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What's Your Favorite Book On Enneagram?

highlander

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What are your favorite books on Enneagram? I'll collect a list through this thread and then add a poll.

Here are some starters (ones that I have):
Character and Neurosis - An Integrative View - Claudio Naranjo
The Wisdom of the Enneagram - Riso and Hudson
The Enneagram - Helen Palmer
Three Keys of Self Understanding (Enneagram is only part of it)
The 27 Tritypes Revealed - Katherine Chernick Fauvre
Enneagram Instinctual Subtypes - Katherine Chernick Fauvre
The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram - Sandra Maitri
Facets of Unity - AH Almaas
Archetypes of the Enneagram - Susan Rhodes
 

Such Irony

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I haven't read all of these. Of the ones I've read, I like Wisdom of the Enneagram the Best. It's pretty comprehensive- talks about wings, subtypes, levels of health. It explains well to a layperson without either oversimplifying or overcomplexifying.
 

mmhmm

meinmeinmein!
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What are your favorite books on Enneagram? I'll collect a list through this thread and then add a poll.

Here are some starters (ones that I have):
Character and Neurosis - An Integrative View - Claudio Naranjo
The Wisdom of the Enneagram - Riso and Hudson
The Enneagram - Helen Palmer
Three Keys of Self Understanding (Enneagram is only part of it)
The 27 Tritypes Revealed - Katherine Chernick Fauvre
Enneagram Instinctual Subtypes - Katherine Chernick Fauvre
The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram - Sandra Maitri
Facets of Unity - AH Almaas
Archetypes of the Enneagram - Susan Rhodes

i've been meaning to get the bolded one, [MENTION=5639]JocktheMotie[/MENTION] recommended it to me
partly because i'm always swaying between if i'm a 7w8 or 8w7 and questioning
my own type.

i think the riso-hudson and the palmer books are a good introduction to the
enneagram, easy to read, easy to understand, but i've found that it's not the
best source that gets me the answers or provides the depth of exploration i want?

i have more of the 'mainstream' popular books, due to being overseas, so it's harder
to find the more lesser-known/marketed books, but i've basically bought everything
i've found.

my collection:
The Enneagram in Love and Work: Understanding Your Intimate and Business Relationships - Helen Palmer
The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others In Your Life - Helen Palmer
Essential Enneagram: The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide -- Revised & Updated by David Daniels and Virginia Price
Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery by Russ Hudson and Don Richard Riso
Discovering Your Personality Type: The Essential Introduction to the Enneagram, Revised and Expanded by Russ Hudson and Don Richard Riso
The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Russ Hudson and Don Richard Riso
Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types by Russ Hudson and Don Richard Riso
What's My Type? by Kathleen V. Hurley
Everything Enneagram Book: Identify Your Type, Gain Insight into Your Personality and Find Success in Life, Love, and Business (Everything (Self-Help)) by Susan Reynolds
Nine Lenses on the World: the Enneagram Perspective by Jerome Peter Wagner*

[MENTION=195]Jaguar[/MENTION] recommended the really lovely book entitled nine lenses on the world
by jerome wagner -- which when i read, i'll find myself on the fence
between 7 (the joyful person) and 8 (the powerful person).

i've told jock that i feel as though, depending on the book my type changes.
with the riso-hudson and palmer books, i will type myself as an 8 and not
even consider being 7 at all. i was telling him that i wished the enneagram
came in shoe sizes. omni 7.5 would fit perfectly. no wings. just right in between.
 
G

garbage

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i've told jock that i feel as though, depending on the book my type changes.
with the riso-hudson and palmer books, i will type myself as an 8 and not
even consider being 7 at all. i was telling him that i wished the enneagram
came in shoe sizes. omni 7.5 would fit perfectly. no wings. just right in between.
Character and Neurosis is worth it for the beginning chapters alone, which focus on the goals of typology and the focus of the Enneagram. The type descriptions are also pretty illuminating but kind of 'clinical,' some of his correlations with MBTI are hit-or-miss, connections with neuroses are excellent, and it's overall worth having in your collection. Naranjo is also relatively definitive.

Unfortunately, everyone has their own interpretation of the types; through Riso's lens, you may be a 4; through Palmer's, you may be a 6, and so on. We could get into tritype, disintegration/integration, and other sorts of theoretical explanations, but too much concentration on that gets us far into left field and defeats the purpose--and even those come with different interpretations. I try to understand the core fears of the type, enjoy and learn from the process of searching and putting what I learn into action, and resign myself to not fitting so cleanly into a single core. So I've got 3-ish, 6-ish core motivations and haven't fully teased out the differences or where I fit--it doesn't bother me so much.

That's why I've become a bigger fan of the works that concentrate on growth rather than sheer explanation, myself. This one is $3 and pretty good to boot.

[MENTION=195]Jaguar[/MENTION] recommended the really lovely book entitled nine lenses on the world
by jerome wagner
Holy crap, this one looks amazing from the first few chapters. Thanks to both you and Jag for pointing this one out.
 

mmhmm

meinmeinmein!
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but too much concentration on that gets us far into left field and defeats the purpose--and even those come with different interpretations. I try to understand the core fears of the type, enjoy and learn from the process of searching and putting what I learn into action, and resign myself to not fitting so cleanly into a single core. So I've got 3-ish, 6-ish core motivations and haven't fully teased out the differences or where I fit--it doesn't bother me so much.

That's why I've become a bigger fan of the works that concentrate on growth rather than sheer explanation, myself. This one is $3 and pretty good to boot.

yes, i agree, i've come to find that the books with more of a 'spiritual' slant
to it allows me to understand more. not because i'm spiritual, instead i'm
the very opposite, so it lets me disassociate myself from the sprinklings of
behaviour descriptors. because when i read books palmer/hudson-esque books,
i can't help but go "that's me, oh this too! and this aaaaand this"-- the first time
i read palmer i wrote down all the types i thought i was: 2,3,4,6,7,8,9. hahahhaha.
 

highlander

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Facets of Unity is actually pretty good.
 
G

garbage

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yes, i agree, i've come to find that the books with more of a 'spiritual' slant
to it allows me to understand more. not because i'm spiritual, instead i'm
the very opposite, so it lets me disassociate myself from the sprinklings of
behaviour descriptors. because when i read books palmer/hudson-esque books,
i can't help but go "that's me, oh this too! and this aaaaand this"-- the first time
i read palmer i wrote down all the types i thought i was: 2,3,4,6,7,8,9. hahahhaha.

Oh, yeah. Also, you'll be happy to know that Naranjo provides a good bit of explanation as to how the types can be seen on a continuum (and how personality disorders fit on that same continuum), which might help you sort out that whole "7/8/7.5" deal.
 
B

brainheart

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I'm currently reading Character and Neurosis and it kicks the ass off anything else I've read on the enneagram (and I've read a lot). It's incredibly insightful, it was so obvious I couldn't be anything but a four, and reading the four description feels like a transformative experience for me in and of itself. Seriously, since I first read it three days ago I've been residing in a sweaty puddle of self awareness.

For instincts, I like the description in Wisdom of the Enneagram the best, but otherwise i'm not fond of it. I wish naranjo went into instinct theory more because maybe then I'd understand it better.
 

BlackCat

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Character and Neurosis - An Integrative View - Claudio Naranjo. Best one!
 

mmhmm

meinmeinmein!
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i finally got the character and neurosis book that everybody's been talking about.
i like it, what he writes about type 8 definitely left me felt like "omg a stranger
knows about all the shit i get up to" it was awesome.

[MENTION=9602]YWIR[/MENTION] you should read about type 8, you'd laugh

Oh, yeah. Also, you'll be happy to know that Naranjo provides a good bit of explanation as to how the types can be seen on a continuum (and how personality disorders fit on that same continuum), which might help you sort out that whole "7/8/7.5" deal.

definitely 8, the funny thing is a lot of the phrases that he use in the book,
i had come up independently through a lot of my of journalling too, so i had
a super cheeky smile when i noticed the parallels. what he calls sadistic, i've
always called my 'wicked streak'. lovely jubbly.
 
B

brainheart

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I'm currently reading The Positive Enneagram by Susan Rhodes and I like it a lot.
 

highlander

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I think I would probably vote for The Enneagram - Helen Palmer
 

Chad of the OttomanEmpire

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The bolded I have read.

Character and Neurosis - An Integrative View - Claudio Naranjo
The Wisdom of the Enneagram - Riso and Hudson
The Enneagram - Helen Palmer

Three Keys of Self Understanding (Enneagram is only part of it)
The 27 Tritypes Revealed - Katherine Chernick Fauvre
Enneagram Instinctual Subtypes - Katherine Chernick Fauvre
The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram - Sandra Maitri
Facets of Unity - AH Almaas
Archetypes of the Enneagram - Susan Rhodes

Also,

The Complete Enneagram, by Beatrice Chestnut
Nine Lenses, by Jerome Wagner
The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues, by Sandra Maitri
Personality Types, by Riso and Hudson
The Positive Enneagram, by Susan Rhodes
The Complete Idiot's Guide, by some idiot

Of these, I'm most amenable to Helen Palmer's work. It's insightful, yet accessible to a wider audience. Accurate, yet not overly weighty. I found that when I examined what was really going on in my brain, it corroborates everything she says.

So far, Jerome Wagner's 9 Lenses stuff is a pretty damn good clinical look at each of the types. His "Ego Ideals" boxes just made everything so damn clear.

Working through each of Maitri's fixations in Passions and Virtues was what made me realize what I was for the first time ever (though, truthfully, I found much of the work pretentious beyond that).
 

Eugene Watson VIII

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The Wisdom of the Enneagram - Riso and Hudson.

Also Please Understand Me II, though it doesn't concern the enneagram, is still a pretty good typology book.
 
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