What's My Type?

Kathleen V. Hurley & Theodore E. Dobson's book, "What's My Type?" offers the clearest method for understanding which of the nine of the Enneagram's personality types you actually are.Each of the nine points on the Enneagram correspond to a numbered personality type.Each of these nine personality types is characterized by its own unique major personality flaw. These personality types are: 1.) anger 2.) pride 3.) deceit 4.) jealousy 5.) greed 6.) fear 7.) gluttony 8.) lust 9.) slothWhether we care to admit it or not, we know ourselves very well. It's very hard to deny the obvious in our failings.But don't despair that this way of viewing personality is too "negative"! It's actually a great first step toward getting to know yourself better. The clarity of Kathleen V. Hurley's & Theodore E. Dobson's method gives you a very solid, very practical understanding what you need to do to improve yourself.Essentially, the underlying differences in the characteristics of the nine enneagram personality types are a matter of how the personality types use instinct, emotion, and thought to arrive at the sort of decisions that are typical for each of the nine personality types. ("Instinct" is knowing without knowing how you know. The authors provide this very useful description of instinct in their book.)As brilliant as the approach that Kathleen V. Hurley & Theodore E. Dobson have adopted in their understanding of the Ennegram - that the nine points on the Enneagram correspond to nine personality types, each personality type having one of nine major personality flaws - their theoretical explanation for the underlying differences in personality types would benefit from a sharper writing style.

I have a veritable library of books on the Enneagram. I have many books by Don Richard Riso and Helen Palmer. If you wish to have an overview of the Enneagram types and their attributes, or if you want to try typing your friends, family and work mates so that you can understand how to get along with them, their books are really good. But there is one glaring difficulty when it comes to typing yourself: their books seem to focus mainly on what is wrong or unhealthy in each type. I am at what Don Richard Riso calls "Level 1" of my type, basically the healthiest edge of the spectrum, and I could not figure out what type I was until I read this book. Instead of just going for the negative fixations, What's My Type? describes nuances, such as how the different types focus their energy into activities, things that frustrate or upset them and other relatively neutral traits. Attributes are stated in terms that you can identify with without seeming unhealthy or defective. And when it comes to the types outside of your own, each is written about in a descriptive way that helps you understand what it's like to look at the world through their lenses, both facilitating compassion and broadening your own perspective to include each type's unique value system. It does a beautiful job of exploring what can really take each personality to its highest spiritual level, rather than merely attaining psychological health. I highly recommend going on to read "My Best Self" by the same authors after you read this. It builds brilliantly and insightfully on the foundation laid by this book.

This was the first Enneagram book I read. It was the most excellant in terms of describing the way the system works. The authors use layman words and spiritual references in ways that make you truly come to understand the sometimes wonderful and sometimes lacking personalities that make us who we are.