Introduction to the Enneagram - Main Types and Variants

The Enneagram system is one of many attempts to map human behavior and personality. There are nine behavioral mappings, slices of the pie, zones, in the Enneagram. Each one centers around a fixation according to one of the early authors Oscar Ichazo. A fixation in this context is a single issue which affects how a person views and approaches the world. Any number of related traits extend from the one central fixation point, but without establishing a central point this would not be a reliable map. Fixation is an unfamiliar word to many so I will use preference.

Your main behavioral preference is your Enneagram type (main type). Which ever adjacent type you prefer is your wing. Most of the content in Enneagram books or web sites focuses on main type. This presents some inherent descriptive weaknesses since everyone also has some unique combination of the other eight behaviors. How much can one preferred outlook (out of nine) say about someone especially when in some individuals that preference is a very weak one. There is strewn sparsely across many Enneagram authors a second measurement dimension called instinctual variants (sometimes called subtypes). There are three variants - sexual, social, and self preservational. However, variants compose a minority of Enneagram writings and consequently suffer in lack of development and explanation.

Through my research, I have concluded that variants reflect one's overall Enneagram behavioral pattern. The sexual variant corresponds to a preference in the 7,8,9 Enneagram behavior zone which is associated with a more assertive pleasure seeking nature. The social variant corresponds to a preference in the 1,2,3 behavior zone which is associated with a more acceptance and image conscious nature. The self preservational variant corresponds to a preference in the 4,5,6 behavior zone which is associated with a more withdrawn security seeking nature. So if you averaged all of your behaviors and positioned that average point on the Enneagram circle, whichever of the three sectors it fell into would be your variant.

Because variant reflects all of your behaviors, it tends to explain more about a person's general nature. However, since people are more conscious of their preferred behavior (main type), variant is more of an unconscious influence. For example, you may consciously choose to eat healthy but if your overall nature craves unhealthy foods whenever your awareness drops you will most likely gravitate to unhealthy eating. Because main type reflects a person's conscious preference, I think in the long run it can be more influential altering your overall nature. However in the short term, I tend to see variant as more influential for most people.

Mean type is the same as Variant typing except that it instead of 3 delineations it offers 9 (or 27 when you include the wings).