The Centers of Intelligence Triads: Evolution of the Three Centers of Intelligence Optimizing Three Survival Instincts 

In the Enneagram tradition brought forward by Gurdjieff and Ichazo, the three Centers of Intelligence are considered to be three broad functional systems associated with optimizing three survival instincts (Ouspensky, 1949; Ichazo, 2024a, 2024b). Rather than representing separate parts of the mind, the Centers operate simultaneously as “mind” viewed as complementary modes of processing information and regulating behavior. The soma senses, emotions react, and cognition assesses.

In addition to Gurdjieff and Ichazo, psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo described these three survival instincts using terminology to describe the conditioned personality as well as how the instincts operate in psychopathology (Naranjo, 1990) as shown in Table 1a.

Table 1a: Comparative Labels for the Three Survival Instincts

The evolutionary capacities of the three Centers of Intelligence suggests that each Center organizes characteristic patterns of functions, including, but not limited to motivation, attention, information filtering, memory storage, emotional regulation, energy regulation, and behavior in three specific recurring orientations that support the three instincts. See Table 1b.

Table 1b : Triadic Patterns of the Centers for Some Key Functions

As seen in Table 1b, the Enneagram distinguishes three broad natural survival instincts—conservation, relation, and adaptation, which operate for survival of the species. However, the conditioned personality contracts or distorts the instincts which then operate for self and the important people in one’s life, conventionally labeled Self-Preservation, One-to-One, and Social.

Body (Instinctual-Moving) Center –  Optimizing the Conservation Instinct or Survival of the Soma

The Body Center serves the survival instinct more than the other two centers. And that survival instinct manifests mainly as conservation–having everything needful and satisfying to the operation of continuing existence. In the Enneagram tradition its adaptive drive is toward harmony of self with the environment–maintaining an optimal relationship between the organism and its surroundings through effective movement to environments with optimized resources and minimized threat.

The Body Center is associated primarily with empowerment, justice, and other conservation-related behaviors. Its attention is directed outward to the environment in order to assure (and even defend) what it sees as needful. The Body Center filters the world through a more kinesthetic or moving-boundary intelligence, including taking in impressions from the senses, physical sensations of movement in the world, and gut instincts. It then stores in memory the ways that body-based sensory filtering unsuccessfully and successfully closes “gaps” between internal state and perception of the environment. 

In a healthy state it draws the emotions into play; in a contracted state it defends itself with anger and aggression.

With its primary emphasis on bodily self-preservation, the Body Center’s key function is receiving the external environment through the senses and movement. The article sections to follow will describe how the Body Center has a bias in outward orientation to act:

• Attention primarily directed outward to the environment, building confidence to act by understanding the environment
• Emotional regulation that pauses action, turning outward to assess or reframe the environment, then inward to shifting emotional state for positive action serving self and others
• Energy regulation that protects self –  energy flows from outward to inward, receiving the environment through the senses and movement, and directing energy in and down to protect self

Heart (Emotional-Relational) Center – Optimizing the One-On-One Relational Instinct

The Heart Center serves the relational instinct more than the other two centers–having to create relationships for mating, pair-bonding, care of young, and other important relationships. In the Enneagram tradition, its adaptive drive is toward doing the connecting–actively asserting self in response to internal feeling states. Both positive and aversive emotions prompt rapid action.

The Heart Center is associated primarily with mating, pair-bonding, and mother-infant bonding, but must also forge relationships with important and protective figures for individual survival. Its attention is primarily inwards, looking for what might be either disruptive to well-being or better for it than what the current environment provides. The Heart Center filters the world through intuition, relational intelligence, and emotions. It then stores in memory the ways that heart-based intuitive filtering unsuccessfully and successfully closes “gaps” of separation between internal states and perception of the environment. 

In a healthy state it promotes bonding and care; in a contracted state it defends itself with deceit and “display” or image (to gain approval), or contracts to separation-distress, sadness, and shame.

With its primary emphasis on connecting with one’s species, the Heart Center’s key function is to assert self through emotions critical in competition for mating and to establish relationships that support individual development and continuation of the species. The article sections to follow will describe how the Heart Center has a bias in inward orientation to act:

• Attention primarily directed inward to internal emotional states, building confidence by relying on inner abilities to know what to do
• Emotional regulation through inward containing in a “wait” with attention focused on inner rationale and logic before outward asserting of solutions that work for self and others
• Energy regulation that protects self – energy flows from inward to outward, being “first” to assert a position, active asserting of self through inner emotional state, energy flowing up and out toward result to protect self

Head (Cognitive - Intellectual) Center – Optimizing the Adaptation-Social Instinct

The Head Center serves the social-adaptation instinct more than the other two centers–having the knowledge of how to close the “gaps” between desired and current environment. In the Enneagram tradition, its adaptive drive is toward knowing–developing understanding of cause and effect and reconciliation between the memory of internal experience and perceived external observations. Discerning root-cause takes time and gives rise to continually relating internal solutions and plans to external events in order to increase certainty, predictability, and master the environment through building solutions and tools to make the environment more amenable.

The Head Center is associated primarily with adaptation within larger social and ecological systems. Its attention is dyadic in nature: looking outwards for opportunity and inwards for solution, but it can get “stuck” and oscillate if there’s a looming need or threat for which it has no “cause-effect” solution. The Head Center filters the world through mental faculties and forming associations between cause and effect. It then stores in memory the ways that head-based cause-effect filtering unsuccessfully and successfully closes “gaps” between internal state and perception of the environment. 

In a healthy state it seeks and explores new possibilities and experiences in the environment and social group; in a contracted state it avoids the unknown and collapses into fear, non-action, and failure to contribute to the social group.

With its primary emphasis on adaptation and “mastery” of the environment, its primary function is to reconcile internal state with the environment or a more sophisticated cause-effect discernment. The triad sections to follow will describe how the Head Center has a bias in dyadic orientation to act:

• Attention organized dyadically, continually relating internal experience and problem solving to environmental events, building confidence through knowledge and understanding 
• Emotional regulation through expressing and evaluating both emotional information and outer environment as a dyadic discernment of whether the root cause is internal/self or external/other intending to serve self and other
• Energy regulation that dyadically attempts to balance self with others and the environment, the tension of energy in balancing results in protection of self through complying or compromising with others

Triadic Structure of the Centers of Intelligence Triads

Because the three Centers of Intelligence are associated with evolutionary functions (Ouspensky, 1949; Smith, 1993) tied to each of the three instincts, the Body Center recurring pattern places confidence in the outer environment, the Heart Center places it in the internal feeling state, and the Head Center attempts to reconcile outer and inner. Figure 1 shows the placement of the three Centers in the Enneagram diagram.

Figure 1. The Centers of Intelligence Triads

• Body – Outward biased attention to Harmony of Environment
• Heart – Inward biased attention to Internal Feeling State 
• Head – Dyadic biased attention to Attempt to Reconcile Environment and Internal State

Early Naranjo teachings placed all three instincts in the Body Center. However, Gurdjieff and Ichazo scholarship place all three instincts in all Centers (Ouspensky, 1949; Ichazo, 2024b), but self-preservation dominates in the Body Center, One-on-One dominates in the Heart Center, and social dominates in the Head Center. At puberty all three instincts are impacted by human sexuality (the mammalian positive emotion of lust), particularly the One-on-One instinct, often called the Sexual Instinct.

Labels Describing the Centers of Intelligence Triads

Gurdjieff, Ichazo, and Naranjo each used slightly different labels for the three Centers of Intelligence as summarized in Table 2a.

Table 2a: Center of Intelligence Labels

The Enneagram Harmony Triads: Act For, Act On, Act With

The Role of the Harmony Triads – Provides Reciprocal Value to Self and Others

Within each Center of Intelligence, adaptive behavior differentiates further into reciprocal value for self and others, described by Daniels as:

Outward ACT FOR (8-2-5):  David Daniels described this triad as the Relationists, emphasizing the value each type contributes through outward engagement with the world. 

Inward ACT ON (1-4-7):  David Daniels described this triad as the Idealists, emphasizing their tendency to transform existing reality in accordance with internal standards and ideals.

Dyadic ACT WITH (9-3-6):  David Daniels described this triad as the Pragmatists, emphasizing their continual balancing of what do others need with what can I bring them through reciprocal engagement. 

These outward, inward, and dyadic directions represent three distinct ways of organizing behavior that benefit the child’s attempts for restored wholeness, while also bringing value to others and the environment a child is raised in (Ichazo 2024a, 2024b, Wheeler, 2026). Together, they form the Harmony Triads and provide the developmental bridge from the three Centers of Intelligence to the nine Enneagram personality patterns. 

Table 2b captures the Enneagram’s central developmental path from three centers to nine behavioral orientations as articulated by Ichazo (2024a). Each of the three Center-based motivations can be expressed through each of three behavioral orientations, yielding nine Center-Orientation combinations.

Table 2b:  Bridging the Three Centers of Intelligence to the Nine Patterns Using the Harmony Triads

The Harmony Triads serve as a form of Behavioral Regulation: Is my behavior working for others? Is it working for self? Does it help close the gap between self and environment as I attempt to experience wholeness and assuage aversive emotions? 

In the BODY CENTER

• We can ACT FOR the world — Protect others from harm and injustices while shielding self from vulnerability (Pattern 8)
• We can ACT ON the world — Make self the one with idealized harmony and share this perfection with others simultaneously achieving internal goodness for self (Pattern 1)
• We can ACT WITH the world — Minimize self and blend with others to prevent conflict and preserve a peaceful environment and harmony for self (Pattern 9)

In the HEART CENTER

• We can ACT FOR the world — Meet needs or make connections for others while also gaining approval for self by helping others (Pattern 2)
• We can ACT ON the world — Make self the one who connects our shared existential concerns and share them with others simultaneously gaining a deep sense of connection for self (Pattern 4)
• We can ACT WITH the world — Identify with doing and the internal value I bring and stay connected to make sure others approve of self by what I do (Pattern 3)

In the HEAD CENTER

• We can ACT FOR the world — Help others to solve their problems while creating models of understanding the world for my own self knowledge (Pattern 5)
• We can ACT ON the world — Make self the one with a future ideal of wisdom and share it with others while simultaneously providing self with positive options for the future (Pattern 7)
• We can ACT WITH the world — Question the nature of reality for self and others while reducing doubt and building predictability for self (Pattern 6)

Triadic Structure of the Harmony Triads

The three behavioral orientations of the Harmony Triads continue the pattern of outward, inwardly referenced, and dyadic modes of regulating and organizing behavior based on the proper evolutionary function of the Centers (see Figure 2 and 3).

Starting with Figure 2 each point within the triangles of each Center represents one of the nine Enneagram personality patterns expressing the motivational drive (harmony, doing the connecting, knowledge) in a distinct way.  Each Center has a pattern that will ACT FOR, ACT ON, and ACT WITH.

Figure 2:  The Three Centers Divide Into ACT FOR, ACT ON, and ACT WITH

• ACT FOR – Outward Organization of Behavior
• ACT ON  – Inward Organization of Behavior
• ACT WITH – Dyadic Organization of Behavior

Next is Figure 3, Daniels' basic Harmony Triads diagram in which the structure conveys two related ideas.

Figure 3: The Harmony Triads, David Daniels, M.D.

• Center Triads: Body, Heart, Head
• Emotional Regulation Triads: Shift, Contain, Express (also called Positive Outlook, Competency, and Reactive)
• Energy Regulation Triads: Receptive (in and down), Active (up and out), Balancing (tension between) (also called Withdrawing, Asserting, Complying)

First, the three equilateral triangles represent the three basic actions of reciprocal value: Outward-ACT FOR (RED triangle), Inward-ACT ON (BLUE triangle), and Dyadic Attempt to Balance Inward and Outward ACT WITH (GREEN triangle) in which each triangle contains a Body, Heart, and Head Center.

Second, it can be seen reading the words of the triads for each point that the core points of 9, 3, 6 representing the three Centers have a steady use of their Center of Intelligence. However, it may look like their Center is underused because the Act With behavior blends, defers, and compromises. On the other hand, the wing points (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8) use regulation modes of varying centers (Daniels, 2012; Riso & Hudson, 2000).

Consistent with the recurring triadic structure, the outward, inwardly referenced, and dyadic orientations are also expressed in the Emotional Regulation Triads (Outward-Shift, Inward-Contain, and Dyadic-Express), and the Energy Regulation Triads (Outward-Receptive flows to In and Down, Inward-Active flows to Up and Out, and Dyadic-Balancing) which will be described in upcoming sections of this article.

Many Labels Describing the Harmony Triads

In 1970, Ichazo communicated that there is an inward or internalized version and an outward or externalized version of core balancing points 9 (body), 3 (heart), and 6 (head). Ichazo’s 2024 publications present labels of Action (8, 2, 5), Reaction (1, 4, 7), and Result (9, 3, 6). Ichazo’s work indicates that we behave based on where we find “confidence to act” – confidence based on what the environment informs, confidence in our inner abilities to know what to do, or in a result that brings both together.

• Confidence to Act:  From Environment  |  From Self  |  From Both
• Orientation: Outward  |  Inward  |  Dyadic   
• Ichazo (2024a) :  Action  |  Reaction  |  Result
• Daniels (2012):   Relationists  | Idealists  |  Pragmatists
• Wheeler (2026)/This article : ACT FOR |  ACT ON |  ACT WITH

Over the almost 60 years since Oscar Ichazo introduced the Enneagram to the “West,” numerous labels and interpretations have defined the core action or behavior that creates a pathway from relying on one of three Centers of Intelligence to nine personality types or patterns. Table 3 shows a synopsis of labels, starting with Ichazo in 1970 to Daniels in 2012 and Wheeler in 2026. For a full list of all contributors, including Ichazo, 1970, 2024; Dunne, 1971/1999; Beesing et al., 1984; Hurley and Dobson, 1992; Almaas, 2000; Riso and Hudson, 2000; Daniels, 2012; Rainwater, 2016; Wheeler, 2026, see Appendix A.

Over the almost 60 years since Oscar Ichazo introduced the Enneagram to the “West,” numerous labels and descriptions have defined the core action or behavior that creates a pathway from relying on one of 3 Centers of Intelligence to 9 personality types or patterns (see Table 3).

Table 3: Various Labels for the Three Harmony Triads Basic Relationship to the World (also called Object-Relations Triads)

A central contribution of David Daniels' Harmony Triads’ work is his distinction between healthier and more contracted or unhealthy expressions of the same adaptive orientation. An adaptive behavior may initially serve development effectively by bringing value to the child, others, or the surrounding environment. When that behavior becomes the habitual strategy through which the individual seeks acceptance, connection or security, it can become increasingly automatic, rigid, limiting, or overused. The next two sections further summarize this distinction between healthy and less healthy descriptions. This distinction is central to David Daniels’ contribution because it reframes the same underlying orientation as capable of adaptive, integrated expression or increasingly automatic and contracted expression.

The Emotional Regulation Triads – Shift, Contain, Express

The Role of the Emotional Regulation Triads – Provides Capacity for Resolution

Next are the three emotional regulation triads (Figure 4). The capacity of mind to regulate emotions and modify them is key in resolving our experiences of rupture in relationships, larger conflicts, and other gaps of separation between what the self desires and what the environment presents (Daniels, 2012).

• Shift (Outward to Environmental Harmony): three patterns have a bias in the Body Center to restore harmony of the environment.
  • Patterns 9, 2, and 7 reframe the environment as positive and harmonious, and shift-regulate their emotional state to resolve or reconcile problems, but can completely repress emotions in stress and reactivity.
  • Healthy Resolution: Shift-regulating emotions without completely repressing them.
• Contain (Inward to Internal Rationale): three patterns have a bias in the Heart Center to assert a rationale solution from self, to do, and to accomplish.
  • Patterns 3, 1, and 5 contain-regulate providing time to internally analyze, build rationale, and logic to resolve or reconcile problems, but can suppress emotions in stress and reactivity.
  • Healthy Resolution: Down-regulating emotions so they are contained and present rather than suppressed
• Express (Dyadic to Cause and Effect): three patterns have a bias in the Head Center to reconcile cause and effect with knowledge.
  • Patterns 6, 4, and 8 express-regulate voicing concerns and causes to uncover “data” and knowledge about the root cause of problems to resolve or reconcile problems, but can amplify and project emotions in stress and reactivity.
  • Healthy Resolution: Up-regulating emotions enough for constructive expression and verbalization to uncover "what's really going on" and increase cause-effect knowledge rather than "amplified-potentially-destructive" emotions.

Triadic Structure of Emotional Regulation

As seen in Figure 4, the three-fold pattern continues from the Center’s dominant bias of an outward, inward, or dyadic orientation based on its evolutionary purpose. The diagram connects core points 9, 3, and 6 to the wing points that use the Emotional Regulation modes of the Body, Heart, and Head Centers, respectively.

Figure 4. Emotional Regulation Triads (also referred to as the Conflict Resolution Triads)

• Body – Outward Shifting (Positive Outlook) – 9 body triangle lines to 2 and 7
• Heart  – Inward Containing (Competency) – 3 heart triangle lines to 1 and 5
• Head – Dyadic Expressing (Reactive) – 6 head triangle lines to 4 and 8

 

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Many Labels Describing the Emotional Regulation Triads (or Harmonic Triads)

Table 4 outlines the various labels that have been used to understand the emotional regulation triads, including healthier and less healthy labels. Emotional regulation also can impact the core behavior to ACT FOR, ACT ON, or ACT WITH others.

Table 4: Emotional Regulation Labels (or Harmonic Triads)

The Energy Regulation Triads – Receptive In and Down, Active Up and Out, Balancing

The Role of the Energy Regulation Triads – Provides Self-Protection

The Energy Regulation Triads (Figure 5) protect self and the flow of energy. However, in a reactive and stressed context regulation can become constricted, possibly decreasing the amount of free-flowing energy. 

• Receptive (Outward to Inward Flow): three patterns have bias in the Body Center’s receptive energy which flows outward to in and down.
  • Patterns 9, 4, and 5 receive the needs of the environment and others, but this receiving energy can also contract to withdrawing behavior.
  • Healthy Available Energy: receptive and present energy without withdrawing, considers self and other.
• Active (Inward to Outward Flow): three patterns have bias in the Heart Center’s active energy which flows inward to up and out.
  • Patterns 3, 7, and 8 lean into inner abilities to know what to do, but this decisive active energy can also contract to aggressive behavior.
  • Healthy Available Energy: active and grounded energy without aggressive asserting from self, considers self and other.
• Balancing (Dyadic Flow): three patterns have bias in the Head Center’s balancing energy which toggles between self and other.
  • Patterns 6, 1, and 2 look to balance and compromise, but this balancing energy can also contract to complying behavior to protect self (6 is dutiful for safety, 1 defers to societal super-ego, 2 is compliant to important others).
  • Healthy Available Energy: balanced energy which takes in both self and other sans complying and co-dependency.

Triadic Structure of Energy Regulation

As seen in Figure 5, the three-fold pattern continues from the Center’s dominant bias of an outward, inward, or dyadic orientation. The diagram connects core points 9, 3, and 6 to the wing points that use the Energy Regulation modes of the Body, Heart, and Head Centers, respectively.

Figure 5. Energy Flow Regulation Triads (also called the Hornevian Triads, see Table 5)

• Body – In and Down (or Withdrawing) – Outward to inward energy flow – 9 body triangle lines to 4 and 5
• Heart – Up and Out  (or Asserting) – Inward to outward energy flow – 3 heart triangle lines to 7 and 8
• Head – Between (or Complying) – Dyadic attempt to balance energy tension – 6  head triangle lines to 1 and 2

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Many Labels Describing the Energy Regulation (or Hornevian Triads)

Table 5 outlines the various labels that have been used to understand the energy regulation triads, including more and less healthy (Daniels, 2012). In addition, the labels of “against,” “away,” “toward,” and “with” have been used in different contexts by various authors, also causing confusion particularly when used to describe behavior (see the last row of Table 5).

Finally, Energy Regulation modes influence observable behavior. For example, Patterns 2, 5, and 8 “ACT FOR” others, behaving to provide protection, meet needs, and provide knowledge for others. However, Pattern 8 energy is up and out, Pattern 5 is down and in, and Pattern 2 toggles between balancing needs of important others and of self.

Table 5: Energy Flow Regulation Labels (or Hornevian Triads)

Developmental Pathways Based on the Enneagram as a Comprehensive System: One to Three to Nine to 27

With the three survival instincts and four triads described, this section builds a framework of developmental pathways (Figure 6) which includes all elements of the Enneagram Personality System. The descriptions of development are based on the Enneagram tradition.

The framework starts with the operation of the natural instincts or the operation of the three instincts before learned experience is stored in memory. As the structure of nine personality patterns are formed by growing experience, coping mechanisms of personality distort the natural instincts into what Ichazo labelled as distorted or conditioned instincts, resulting in 27 patterns.

• The three natural instincts of survival – instincts operating before learning/conditioning
• The three Centers of Intelligence Triads
• The Harmony Triads – Behavioral Regulation Triads
• The Emotional Regulation Triads
• The Energy Flow Regulation Triads
• The three “distorted” instincts of survival – instincts operating after learning/conditioning

The four triads are not four successive developmental stages, but rather an emergent system in which all the “separate” functions and orientations operate interactively, simultaneously, sequentially, and contextually. 

The one (undifferentiated wholeness) to three (centers) to nine (personality patterns) to 27 (instinctual subtypes) path describes a proposed developmental differentiation of the Enneagram patterns, whereas the comprehensive system describes the interacting functional domains through which those patterns are expressed and regulated.

Figure 6: An Enneagram System Comprehensive Patterns of Developmental Pathways Framework

From 1 to 3: Undifferentiated beginning to 3 Centers of adaptive functions → 3 patterns

• Within the Enneagram tradition, development is described as beginning with an experience of unity or undifferentiated wholeness, often called being. Following birth, we lose contact with this wholeness of being (Ichazo, 1982a; Almaas, 2000).
• As we develop, the sensate experience of separation leads to our attempts to restore wholeness. One of our primary Centers of Intelligence is relied upon in attempting to close the gap between "self” and "environment” based on our natural instincts embedded in temperament.
• Each of the Centers of Intelligence has physical, emotional, and mental habits, but some come to be relied on more than others.

Although all three Centers of Intelligence operate simultaneously and remain available throughout life, the framework indicates that children may develop a preference for relying on one Center more than the others (Gurdjieff 1950; Ichazo, 1982a). Which Center becomes predominant is understood to reflect primarily inborn temperament but can also be influenced by early trauma (Ichazo, 2023). As the adaptive strategies associated with that Center repeatedly succeed in meeting developmental needs and are reinforced by the child's environment, they become increasingly stable and characteristic over time.

From 3 to 9: 3 Centers x 3 Behavioral Orientations → 9 patterns

• In perceived separation from the world, there are only three ways to build confidence to act and each Center divides into:
  • • ACT FOR the world
    • ACT ON (Improve On) the World
    • ACT WITH the World

Embedded in the Harmony Triads we see our strengths and inherent value we bring to others and the world. However, this habit of action when compensated as our strategy to receive love can become contracted, fixated, over-compensated, and thus also become our weakness causing hurt and harm to both self and others, according to  the level of secure attachment.

• From here there are fundamental modes for regulating emotions and energy. If our initiating Center of Intelligence fails to close gaps between internal state and the environment, Emotional Regulation most often follows attempting to resolve or reconcile gaps, followed or in parallel with Energy Regulation serving to protect us and our energy expenditure (while simultaneously denying others and the environment). Energy Regulation in a flow from outward to inward or inward to outward, or balancing appears as Introversion, Extraversion, or Ambiversion, impacting how the behaviors of ACT FOR, ACT ON, and ACT WITH are visibly observed.

The Enneagram also identifies nine defense mechanisms that “glue” the personality structure together. The nine defense mechanisms also follow the three-fold recurring pattern of the Emotional Regulation Triads:

1-3-5, suppressing – retreating from conflict (inward)

• • • Pattern 1 – Reaction Formation - hides the inner state and replaces it with calm.
    • Pattern 3 – Identification - hides the inner state and replaces it with external worthiness.
    • Pattern 5 – Isolation - hides the inner state by retreating into logic.

4-6-8 expressing –- moving in on conflict to understand the cause (dyadic)

• • • Pattern 4 – Introjection - projects contrition (My fault).
    • Pattern 6 – Projection - attributes own failings to others (Your fault).
    • Pattern 8 – Denial - projects righteous strength, regardless (No fault).

2-7-9 repressing – asleep to conflict but at the same time producing it through omission (outward)

• • • Pattern 2 – Repression - avoids hurtful conflict.
    • Pattern 7 – Rationalization - avoids hurtful blame.
    • Pattern 9 – Narcotisation - avoids hurt, period.

From 9 to 27: 9 Behavioral Patterns x 3 Conditioned Instincts → 27 patterns 

• As a conditioned personality develops, Ichazo describes how the natural instincts become distorted (serving self, rather than the species). Best known by Naranjo’s labels they are Self-Preservation (me over other members of my species), One-on-One (exclusive connection, care, and focus on only some members of my species), and Social (a cover up for not contributing to the group’s effort to adapt to and master the environment) (Lilly and Hart, 1975; Ichazo, 1982a, 1982b). This is a further interaction and differentiation of each pattern. The 27 subtypes are not proposed as a third independent developmental stage; rather, they represent further differentiation in the expression of each of the nine patterns according to which conditioned instinct becomes most distorted or contracted to operate for self (rather than for self and others).

In Summary

Innate temperament and environmental experience, on aggregate, contribute to our personality. However, when looking at individuals, their particular genetics, specific traumas, and unique challenges, the balance of inborn temperament and environment could be weighted differently. In the Enneagram tradition, experiencing secure attachment is associated with a more flexible or “softer” expression of the habitual personality pattern, whereas insecure attachment may contribute to a more “fixated” expression. In both healthy and less healthy personality the habit remains on auto-pilot until controlled attention enables a sustaining witnessing of our machine-like pattern.

Comparing Patterns of Developmental Pathways: The Enneagram Harmony Triads and the Attendency Triads

In the book Personality and Wholeness, the PDP Group formed a working hypothesis on a developmental pathway from three motivational Vectors to nine personality patterns. The PDP hypothesis used data from the Centers Triads and the Emotional Regulation Triads. From here, we created a hypothesis that would link the three Centers or Vectors to the nine patterns. We called this hypothesis Attendency in which attention, energy, and behavior channel in the same direction. We had the inward, outward, and dyadic pattern from the Enneagram tradition, but behavioral regulation and energy regulation came from an educated guess, and not the triadic structure. The broader, comprehensive system of the Enneagram tradition starts with a behavioral orientation of value and that the capacity of mind to monitor, modify, and modulate behavior can change the direction of attention and energy in how that behavior is manifested.

Energy Follows Attention, Regulation May Change It

Energy does follow attention, until regulatory capacities of the mind change the direction. Thus, inward, outward, and dyadic can change with behavior regulation of the Harmony Triad, Emotional Regulation and Energy Regulation.

As mentioned above, the PDP Group working hypothesis came from the use of two Enneagram triads. There are slight differences in predictions of behavior when we use all four sets of triads: 

• The Centers Triads (or Vector triads),
• The Action or Behavior Regulation Triads (a “contemporary” label for the Harmony triads),
• The Emotional Regulation Triads, and
• The Energy Flow Triads.

Table 7 shows the predictions of the Enneagram’s three-fold recurring patterns with four triads (Centers/Vectors, plus three more triads) and the Attendency hypothesis with two triads, (Centers/Vectors, plus one triad for Emotional Regulation). 

Yellow highlights show slight differences in the resulting pathways from the three Centers/Vectors to the nine patterns of personality when four versus two triads are included.

Table 7: Predictions Based on the Enneagram’s Triadic Recurring Pattern vs. Predictions Based on the PDP’s Attendency Hypothesis

Patterns 5 and 7: Taking Another Look

Pattern 5, the Observer or Investigator, has a bias in outward attention to observing, watching, and investigating, with behavior oriented to gathering knowledge and understanding the world as it is, but their energy draws inward (in and down). On the other hand, Pattern 7, The Epicure or Visionary, has a bias in inward attention to imagination and envisioning a “pain-free” world, with behavior oriented by turning inward to a new vision for the future, but their energy asserts outward (up and out).

Table 8 reveals a more complex answer, and more about the “mixing and matching” of using more than one center or Motivational Vector for the “wing” points. It highlights the impact of both energy and emotional regulation on behavior. The behavior orientation for Pattern 5 is outward in the form of understanding the world for others, but both energy and emotional regulation impact how that behavior manifests in an inward and quiet manner. Likewise Pattern 7 organizes their behavior around internal visions of the future but both energy and emotional regulation create an assertive, up and out, upbeat manifestation of the behavior.

This resulting divergence between core behavioral orientation and regulatory expression provides a specific empirical question for distinguishing the Harmony Triad/comprehensive model from the earlier PDP Attendency model.

Table 8: Looking at Pattern 5 and 7 Behavior, Attention, Energy Regulation, Emotional Regulation

Matrix of the Four Triads

As seen in Table 9, labels used to describe healthy and less healthy forms of regulation are vital in clinical work and measurement.

Table 9: A Matrix of All Four Enneagram Harmony Triads: Discerning Healthy versus Contracted and/or Reactive Regulation

Conclusions

This article revisited the Patterns of Developmental Pathways framework through David Daniels’ contribution to the Harmony Triads. It describes two related ideas:  first, that the Harmony Triads provide a developmental bridge from the three Centers of Intelligence to the nine Enneagram personality patterns; and second, that the Harmony Triads are best understood within a broader comprehensive Enneagram System, in which behavioral orientation, emotional regulation, energy regulation, and instinctual processes interact.  The developmental sequence is thus 1→3→9→27, while the comprehensive system describes the interacting functions through which these patterns are expressed and regulated. 

Developmental Pathways and Interactive Functions Within a System

The study of the Harmony Triads presents a system of developmental pathways and interactive functions. Within the framework presented here, the three Centers of Intelligence represent broad adaptive functions associated with conservation, relation, and adaptation. Each Center can differentiate into three behavioral orientations – ACT FOR, ACT ON, ACT WITH–yielding nine personality patterns. These patterns may then further differentiate through three conditioned instinctual orientations, yielding the 27 subtypes.  At the same time, the four triadic domains–Centers of Intelligence, Behavioral Orientations, Emotional and Energy Regulation–do not represent four successive developmental stages. Rather, in the Enneagram tradition they are seen to operate interactively and contextually, most often simultaneously and sometimes sequentially, with each contributing to how an underlying behavioral orientation is organized, regulated, and expressed.

David Daniels’ distinctive contribution is especially important in distinguishing healthier and more contracted expressions of these orientations.  An adaptive strategy may initially help an individual meet developmental needs and bring value to others, yet become increasingly automatic, over-used, and defended against. This distinction allows personality to be understood not simply as a collection of traits, but as a dynamic pattern of adaptation that can vary in flexibility, awareness, regulation, openness, and freer-flowing energy.

Triadic Structure: A Science of Patterns

The recurring, triadic structure of the Enneagram is consistent with a much older contemplative recognition that human experience and human consciousness organize themselves through recurring patterns rooted in whole systems dividing into three. And, for the development of personality, wholeness in three derives from three natural species survival instincts–Conservation, Relation, and Adaptation–using Ichazo’s labels. What is especially interesting is how the Enneagram triads may therefore offer a bridge between the contemplative traditions' science of patterns and the empirical sciences' study of complex biological and relational systems. When the triadic structure within the comprehensive system of the Enneagram of Personality is considered, it suggests future study of the Enneagram may benefit from an approach using system science as well as systems theory approaches capable of examining interacting and nonlinear processes.

The Importance of Labels and Language

The labels we use can obscure as well as clarify. We may be talking about the same function while using different terminology from diverse fields of psychology, different lines of scientific research, as well as diverse labels in the contemplative traditions. Karen Horney's triads of coping mechanisms energetically express how we cope and attempt to get our needs met: withdrawing, asserting, and complying, for example, which initially look quite different from the triad of the basic life flow of energy: receptive–in and down, active–up and out, attempting to balance. Or in stress-survival mode in which energy regulation that serves to protect us takes the survival reflexes form: flight/withdraw, fight/assert, freeze/feint/attempt to balance. This is indeed a key contribution in Daniels’ Harmony Triads work. Similarly, animals regulate emotion through processes that might be described as containing-concealing, shifting-replacing, and sustaining-expressing. In the fixated or contracted, however, these same regulatory functions can distort from what is natural into suppressing, repressing, or amplifying emotions, particularly in stress and reactivity. This same triadic pattern describes the three types of insecure attachment.

Further, what is even more clarifying is that each of the four triads have been described with labels and descriptions from Ichazo and later from Naranjo who used Karen Horney’s Object Relations labels. Ichazo came forward with Outward, Inward, and Outward-and-Inward (also Action, Reaction, Result) and Naranjo/Object Relations with Toward, Away, and Against. Both describe that there are only three ways a perceived separate self can orient itself to the environment. Future research must dig deep into understanding the various labels assigned to the Enneagram’s triadic structure. In addition, it is useful to see that all four triads are Object Relations triads, in which a person perceives separateness from the objects of the environment. The tables of labels throughout this article and in the Appendices will assist toward that end.

Revisiting the PDP Framework

The Patterns of Developmental Pathways (PDP) framework attempted to bridge the ancient contemplative tradition of the Enneagram with contemporary affective neuroscience and developmental psychology. By translating Enneagram nomenclature into the language of contemporary science, the PDP framework generated valuable insight into motivational systems. Revisiting Daniels’ work on the Enneagram Harmony Triads brought forward additional dimensions of the Enneagram system that were not incorporated into the PDP framework and led to reconsidering some of the developmental pathways the PDP Group proposed. Comparing the Enneagram Harmony Triads with the earlier PDP Attendency framework reveals a specific difference in the predicted organization of Patterns 5 and 7. The Harmony Triad model places Pattern 5 in an outward ACT FOR orientation and Pattern 7 in an inward ACT ON orientation, while emotional and energy regulation may modify how those orientations appear behaviorally. This distinction provides a concrete example of how incorporating multiple interacting triads can yield different predictions from a model based on fewer regulatory dimensions.

Bridging Eastern and Western Psychology

A broader view suggests an important opportunity for psychological science and practice. The science of patterns represented by the Enneagram system has the potential to inform the empirical sciences, while empirical science can provide understanding for how these patterns become embodied, developmental, and relational in human biology and neurobiology. Turning to clinical practice, Western psychology, similar to Western medicine, has primarily focused on symptoms and coping mechanisms. The contemplative traditions are grounded from a different place, not only descriptive of how we cope—which is incredibly useful, but how we become free from the patterns through which we have adapted and learned to cope. Bringing these perspectives together allows us to hold these two views: our patterns are self-organizing adaptations, and they can also become limiting when they operate outside our awareness. The Eastern psychology of the Enneagram system does focus on how we can become a more self-aware, and hence, ‘balanced’ human being, it also focuses on the curative potential of consciousness—how sustaining our awareness can lead to a freer and less defended state, a capacity to receive the world as it is, and a sustained state of wholeness where we can move past functioning for the “I” of personality, and are now functioning for “We” of our whole species and all of life.

Side Notes

Notes and Acknowledgements

This article was written by Denise Daniels, Ph.D. and in alignment with the contribution to the Enneagram Harmony Triads by David Daniels, M.D. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of other members of the PDP Group.

Reviewers and Contributors: Laura Baker, Suzanne Dion, Steven Wheeler

This article objectively describes the three-fold recurring pattern found in the Enneagram. 

Please write to Denise Daniels about any questions or to set up a discussion: denise@drdaviddaniels.com 

Background to this Article

After the book, Personality and Wholeness, by Daniel Siegel and the PDP Group was released at the end of 2024, I was contacted by Enneagram scholars, clinicians, and teachers, certified in the Enneagram Institute and the Narrative Enneagram, with an interesting issue. Why did the PDP Group place Pattern 5 with a bias in inward attention and Pattern 7 with a bias in outward attention?

In addition, I was asked to explore the asymmetrical Attendency triads of 1-4-5 (inward) and 8-2-7 (outward) compared to the symmetrical Harmony Triads 1-4-7 (inward) and 8-2-5 (outward) (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Attendency Hypothesis and Enneagram Three-Fold Recurring Pattern

So….. why this article?

Honoring Dr. David Daniels. First and foremost, is a sense of responsibility to my father who recognized the pathway to 9 patterns formed by the 3 Harmony Triads, which he had not communicated to the PDP Group before his passing.

Verification Outside the Academic Academy. Second, is an acknowledgement to the contemporary Enneagram community of scholars and clinicians who have verified these patterns over a 60 year period, albeit outside of the academic academy.  

Science and Datasets. Third, is my responsibility as a scientist to communicate the PDP Group’s limited data set. Each of the four sets of triads – the Centers, the Harmony Triads, the Emotional Regulation Triads, and the Energy Regulation Triads have an outward, an inward, and a dyadic version. The PDP Group included two of the four triads in our work. This is a factor I did not fully understand until after the book was published and feel a responsibility to share this new knowledge and data with the PDP Group, clinicians, teachers, and researchers around the world.

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