• Remembering
    David Daniels

    • David Daniels Personal Bio
    • David Daniels Formal Bio and Enneagram Contributions
    • How David Daniels Discovered the Enneagram
    • David Daniels and the Enneagram in the Press
    • David’s Recommended Resources
    • Quotes from David Daniels, MD
    • “Ask David” Archive
    • David’s Blog Archive
    • “David’s Weekly Thoughts” Archive
  • The Enneagram &
    Getting Started

    • What is the Enneagram?
    • Getting Started with the Enneagram
    • The Enneagram’s Basic Propositions
    • Descriptions of the 9 Enneagram Types

      • Enneagram Type 1
      • Enneagram Type 2
      • Enneagram Type 3
      • Enneagram Type 4
      • Enneagram Type 5
      • Enneagram Type 6
      • Enneagram Type 7
      • Enneagram Type 8
      • Enneagram Type 9
    • History of the Enneagram as We Know It Today
    • Quick Tips for Each Enneagram Type
  • Enneagram
    Articles

    • VIEW ALL ARTICLES
    • The Enneagram, Transformation
      & Growth

      • Why the Enneagram for Development?
      • The Enneagram Triads
      • The 5 As of Transformation
      • What is Integration? Insights from the Enneagram
      • The Enneagram and How We Actually Change
      • The Pause and Miracle of Receptivity
      • The Pause in a Fast-Paced Day
      • Using the Enneagram to Understand and Manage Anger
      • The Enneagram, Loss, and Grief
      • Inspirational Enneagram Stories
    • The Enneagram
      & Neurobiology

      • Our Neurobiology and the Enneagram
      • Nature AND Nurture: Acquiring an Enneagram Type
      • Temperament and the Enneagram
      • Scientific Study of the Enneagram
    • The Enneagram &
      Spirituality

      • Enneagram’s Holy Ideas: Essential Spiritual Qualities
      • For What Are We Remembered?
      • Integrating Our Enneagram Essence in Our Lives
    • The Enneagram for
      a Better World

      • Why the Enneagram and What Really Matters
      • Greed to Generosity and Enneagram Types
      • Enneagram and Saving Our Lives and the Planet
      • A New Paradigm: The Enneagram Prison Project
      • Enneagram Prison Project and Teaching in Prison
      • Forgiveness: How It’s Truly a Path to Freedom
      • The Roots of Violent Behavior
      • Who Exactly Are the “Good Guys” with Guns?
      • Losing Robin Williams: 7 4 1 Triad
    • The Enneagram &
      Important Topics

      • Enneagram’s Narrative Tradition
      • Enneagram Typing and Children
      • First Enneagram Global Summit
      • Russ Hudson and David Teaching the Enneagram
  • Growth &
    Wholeness

    • The Universal Growth Process
    • Universal Growth Process by Enneagram Type
    • Fundamental Breath Practice by Dr. David Daniels
    • Growth Practices

      • Growth Practice for Everyone – All 9 Enneagram Types
      • Enneagram Type 1 Growth
      • Enneagram Type 2 Growth
      • Enneagram Type 3 Growth
      • Enneagram Type 4 Growth
      • Enneagram Type 5 Growth
      • Enneagram Type 6 Growth
      • Enneagram Type 7 Growth
      • Enneagram Type 8 Growth
      • Enneagram Type 9 Growth
    • “Personality and Wholeness in Therapy” by Dan Siegel, MD

      • An Overview of the PDP Model and the Enneagram
      • Enneagram Type 1 Wholeness
      • Enneagram Type 2 Wholeness
      • Enneagram Type 3 Wholeness
      • Enneagram Type 4 Wholeness
      • Enneagram Type 5 Wholeness
      • Enneagram Type 6 Wholeness
      • Enneagram Type 7 Wholeness
      • Enneagram Type 8 Wholeness
      • Enneagram Type 9 Wholeness
    • Weekly Reflections for Each Enneagram Type
  • The Enneagam
    & Relationships

    • The Enneagram, Relationships, and Intimacy
    • BOOK RESOURCES: The Enneagram, Relationships, and Intimacy
    • The Enneagram, Love, and Relationships
    • Enneagram Types in Relationship and 45 Combinations
    • Why Do We Love?
    • Touch, Love, and Enneagram Types
    • A Separate Self and Love
    • Dao and Enneagram Practices for Relationships
  • Enneagram Test
    & Resources

    • Take the Essential Enneagram Test: Discover Your Type
    • Enneagram Resources for University Students
    • Stanford Enneagram Test & Guide
    • Essential Enneagram Books
    • Enneagram Audio & Podcasts
    • Enneagram Videos & DVD
    • The Narrative Enneagram (TNE) Training
    • International Enneagram Association (IEA)

About David Daniels, His Background, and Enneagram Story

Meet Dr. David Daniels and Learn About His Enneagram Story

David N. Daniels, M.D. (August 30, 1934 to May 26, 2017), co-founder of the training school, THE NARRATIVE ENNEAGRAM (TNE), was Adjunct Clinical Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University Medical School. He is co-author, with Virginia Price, Ph.D., of the updated (2009 and 2025 audio book) The Essential Enneagram, and is co-author, with Suzanne Dion, of the updated (2025) The Enneagram, Relationships, and Intimacy: Understanding One Another Leads to Loving Better and Living More Fully.

Below you can read David’s Story in His Own Words. You can also read David’s

  • Formal Bio
  • How David Discovered the Enneagram
  • A Selection of David Daniels Quotes

David’s Story in His Own Words

I’ve always been interested in two things: human behavior and the cosmos. Why do people do what they do? What makes people get along, or not? What makes a relationship thrive? And what is the universe all about anyway? I remember at age 11 secretly climbing onto the roof of my family home to lie on my back and wonder at the stars. I had deep, often blissful, experiences of the vastness of it all — until one night.

Somehow on this one occasion, I seemed to have merged into the oneness of everything. Not knowing what this was, I felt something akin to the disappearance altogether of my sense of “being me,” what I would now say was an experience of letting go of my egoic state of mind. Sounds good, but at age 11, it actually terrified me (not to mention, I am a Type 6 on the Enneagram, a structure that struggles with existential fear to begin with!). I immediately stopped my late night, rooftop adventures and my gazing with wonderment into the universe above. That experience aside, I never, ever lost my deeper interest in what swirled above me, in how things worked, or in why some people seemed so happy and others not, nor did I ever lose my curiosity for the mystery of life itself.

In 1955, Judy, my college sweetie, and I married at the age of 20 after I completed my first year of medical school (I had skipped a grade and was admitted to Stanford University School of Medicine early). We have now been together over 60 years, a tribute to her, since I doubted her love for so, so long. It was hard for the Type 6 in me to believe that this loving, steady, and beautiful woman could truly love a doubting-minded guy like me! Over the years, I am happy to share, we learned so much from each other and came to understand what’s really required in building a healthy, loving, sustaining, and romantic relationship. Sixty years later I realize my thriving marriage was a big part of how interested I became in human relationships and why and what makes them work.

By the time I finished medical school in 1958 at the age of 24, I decided — through the process of elimination — that psychiatry was the career of choice for me. I found the workings of the mind, the healing of the mind, and the possibilities of the mind irresistible. After residency, I joined the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stanford University School of Medicine. Here I conducted social psychiatric research on how to develop effective, intentional communities with a focus on hospital communities for veterans. Later, I created a project for the California Youth Authority that combined transactional analysis with participative management in working with “hardcore” imprisoned teenagers. The staff’s approach to management was an anathema to the treatment they espoused. Bringing together a more congruent model of management allowed for effective treatment, using the Transactional Analysis mode. The results of this project were remarkable.

In 1968, after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and while a full-time faculty member at Stanford University, I formed, along with many of our resident psychiatrists, “The Committee on Violence.” Our purpose was to explore the causes and prevention of human violence. This resulted in numerous publications, including the premier journal, “Science,” on Violence and the Struggle to Adapt which we expanded into our book, Violence and the Struggle for Existence published by Little Brown and Company in 1970 with Foreword by Coretta Scott King. I also participated on the President’s Committee on the Causes of Violence. Our basic findings were that whatever adaptive value violence had served across human evolution, it was now becoming increasingly maladaptive. Violence in modern societies was in fact threatening our species, particularly in this nuclear and technological age. Instead, what’s called for now is a species that would reach levels of collective and personal development that were more inclusive, reflective, and compassionate. In short, what’s called for now is a more “world-centric” species that would replace the “you-against-me” more violent species, that which unfortunately still dominates.

In 1970, I left the full-time faculty at Stanford after eight years to go into clinical practice and joined Stanford’s clinical faculty. My genuine curiosity, that same inclination that had me on the roof stargazing when only 11 — combined with my innate exploratory instinct — led me to all sorts of intriguing study, including Transactional Analysis, Gestalt therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Meditative Pathways, Freudian and Jungian psychology and therapy, and much more.

As a practicing therapist, I loved working with couples, families — relationships in general. I would almost always try to see couples together, as I knew that if I worked with one person and not the other, it often led to the breakdown of the relationship, thanks to one person being on the path of development and the other, not. I encouraged clients to tape our sessions so that they could review the patterns underlying their behaviors and carefully listen to my interventions. My practice flourished and so did the individuals and couples with whom I worked.

I continued with my own private practice until the year 2000, at which time I retired as a therapist and instead devoted my time and efforts to the development, promotion, and further dissemination of the Enneagram system as a viable tool for self-awareness, personal growth, and self-mastery. For years I enjoyed teaching the Enneagram worldwide in conjunction with the Enneagram training school I co-founded with Helen Palmer, The Narrative Enneagram (TNE), and I enjoyed working with its faculty and the many current and up-and-coming Enneagram teachers who have been certified in the Narrative Tradition by TNE.

These last years of my working life have been devoted to putting in writing my years of passionate study and insights using the Enneagram to enhance relationships and develop personal and relational intimacy.


The Essential Enneagram 25th Anniversary
AUDIO BOOK
Available on AUDIBLE, or on AMAZON


The Essential Enneagram 25th Anniversary PAPERBACK and KINDLE
Available at BARNES AND NOBLE, BOOKSHOP.ORG, or on AMAZON


The Enneagram, Relationships, and Intimacy PAPERBACK and KINDLE
Available at BARNES AND NOBLE, BOOKSHOP.ORG, or on AMAZON

The Enneagram Relationships and Intimacy book cover

Enneagram Types Relationship Matrix, $15

Enneagram Types Relationship Matrix book cover

Learn more about using the Enneagram and the PDP Model together.

Personality and Wholeness in Therapy

The Essential Enneagram Online Test, $10

The Narrative Enneagram Essential Test
The Legacy of David Daniels, M.D.

Feel free to get in touch! We welcome your ideas and inputs about how to further share the Enneagram, including getting started, accurate typing, and the Enneagram for bettering relationships—all of which David cared so much about.


If you would like to hold a workshop, training, or a book club series with Suzanne Dion, David’s co-author of The Enneagram, Relationships, and Intimacy please reach out.

Learn and Grow with the Enneagram
  • Remembering David
  • David’s Enneagram Books
  • The Essential Enneagram Test
  • Quotes from David Daniels, MD
  • The Enneagram, Love, and Relationships
  • The Universal Growth Process
  • Our Neurobiology and the Enneagram
  • The Enneagram Triads
    • Personality and Wholeness in Therapy by Dan Siegel and the PDP Group
Connect

Address: San Francisco Bay Area, U.S.A.


Contact Denise Daniels: +1 650 868 3895
Contact Suzanne Dion: +1 831 359 0332


email: denise@denisedaniels.com
email: suzanne@drdaviddaniels.com


© Copyright 2025 | David Daniels, MD. | All Rights Reserved