Enneagram

Healthy: Empa­thet­ic, com­pas­sion­ate, feel­ing for oth­ers. Car­ing and con­cerned about their needs. Thought­ful, warm-heart­ed, for­giv­ing and sin­cere. / Encour­ag­ing and appre­cia­tive, able to see the good in oth­ers. Ser­vice is impor­tant, but takes care of self too: they are nur­tur­ing, gen­er­ous, and giv­ing — a tru­ly lov­ing per­son. At Their Best: Become deeply unselfish, hum­ble, and altru­is­tic: giv­ing uncon­di­tion­al love to self and oth­ers. Feel it is a priv­i­lege to be in their lives of others. 

Aver­age: Want to be clos­er to oth­ers, so start “peo­ple pleas­ing”, becom­ing over­ly friend­ly, emo­tion­al­ly demon­stra­tive, and full of “good inten­tions” about every­thing. Give seduc­tive atten­tion: approval, “strokes,” flat­tery. Love their supreme val­ue, and they talk about it con­stant­ly. / Become over­ly inti­mate and intru­sive: they need to be need­ed, so they hov­er, med­dle, and con­trol in the name of love. Want oth­ers to depend on them: give, but expect a return: send dou­ble mes­sages. Envelop­ing and pos­ses­sive: the code­pen­dent, self-sac­ri­fi­cial per­son who can­not do enough for oth­ers — wear­ing them­selves out for every­one, cre­at­ing needs for them­selves to ful­fill. / Increas­ing­ly self-impor­tant and self-sat­is­fied, feel they are indis­pens­able, although they over­rate their efforts in oth­ers’ behalf. Hypochon­dria, becom­ing a “mar­tyr” for oth­ers. Over­bear­ing, patron­iz­ing, presumptuous. 

Unhealthy: Can be manip­u­la­tive and self-serv­ing, instill­ing guilt by telling oth­ers how much they owe them and make them suf­fer. Abuse food and med­ica­tion to “stuff feel­ings” and get sym­pa­thy. Under­mine peo­ple, mak­ing belit­tling, dis­parag­ing remarks. Extreme­ly self-decep­tive about their motives and how aggres­sive and/or self­ish their behav­ior is. / Dom­i­neer­ing and coer­cive: feel enti­tled to get any­thing they want from oth­ers: the repay­ment of old debts, mon­ey, sex­u­al favors. / Able to excuse and ratio­nal­ize what they do since they feel abused and vic­tim­ized by oth­ers and are bit­ter­ly resent­ful and angry. Som­a­ti­za­tion of their aggres­sions result in chron­ic health prob­lems as they vin­di­cate them­selves by “falling apart” and bur­den­ing others. 

Key Moti­va­tions: Want to be loved, to express their feel­ings for oth­ers, to be need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed, to get oth­ers to respond to them, to vin­di­cate their claims about themselves. 

Exam­ples: Moth­er Tere­sa, Bar­bara Bush, Eleanor Roo­sevelt, Leo Buscaglia, Mon­i­ca Lewin­sky, Bill Cos­by, Bar­ry Manilow, Lionel Ritchie, Ken­ny G., Luciano Pavarot­ti, Lil­lian Carter, Sam­my Davis, Jr., Mar­tin Sheen, Robert Ful­ghum, Alan Alda, Richard Thomas, Jack Paar, Sal­ly Jessy Raphael, Bish­op Desmond Tutu, Ann Lan­ders, “Melanie Hamil­ton” (Gone With the Wind). and “Dr. McCoy” (Star Trek).