The Essential Enneagram: The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide ― Revised & Updated – A Stanford Professor's Research-Based System for Nine Types - Softcover

Daniels, David; Price, Virginia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061713163 ISBN 13: 9780061713163

Publisher: HarperOne, 2009

Synopsis

The First Scientifically Determined Enneagram Personality Test and Guide

A centuries-old psychological system with roots in sacred tradition, the Enneagram can be an invaluable guide in your journey toward self-understanding and self-development. In this book, Stanford University Medical School clinical professor of psychiatry David Daniels and counseling psychologist Virginia Price offer the only scientifically developed Enneagram test based upon extensive research combined with a self-discovery and personal-development guide.

The most fundamental guide to the Enneagram ever offered, this book features effective self-tests to determine simply and accurately what your personality type is. Daniels and Price provide step-by-step instructions for taking inventory of how you think, what you feel, and what you experience. They then guide you in your discovery of what your type means for your personal well-being and your relationships with others, and they show you how to maximize your inherent strengths. Brimming with empowering information for each of the nine personality types—Perfectionist, Giver, Performer, Romantic, Observer, Loyal Skeptic, Epicure, Protector, and Mediator—this one-of-a-kind book equips you with all the tools you need to dramatically enhance your quality of life.

About this title

About the Authors

David N. Daniels, M.D. (August 30, 1934 to May 29, 2017) was a world-renowned Enneagram author, teacher, and thought leader, co-founder of The Narrative Enneagram and the International Enneagram Association, and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. As one of the founding fathers of the modern Enneagram, David N. Daniels, M.D. brought credence, rigor, and scientific validity to the Enneagram. In 1994, he led efforts to host and sponsor the first International Enneagram Association conference at Stanford University. In 2000, he released a Stanford University based scientifically validated Enneagram test, which still remains the top scientifically validated test today. David N. Daniels is the lead-author of the Enneagram bestseller, The Essential Enneagram (Harper Collins) updated and revised with new material in 2009 and an audio edition in 2025, lead-author of The Enneagram, Relationships and Intimacy published in 2018 and updated in 2025 with co-author Suzanne Dion, and co-author with Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. of Personality and Wholeness 2025. He also co-developed the outstanding DVD, The Enneagram: Nine Paths to a Productive and Fulfilling Life and The Enneagram in the Workplace. In private practice for over 40 years, David also taught the Enneagram system at Stanford University, in the community, and internationally on every continent for 30 years. David brought his knowledge of the Enneagram to individuals, couples and groups, and to a wide range of applications in clinical practice and the workplace. He has developed many innovative workshops, including The Dynamics of Vital Relationships, Anger and Forgiveness, Loss and Grief as Transformers, the Enneagram Gift to Love and Life, Intimate Relationships, Love and Will, and The Enneagram Gift to Mastering Conflict Constructively and Compassionately. His work is being carried on at www.drdaviddaniels.com.

Virginia Price, Ph.D., (1942-2005) was a psychologist with a private practice in Palo Alto. She wrote Type A Behavior Pattern, a book widely regarded as a landmark in its field.

From the Back Cover

The First and Only Scientifically Determined Enneagram Personality Test and Guide

A centuries-old psychological system with roots in sacred tradition, the Enneagram can be an invaluable guide in your journey toward self-understanding and self-development. In this book, Stanford University Medical School clinical professor of psychiatry David Daniels and counseling psychologist Virginia Price offer the only scientifically developed Enneagram test based upon extensive research combined with a self-discovery and personal-development guide.

The most fundamental guide to the Enneagram ever offered, this book features effective self-tests to determine simply and accurately what your personality type is. Daniels and Price provide step-by-step instructions for taking inventory of how you think, what you feel, and what you experience. They then guide you in your discovery of what your type means for your personal well-being and your relationships with others, and they show you how to maximize your inherent strengths. Brimming with empowering information for each of the nine personality types--Perfectionist, Giver, Performer, Romantic, Observer, Loyal Skeptic, Epicure, Protector, and Mediator--this one-of-a-kind book equips you with all the tools you need to dramatically enhance your quality of life.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Essential Enneagram

The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide -- Revised & UpdatedBy David Daniels

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 David Daniels
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780061713163

Chapter One

What is the Enneagram?

The Enneagram is a powerful and dynamic personality system that describes nine distinct and fundamentally different patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. “Ennea” is Greek for nine, and “gram” means a figure or something written. Hence, the Enneagram personality system is represented by a diagram of a nine-pointed star within a circle. Each of the nine patterns is based on an explicit perceptual filter and associated driving emotional energy. This is congruent with the way our neurons operate according to the interwoven flow of information and energy. These patterns determine what individuals of each personality type pay attention to and how they direct their energy and behavior. Underlying each of the nine patterns is a basic proposition, or belief, about what we need in life for survival and satisfaction.

Each one of us developed one of the nine patterns to protect a specific aspect of the self that felt threatened as our own personality was developing. As you discover your Enneagram personality type, you will discover more about your original whole self. ?You will also understand more about the unconscious motivation from which you operate.

Discovering your Enneagram personality type can help you learn how to bring positive change into your life. It can help change the way you relate to yourself and others as well as give you a greater understanding of the circumstances and issues facing you. ?Moreover, it can give you powerful assistance in integrating the personal and spiritual aspects of your life, integration being the linkage of differentiated elements.

What Is The Essential Enneagram?

We developed The Essential Enneagram as a simple and accurate way for individuals to identify their Enneagram personality type and as a guide for further personal, professional, and spiritual development.

The Essential Enneagram Test consists of nine short paragraphs that describe the fundamentals of each of the nine personality types. You administer this test to yourself by reviewing the nine paragraphs and choosing the three paragraphs that seem most like you. Next, you put the three selected paragraphs in order, beginning with the one that is the most like you. This process takes only a short time to complete.

You then proceed with an adventure in self-discovery by following the process described in this book, which guides you through the basic terminology of the Enneagram, the determination of your personality type, a comprehensive description of your type, the key discriminators differentiating each type from every other type, and a series of practices for self-development—including practices tailored specifically to your type.

A distinctive feature of the Essential Enneagram Test is its validation by extensive research. ?We conducted a validity study of just under one thousand individuals. The results of our research show that the Essential Enneagram Test has a high level of validity and reliability. We have included a summary of this research in appendix B (pages 115 to 116).

By using The Essential Enneagram in the way described here, you can discover, confirm, and verify your Enneagram personality type with a high level of confidence. Please bear in mind that the purpose of the Enneagram and this book is not to label you but to aid you in your journey of self-understanding and self-development. Remember that you are a human being that just happens to have a personality structure or type. By knowing your Enneagram personality type, you can become aware of the habits of your personality that limit you, and you can free yourself from those habits.

The Process of Self-Discovery and Self-Development Using The Essential EnneagramThe Essential Enneagram will guide you step-by-step through the process of taking the Enneagram personality test, discovering and confirming your correct type and pursuing a path of self-development once you know your personality type. Here we provide an overview of that process. When you have read this overview, keep reading and you will see how to begin.

Taking the Essential Enneagram Test

• First, you will read the Essential Enneagram Test instructions and take the test, which involves reading nine short paragraphs and choosing three of them.
• Then you will turn to page 9 to find out how the paragraphs you chose are linked to the Enneagram types.

Discovering and Confirming Your Correct Type

• The Type Determination pages and the Type Description pages are the two key tools you will use to discover and begin to confirm your type. ?You will find it useful to read the explanations of both the Type Determination pages and the Type Description pages.
• Then go to the Type Determination pages of the type associated with your first-choice paragraph. The Type Determination pages will guide you to the appropriate Type Description pages and provide instructions on how to confirm your correct type.
• You can further confirm your correct type by referring to the “Summary of Type Discriminators,” beginning on page 56.
• The final step is to read “How to Confirm and ?Verify Your Type” on page 69.

What to Do When You Have Discovered Your Type
• First, read the five general principles that apply to all nine Enneagram types and follow, as desired, the practices based on those five principles.
• Then read and follow the five self-development practices associated with your specific type.

How to Begin

Follow the instructions below and complete the Essential Enneagram Test on pages 5 to 7.

Essential Enneagram Test Instructions

Following are nine paragraphs that describe nine different personality types. None of these personality types is better or worse than any other. Each paragraph is meant to be a simple snapshot of one of the nine Enneagram types. No paragraph is intended to be a comprehensive description of an individual’s personality.

1. Read the descriptions and pick the three paragraphs that fit youbest. Each of the nine paragraphs may describe you to some degree, but choose the three that seem most like you.2. Number these paragraphs from 1 to 3, with 1 being the paragraph that seems most like you, 2 the paragraph next most like you, and 3 the third most like you.

In making your selections, consider each paragraph as a whole rather than considering each sentence out of the context of its paragraph. ?Ask yourself, ?“Does this paragraph as a whole fit me better than any of the other paragraphs?”

If you find it difficult to choose the three paragraphs most like you, think about which descriptions someone close to you would select to describe you. Because personality patterns are usually most prominent before we begin work on personal development, you may also ask yourself which of these patterns would have best described you before you began any such work.

Continues...

Excerpted from Essential Enneagramby David Daniels Copyright © 2010 by David Daniels. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061713163
• ISBN 13: 9780061713163
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128