Personality and Wholeness in Therapy by Daniel Siegel, MD

Personality and Wholeness in Therapy:  An Enneagram-Informed Book

David Daniels and Dan Siegel were long-standing colleagues and friends. Dan stated it best in the foreword to David and Suzanne’s book The Enneagram, Relationships, and Intimacy:

“I had known David for 15 years before he left us. We were two psychiatrists, each a bit off the mainstream path, and both steadfastly dedicated to the helping and healing profession and the integration of science and contemplative traditions.”

Dan Siegel, The PDP Group, and Norton Publishing provide an Enneagram-informed book about using affective neuroscience and the Enneagram together in therapy. Targeted for an audience of clinicians and scientists in interpersonal neurobiology, the book is a primer to some, but not all Enneagram concepts in the Enneagram system. Although not fully equivalent to the Enneagram System of Personality, it is a good starting place, particularly after reading The Essential Enneagram. In addition, The Enneagram, Relationships, and Intimacy, includes fundamental concepts of the PDP Model used in tandem with the Enneagram system.

The table below provides a comparison of the psycho-spiritual Enneagram and the Patterns of Developmental Pathways.

Comparing the Enneagram to the Patterns of Developmental Pathways (PDP):

Enneagram Nomenclature

Traditional Enneagram of Personality nomenclature developed by Ichazo/Naranjo in the 1960s/1970s and updated by David Daniels in the early 2000s.

This vocabulary is consistent with today’s literature in how the Enneagram is being studied in research and used in therapy.

 

PDP Nomenclature

Some may prefer this vocabulary in research and/or therapy as it is based on a developmental neuroscience view through the consilient framework lens of interpersonal neurobiology.

Loss of Wholeness and the Basic Proposition as Development of Type

1 of 9 aspects of wholeness/original essence (or basic truth, holy idea) that a child lost sight of. Consequently a child develops a compensating core belief about satisfactory survival that mimics original essence and the basic truth about life that the child lost sight of (but also creates an insatiable need).

Loss of Wholeness and Early Organizing Features as Development of Pattern

In response to a loss of wholeness in the womb (stored in implicit memory), the contrast of this simply-being whole to “working to live” in a do-or-die new world necessitates meeting three core needs (Vector). Three aversive emotions alert that homeostasis is not met, and need seeking is directed with a primary orientation bias, the tendency of attention (Attendency) to be inward, outward, or dyadic as a shuttling between inward and outward.

Personality Types

Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4, Type 5, Type 6, Type 7, Type 8, Type 9

Personality Patterns

A-i, B-o, B-d, B-i, C-i, C-d, C-o, A-o, A-d

Adaptive Strategy

Cognitive, emotional, and somatic strategies that all work together to ensure satisfactory survival and are aligned with the child’s core belief that substituted the lost aspect of wholeness/original essence (or basic belief, holy idea).

Adaptive Strategy

Cognitive, emotional, and somatic strategies to restore homeostasis and regain a sense of wholeness that may be remembered implicitly and striven for automatically, without needing awareness. These adaptive strategies emerge from innate features of temperament and learned aspects of response to experience.

Enneagram Type Structure

Knit together in each type are cognitive, emotional, instinctual, somatic, and motivational processes. A protective intelligence or defense mechanism glues the type structure together and underlies each of the nine types. Each of the nine type structures is a result of one of the nine fundamental beliefs about human goodness that the child lost sight of.

PDP Systems and Pathways

Describes three systems and nine pathways of cognitive, emotional, instinctual, somatic and motivational processes that may intersect and are hypothesized to underlie the nine personality patterns. Each vector (motivation) has a trio of Attendencies (focus of energy and information) resulting in nine PDPs.

Defense Mechanism

The protective glue that holds the personality structure together (motivation, cognition, emotions, instincts, attention, etc.)

Defense Mechanism

Not included in the PDP Model.

Cognitive Dynamic

  • Cognitive Higher Capacity or Holy Idea
  • Cognitive Preoccupation or Mental Fixation

Cognitive Processes

  • Cognitive Higher Capacity (mentioned, not included)
  • Cognitive Preoccupations and Habitual Narratives

Emotional Dynamic

  • Emotional Higher Capacity or Emotional Virtue
  • Emotional Passion

Emotional Processes

  • Emotional Higher Capacity (mentioned, not included)
  • Emotional Drive, Tone and Reactivity (also includes emotional regulation and affects associated with a vector’s motivational drive being frustrated or satisfied)

Instinctual Dynamic

  • Pure Instinct
  • Compensated Instinct of Three Sub-Types (Self-Preservation, One-on-One, Social). The nine types are channeled through a dominant instinct resulting in 27 subtypes.

Instinctual Dynamic

Not included in the PDP Model.

Focus of Attention and Blind Spots

Where attention gets placed to support and sustain the particular adaptive strategy, including that which is not seen.

Focus of Attention and Blind Spots

The same definition.

Expressed Personality

Potential Strengths: Personality traits considered to be assets or “blessings.” Individuals within the type can be high or low on each trait.

Potential Weaknesses: Personality traits considered to be liabilities or vulnerabilities. Individual within type can be high or low on each trait.

Expressed Personality

The same definition.

Enneagram Diagram

A universal diagram or map of mathematical laws. The map reveals: (1) three “corners” or “areas” of the circle that make up the Enneagram Triads and (2) interconnecting linkages among the nine types, called wings and integration points, (3) naturally occurring patterns in the universe of motion and time, key to the development of human consciousness and precisely described in the Law of 1, the Law of 3, and the Law of 7 and (4) a great deal more being studied.

Enneagram Diagram

The same, the Enneagram diagram is based on formal mathematical science and cannot be altered, substituted, or replaced.

Dan Siegel sometimes uses a 9-Cell Matrix which is two-dimensional. It does not substitute for the Enneagram diagram, but can be used with it.

The Enneagram diagram is based on formal mathematical laws and patterns, and it is a three-dimensional, moving map of human consciousness, revealing the nine personality patterns and how they develop (or regress). Each of the lines and arrows in the Enneagram diagram mean something.

Three Centers of Intelligence (as Perception, Processing and Knowing Functions)

There are many forms of intelligence, and in the Enneagram three centers of intelligence or three ways to perceive, process, understand and know the world are critical in personality and the development of consciousness. All humans have:

  • head intelligence or logical higher order and critical thinking for gaining knowledge and perception (lower and higher centers)
  • heart intelligence or emotional and intuitive sense of gaining knowledge and perception (lower and higher centers)
  • gut intelligence or instinctual knowing and perception (moving, instinct, sexual centers)

Three Centers of Intelligence (as Perception, Processing and Knowing Functions)

Not included in the PDP Model.

Three Centers of Intelligence (as Location of Experience of Energy in the Human Body)

The three domains of perception and processing found in the human body are experienced as energy in these locations:

  • head area
  • heart and solar plexus area
  • spine vagus nerve to gut and belly area

ALIEF: Anatomic Location of Initial Energy Flow

The experience of initial response or reactivity arises as energy flows through specific regions of the individual’s anatomy and include:

  • head with cortical thinking as part of planning and anticipation
  • heart with heartfelt sensations
  • gut with visceral feelings related to bodily needs

Enneagram Triads – Labeled as Head, Heart, and Gut Centers of Intelligence

Describes clusters of characteristics that group together in three corners of the Enneagram diagram.

  • Head Types: Lead with thinking and logical intelligence, share common cognitive theme of over-thinking and emotional issue of fear — 5, 6, 7 
  • Heart Types: Lead with emotional and intuitive intelligence; share common cognitive theme of image and emotional issue of sadness/grief — 2, 3, 4
  • Gut Types: Lead with instinctive and sensate intelligence; share common cognitive theme of self-forgetting and emotional issues of anger – 1, 8, 9

PDP Triads – Labeled as the Certainty, Bonding, and Agency Vectors

Describes clusters of a trio of patterns that group within three motivation systems.

  • Certainty-Safety Patterns: Share common motivation (certainty), emotion (fear), and cognitive narrative (planning, anticipation, over-thinking) – C-i, C-d, C-o
  • Bonding-Connection Patterns: Share common motivation (bonding), emotion (separation-distress and sadness), and cognitive narrative (creating image to bring and ensure connection with others) – B-o, B-d, B-i
  • Agency-Empowerment Patterns: Share common motivation (agency), emotion (anger), and cognitive narrative (a drive toward embodied empowerment and harmonizing the world) – A-o, A-d, A-i

Life Forces Triads (Energetic Movement)

  • Active/Assertive – 3, 7, 8
  • Balancing/Compliant – 6, 1, 2
  • Receptive/Withdrawn – 9, 4, 5

Not part of Enneagram diagram connecting lines, but useful in discerning type and look-a-like types.

Life Forces Triads (Energetic Movement)

Not included in the PDP Model.

Harmonic Triads (Emotional Regulation and Conflict Resolution)

  • Express Emotions/Reactive – 8, 4, 6
  • Contain Emotions/Competency – 1, 3, 5
  • Reframe Emotions/Positive Outlook — 9, 7, 2

Not part of the Enneagram diagram connecting lines, but useful in discerning type and look-a-like types.

PDP Emotional Regulation Mode Bridging Patterns

  • Up-regulate Emotions – A-o, B-i, C-b
  • Down-regulate Emotions – A-i, B-d, C-i
  • Shift-Regulate Emotions – A-d, C-o, B-o

Bridging patterns are those that share one of the three features: vector, attendency, or mode of emotion regulation.

Harmony Triads (Relating to the World)

  • Pragmatists – 3, 6, 9
  • Idealists – 1, 4, 7
  • Realists – 2, 5, 8

Not part of the two-dimensional Enneagram diagram connecting lines, but revealed in the 3-dimensional Enneagram sphere. David found the Harmony Triads useful in clinical integration work as he could work with the three centers of intelligence within a person. In David’s words:

“The Harmony Triads give each of us: (1) a type that leads with a different one of the three centers of intelligence – head, heart, and body, (2) a type that leads with a different one of the three great life energies – active, receptive, and balancing, and (3) a type that leads with a different one of the three basic forms of emotional regulation and conflict resolution – refraining into positives, containing through logical analysis, and expressing deep concerns to get to the root of conflict. Thus the harmony triads provide all that is necessary for a satisfactory life and the understanding of self and others.”

Harmony Triads (Relating to the World)

Not included in the PDP.

Other Key Materials on the Enneagram and the Patterns of Developmental Pathways

Denise Daniels, PhD Presentation, November 2024: The Narrative Enneagram hosted Denise Daniels, Daniel Siegel and the PDP Group with a book launch celebration and an honoring of David Daniels. The title of the talk was “The Enneagram, Science, and My Father.” focusing on the worldwide growth of the Enneagram and spirituality and science as a Both/And.

Original PDP Article Submission, March 2010:  Personality and Wholeness in Therapy with lead author Daniel Siegel, MD was written and published after David Daniels, MD died.  The original article and Pathways of Developmental Processing, a developmental model, is documented here: “The Enneagram Personality System: Nine Patterns of Developmental Processing“

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