You took the test. You read your type. Something resonated. Maybe too much. That description that seemed written by someone who knows you from the inside. The patterns you recognized but had never put into words. The uncomfortable feeling of being seen in something you'd rather not see.
And then the question arises: what do I do with this now?
Because knowing you're a Type 6 doesn't stop the doubt. Knowing you're a Type 3 doesn't free you from the mask. The test opens a door, but on the other side lies territory you can't navigate by reading descriptions online. You navigate it with accompaniment, in session, where your type stops being a label and becomes a mirror.
If you want to understand the Enneagram as a complete transpersonal system (the three centers, wings, arrows, the tradition of Naranjo), I recommend our previous article. Here we go somewhere else: into what happens when you bring your number to the consulting room and discover that number has roots far deeper than you imagined.
Knowing your type is not the same as working your type
Popular Enneagram tells you things like "7s are fun" or "4s are intense." And there's truth in that. But it stays on the surface, like describing the ocean by talking only about the waves.
What Claudio Naranjo discovered is that each type doesn't describe who you are. It describes how you learned to survive (Naranjo, 1994). That distinction changes everything. Because you're not working with a fixed "personality." You're working with a strategy you built as a child to adapt to a world that wasn't always safe. A strategy that worked then but now costs you more than it gives.
The difference between knowing your type and working your type is the same difference between reading about water and getting in the ocean. One gives you information. The other transforms you. And transformation doesn't happen alone, it happens in relationship: with a guide who knows the map and who understands that your way of resisting change is part of the process, not an obstacle to it.
What the number didn't tell you
When you take a test and read "Type 2," you learn that you tend to help others, that you seek to be needed, that your challenge is self-care. All of that is true. But what the test can't show you is where that pattern lives in your body, what memories sustain it, how it activates in your relationships without you noticing, and what lies beneath the need to give.
That's discovered in session. And it's discovered because the therapeutic space does something reading cannot: it confronts you in real time. Not with judgment. With presence. The pattern isn't understood with the head alone. It's felt, recognized in the moment it's operating, observed with the curiosity of someone seeing a mechanism for the first time knowing that mechanism has been running on autopilot for decades.
The research: The first empirical studies on the Enneagram as an assessment tool (Wagner & Walker, 1983) showed significant correlations between types and other measured personality traits. More recently, Hook et al. (2021) published a review acknowledging the Enneagram's clinical utility while noting the need for more rigorous research. What does this mean for you? That you're not working with a horoscope. You're working with a system that has growing clinical support and over a hundred years of therapeutic tradition.
Each type needs something different
Perhaps the most important revelation of the Enneagram in therapy is this: what helps you may not help someone else, even if you share the same diagnosis.
If you're a Type 1, the last thing you need is more discipline, more structure, more rules. You already live under a relentless inner regime. What you need is permission. Permission to not be perfect. Permission for things to be okay as they are. What heals the 1 isn't more correction: it's the visceral experience that imperfection won't destroy you. We explored this in depth here.
If you're a Type 2, the advice to "open up more" or "connect with your emotions" reinforces exactly what makes you sick. You're already open, too open, toward others. What you need is to find who you are when nobody needs you. And that question isn't comfortable. It's the question you've avoided your whole life. We went deeper into Type 2 here.
If you're a Type 7, the work isn't exploring more options or seeking new experiences. It's staying. Staying in the discomfort long enough to discover that the pain you avoid isn't the monster you imagine. It's just pain. And you can walk through it.
At Dynamis, the Enneagram integrates with other tools that deepen the work for each type: shadow work for what your type rejects in itself, logotherapy to ask what meaning this structure you built serves, somatic work to feel where your pattern lives in the body. Sessions at the Healing Studio are designed for this integration.
How you defend yourself without knowing it
There's something you discover quickly when you work your type in therapy: you have a very specific way of avoiding change. And it's so natural, so much yours, that you don't even recognize it as a defense. You confuse it with your personality.
If you live from the body (Type 8, Type 9, Type 1), your defense works through action or inaction. The 8 turns every difficult conversation into a battle. The 9 agrees with everything but changes nothing, because changing would mean conflict. The 1 turns therapy into another task to do "correctly."
If you live from the heart (Type 2, Type 3, Type 4), your defense works through image. The 2 worries about how the therapist is doing instead of looking at their own work. The 3 shows flawless progress session after session but never hits bottom, because failing isn't an option. The 4 clings to their pain as if it were their identity, because letting go of suffering feels like disappearing.
If you live from the head (Type 5, Type 6, Type 7), your defense works through thought. The 5 analyzes every insight until it loses all emotional charge. The 6 doubts the process, the therapist, themselves, their own doubt. The 7 changes the subject right when something hurts, with a smile so natural you barely notice they just fled.
Recognizing your defense isn't an act of self-criticism. It's an act of freedom. Because what you can see stops controlling you on autopilot.
"Character is destiny," said Heraclitus twenty-five centuries ago. But when you work your character with awareness, character stops being destiny and becomes a map. And a map shows you both the path and the obstacles.
From the consulting room to life: the Enneagram as daily practice
The deepest work doesn't happen in session. It happens on Tuesday at three in the afternoon, when your boss asks the impossible and you notice your body tensing exactly the way it always tenses. Or Friday evening, when you get home and recognize that need to do something, plan something, not sit still, as your type running on autopilot.
This is what contemplative traditions call awareness: the ability to observe your pattern while it's happening, without judging it, without trying to change it, just seeing it. And in that seeing, something loosens. The automatism loses power when consciousness illuminates it.
At Dynamis, the process has a clear structure. It begins with the 144-question test as a first approach. It continues with individual sessions at the Healing Studio where your type is explored in relation to your history, relationships, and blocks. And for those seeking deeper immersion, retreats offer something weekly sessions cannot: the experience of living your type in the body, in community, in the silence of the cabins where there's nowhere to hide from yourself.
The 9Seeds program takes this integration even further: it uses the Enneagram as the central axis of the recovery process, because addiction isn't just a behavior, it's a character structure seeking relief in the wrong place.
The mirror that shows the box
The Enneagram isn't a box to put you in. It's a mirror that shows you the box you're already in. That box you built years ago, decorated with your best qualities, that you confuse with your identity. Therapy with the Enneagram doesn't ask you to destroy that box. It invites you to see its walls, to understand why you built them, and to discover that the door was always open.
Not everything resolves by knowing your type. But much becomes clearer. The anxiety that follows you reveals a structure that can be worked at its root, not just medicated. The emptiness you feel after every achievement stops being mysterious when you understand your type's dynamic. The feeling of being trapped in the same relationship patterns illuminates when you see the strategy holding them together.
In that clarity, the real work can begin.
Discover your type with our 144-question test
Book a session at the Healing Studio
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know my type before starting therapy?
It's not necessary, but it can accelerate the process. Many people discover their type during therapy, not before. The 144-question test is a good starting point, but the type is confirmed in session, when you recognize it in your body and reactions, not just on a questionnaire.
Does the Enneagram have scientific backing?
It has growing empirical research (Wagner & Walker, 1983; Hook et al., 2021) and over a hundred years of clinical tradition from Naranjo onward. It's not a standardized diagnostic test like the DSM, but rather a tool for understanding character structure. At Dynamis we use it with honesty about both its strengths and its limitations: it's powerful, not perfect.
How is working the Enneagram in therapy different from reading about it on my own?
Reading about your type gives you information. Working it in session confronts you. A therapist who knows the Enneagram can point out the pattern while it's operating, in real time, in your way of speaking, avoiding, defending. A book can't do that.
What if I don't identify with any type?
It's more common than you think, and usually means one of two things: either you identify with several types (which suggests you're seeing surface behaviors, not the underlying structure), or your type is precisely one that avoids seeing itself. In both cases, clinical sessions help clarify.
Is Enneagram work different in individual therapy versus retreat?
They're complementary. In individual sessions, the work is precise and personalized. In retreat, your type is lived out in dynamic with others: you discover how you operate in a group, how your defenses activate in community, what happens when you can't escape yourself. At Dynamis we offer both formats.
References:
Hook, J. N., Hall, T. W., Davis, D. E., Van Tongeren, D. R., & Conner, M. (2021). The Enneagram: A systematic review of the literature and directions for future research. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 77(4), 865-883.
Naranjo, C. (1994). Character and neurosis: An integrative view. Gateways/IDHHB.
Wagner, J. P., & Walker, R. E. (1983). Reliability and validity study of a Sufi personality typology: The Enneagram. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 39(5), 712-717.
