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Summary: Makes a great gift
Review: This is the best enneagram book I've found. It's easy and fun to learn about yourself, your mate, and the people you work with. It's very helpful in every area of life by helping you understand what makes us who we are. It's perfect to help build teams at work, and making any relationship better.
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Summary: Enneagram in Love and Work
Review: While many books on the Enneagram have been published, Helen Palmer has done one where the Enneagram is applied against the the dynamics of relationships and the workplace. Palmer first gives a synopsis of the nine types . However, she gives different names of the types, different from Riso, although the focus of attention each types corresponds to Riso's analysis. I've listed Palmer's designation, followed by Riso's, and on the whole, I like Palmer's designations better, with the capital vice and antidote to each type. 1 Perfectionist, Reformer, anger, meekness
2 Giver, Helper, pride, humility
3 Performer, Motivator, [deceit], [truthfulness]
4 Romantic, Individualist, envy, charity
5 Observer, Investigator, avarice, poverty
6 Trooper, Loyalist, [fear], [courage]
7 Epicure, Enthusiast, gluttony, abstinence
8 Boss, Leader, lust, chastity
9 Mediator, Peacemaker, sloth, zeal Like Riso, she covers George Gurdjieff, who pioneered the Enneagram in the West, but here's a fresh spin. She takes Dante's areas of Purgatory and Geoffrey Chaucer's virtue listed in The Parson's Tale. Each type is characterized by a certain passion, or a capital vice, and Chaucer's virtue is an antidote to that. The brackets above indicate that they are designations from Oscar Ichazo, who further developed the virtues. Palmer then uses Gurdjieff's centers of intelligence (mental, emotional, and body-based) to identify the focus of attention on each group. For a four, it's melancholy on the mental, envy on the emotional, and competition, shame, and recklessness on the body-based. Palmer then covers each type in terms of worldview, spiritual path, concerns, personality bias, subtype focus, focal issues, security and risk, intimacy, positive and negative signals, leadership style, conflicts, conflict resolution, employee participation, and team building. In particular, I like the brief sentences used to describe the worldview. In my case, a Type 4, it is "Something is missing. Others have it. I have been abandoned." The sense of shame on feeling unworthy proceeds from that feeling that something is missing. She does use Riso's dynamics for change in each group using the 142857 cycle. For example, a secure Type 4 shifts to a Type 1 on a positive, but an insecure Type 4 slides down to a Type 2. Finally, Palmer creates a directory of relationships, love and workplace, playing each type against each other, e.g. 1's with 5's, 4's with 8's, etc. However, she steps away from Keirsey's notion that one type is optimal with another type, i.e. Rationals with Idealists, stating, "It would be a mistake, therefore, to categorize types according to compatibility or incompatibility. Your best match in intimacy and team building is actually any psychologically mature person." As director of the Center for Enneagram Studies, and having written The Enneagram and The Pocket Enneagram, Helen Palmer is ideally placed to write this book.
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