away) so I decided to buy myself my own copy since he wasn't home for us to share the book. I wanted to figure out my personality, then our adult children and so on. I even bought the book for my sister. The Enneagram concept is somewhat complex, but truly mind-blowing once you get things dialed in and understand how it works. Learning how each personality type functions within the healthy to unhealthy levels and how this impacts your life and all of your personal relationships. It's frighteningly accurate (as long as you are being honest about yourself) and nothing short of fascinating. I would recommend this book to anyone. Frankly, I'm shocked that therapists (both marriage and personal) don't have their clients take the Enneagram test online before embarking on any type of therapy, understanding yourself is key to facilitating change. This book is a must read for anyone on a journey of self-enlightenment.

This is a great book that highlights the 27 personality types of the Enneagram personality system. Each type is given a thorough description, including trouble spots for people of each type and what happens when that person becomes psychologically unhealthy or becomes more healthy, up to their peak. I bought the book to find myself, of course, and I did that, but I like to read it from time to time to check out other people's types and see if I can figure out which type applies to which friend. To me the best part of all this is the poetry of the authors. They don't just churn out boring text about different personalities; they really gave some thought to how each type acts when they are psychologically healthy and how they act when they are unhealthy, or just average. When you find yourself, it feels like being discovered by a talent scout from Hollywood; the descriptions are flattering and so well said that you'll love finding you. This is a big book, over 500 pages, and it is stuffed with information. You can pick it up for a few bucks on Amazon used books and enjoy it for months as you chew through the types and assign your friends and family their character. Highly recommended; everybody should own a copy of this book.

I’m a 6 with a 5 wing, so I have a considerable amount of anxiety and fear about unknown situations, public speaking, conversing with others, and playing out future conversations with my internal “committee”. I am not going to go into the particulars (you can read more about what the enneagram is and how it applies to individuals in other reviews) but not only did Riso’s book give me a better understanding of myself, it also helped me tremendously with understanding others. I did not read it cover to cover, instead I read the general summary of each type and went into more depth as I encountered (interrupted) those personality types (I have yet to read it all). So far, it’s been great for self-discovery and handling social situations (for those with my particular personality type). Also, he has another book (one of many), The Wisdom of the Enneagram, that I am also reading which I find less technical but also a good read. How did I hear about this book? My father is a retired therapist of 30+ years. He recommended this book to me as a starting point for understand how others operate (I was interviewing for a new job at the time).

One of the better books out there on this subject. Great descriptions, and thought-provoking new information. A must-have for enneagram enthusiasts.

If you enjoy taking personality tests, this book is a great choice—especially if you want to dive deeper into the topic and expand your understanding. The print quality is solid as well. I can definitely recommend it.

A most taxing reading. I stubbrnly went though the minute descriptions of each of the 9 levels of integration/disintegration of the nine personality types because I wanted to explore each type. As another commenter wrote, only about 20% of what is written is interesting. The remaining 80% is repetitive fluff, a metaphysical construction of very little value. Once you have understood the direction of disintegration for each type you can easily predict to what extremes the personality can evolve and there is hardly anything new that can be learned, from going into the descriptions of levels from, say, 5 to 9. It loks like the author has chained himself to a hairsplitting and pedantic drudgery of classifying exactly 9 stages for each of the 9 personality type. There is no easy chart to assist the reader through this ordeal and one gets the impression of loosing the forest for the trees. After having struggled to read the entire book and only getting to 39% at great cost, I realised that reading this book as a normal one is just like reading a dictionary from the first page to the last. Most of what one needs to learn about the Enneagram is in the overview for each character type. Only when one has acquired full familiarity with the basic character types, can one afford to take the next step and deepen the exploration of any particular type. The book should definitely be organized in a more reader-friendly way.

Very good book to learn the mystery of personality types.

I have read different Enneagram books just because I find it interesting and from them all I found this one the most insightful. Specially if you want to learn about yourself, since when reading about the different levels of development in your type, you can actually see how you pass through different points in different moments in your life, for better or worse, it shows the spiral that takes you up and down and why in a clear manner. I like that the main 9 different types are described in different chapters, so you can go to the chapter you are interested instead of finding little bits of information through the whole book. I also like that the wing subtypes are also described within each of the types, giving you a bigger idea of what is the actual difference between being one wing or another. I would say if you want to have a good insight about your type or any other this is a good book for you. Be aware that you will read things you like and you don’t like about yourself, accept that, nobody and no type is perfect. If on the contrary you were looking for a quick description of all types, don’t spend your money, just do a little research on Internet and you will get that info there.