A Tale of Two Systems: The Entanglement of Myers-Briggs and Enneagram

I was looking through my archives earlier, and apparently, it’s been around 5 years since the first article on Enneagram. I’ve spent a lot of time since then refining my understanding, and many of my articles throughout the process were written to help parse my thoughts. (I placed very clear disclaimers on the handful of Enneagram articles that I’ve written, because I never felt comfortable speaking as an Enneagram authority.) When I wrote my most recent frustrated rant, Why I Don’t Like Enneagram, I thought that was basically the end, that I was going to give up on the system. However, I’ve had some recent realizations, and I can see where I made some errors in my past statements. In this article ramble, I want to talk about one realization in particular, namely, how Myers-Briggs and Enneagram became unknowingly tangled together.

Correlations, Correlations

Of course, we know that people connect or merge the systems all the time. People love having a long string of type labels attached to their reddit username, listed in the bios of their social media profiles, and etc. There’s also the correlationists, who adamantly declare (and police) which type combinations are valid and which are not. (However, as I’ve stated in the past, these are two separate systems, which means people have to evaluate themselves in each system independently.) But, taking this even a step farther, some “official” sources actually draw correlations between enneagram types and specific Myers-Briggs types in their written work. (I’m thinking of Naranjo here.) While, I see some validity to correlations, I do think they need to be discussed carefully and with an open-mind, because I’ve seen a lot of Myers-Briggs personality types get pigeon-holed into an overly-narrow list of Enneagram options (and vice versa).

Splintered Systems: Confusions and Criticisms

Before I continue though, I want to discuss something that plagues both personality systems, namely that both systems are kind of a mess. The Myers-Briggs proponents like to tout their system as the best, and the Enneagram proponents like to tout their system as the best, while both sides bash the others. (Occasionally you find someone who is neutral about the whole thing, but a lot of the times, people like to pick favorites – which means whichever system resonated with them the most. This is stuff can be pretty subjective – We all find value in different places.)

I’ve read different people’s complaints about both Myers-Briggs and Enneagram. For instance, the Enneagram proponents like to claim that Myers-Briggs is just a pointless, fixed label that doesn’t allow for growth. Likewise, the Myers-Briggs proponents say something similar about Enneagram, sometimes likening it to astrology and other times claiming that there’s nothing more to do once you’ve found your type. In my opinion, some of these complaints are born out of ignorance. An individual may not have delved very deeply into their non-preferred system because it wasn’t compelling enough right from the start. Which is fine. If the system doesn’t click with you, don’t waste your time on it.

However, there are some completely valid complaints, which ties back to my initial statement: both systems are a mess. The Myers-Briggs proponents like to point out that Enneagram has no official, single source backing (like how Myers-Briggs has Carl Jung’s Psychological Types at the root). So, people don’t really know which source to trust. However, Myers-Briggs has it’s own set of problems. Although, I have to heavily disclaimer the term “Myers-Briggs” here because there are true Myers-Briggs proponents, and then there are those who adhere more closely to Jung, but are kind of stuck with an inaccurate label because everyone generically refers the 16 personalities as “MBTI”. Of course, that leads us to the splintering happening within Myers-Briggs: People adhere to different variations of the system, some focusing on the dichotomies and others on the cognitive functions. There are so many variations of the 16 personalities theory built off of Jung’s work, similar to what’s happened in Enneagram. Furthermore, people argue over the definitions of each cognitive functions all the time, with the only saving grace being the fact that usually most people recognize Jung‘s original work as the authority.

How Do Enneagram and Myers-Briggs Differ?

I’m more of a proponent of Jung’s cognitive types rather than Myers-Briggs specifically, so I’m going to be approaching this subject from that angle. According to Jungian theory, one’s cognitive type is innate. In other words, you’re born with it. That makes sense to me, because all babies are different. You can tell fairly early that they have their own unique personalities. It’s possible the exact order of their cognitive function stack isn’t set in stone until later. (For instance, born as an STJ, but whether Si or Te takes the lead depends on environmental factors.) Either way, for the most part, one’s Myers-Briggs type is something they’re born with, and as they get older, they hopefully develop their cognitive function stack, which results in them looking less and less like their Myers-Briggs type. (For instance, an ISTP should start growing towards NFJ.) Now with that being established, one’s cognitive type defines a preferred way of taking in information and processing it. It does not encompass all aspects of personality like some people seem to think. It defines a mental process, or a mentality.

Enneagram adds another layer. Based on Enneagram theory, an Enneagram type is determined by environmental factors, the most significant being trauma. Enneagram is a defense mechanism that someone learns to use in order to cope with life. It speaks more to an overarching motivation in life, such as needing to chase the appearance of success (type 3) or actively needing to eliminate uncertainty (type 6). From what I’ve gathered, Enneagram layers on top of one’s Myers-Briggs type (like adding additional programming to an Operating System), creating a more specific variation, or adding more nuance to someone’s personality.

In my opinion, Myers-Briggs and Enneagram are perfectly compatible, and neither is inherently better than the other. They’re just different, and need to be approached as such.

Two Different Systems Bleeding Into Each Other

Now, we’re starting to come to the problem. I like to use the term “personality bleed” a lot, because everyone approaches topics from their own biased perspective. We all have our own filters and cognitive lenses. Observations are rarely purely objective. When it comes to Myers-Briggs and Enneagram, here’s what I see happening.

Theoretically, it’s possible that any Myers-Briggs type could adopt any Enneagram defense mechanism, given just the right trauma to force them down that “motivational” path. However, logically speaking, it makes sense that certain styles of thinking (i.e. cognitive function stacks) are prone towards specific defense mechanisms (i.e. Enneagram types). That’s where the common type combinations come into play. For instance, we know that a lot of INTPs end up being either type 5, 6, or 9. So, let’s say an Enneagram theorist observes a bunch of 5s, and unbeknownst to the Enneagram theorist, a lot of those 5s are INTPs because that’s an extremely common occurrence. The end result might be the Enneagram theorist recording INTP tendencies as 5 tendencies. You can apply this to any common type combination, such as type 4 and INFPs. (Sometimes 4 descriptions read exactly like an INFP profile.)

This happens in the reverse too. Sometimes cognitive types are described in ways that fixate on one specific Enneagram version of that type. For instance, the happy-go-lucky, always-positive ENFP is a 7 manifestation. I’ve seen ENFPs of, for instance, the more paranoid variety struggle greatly to identify as ENFPs because they don’t at all relate to that manic butterfly stereotype. (In the reverse, 7 descriptions also frequently read like an Ne dominant profile, which can confuse the 7s that aren’t ENXPs.)

The Problem

Ultimately, this is an issue of failing to identify the core descriptors/factors of the types in both Enneagram and Myers-Briggs. An ENFP 7 will certainly be relatable to plenty of ENFPs, but it’ll leave the non-7s lost in limbo. In a perfect system, only the core descriptors will be written as absolute, and the potential manifestations will be described as such. I always struggled with Enneagram descriptions because they seemed too overly detailed for what Enneagram was supposed to be defining. Enneagram started to make more sense to me when I realized what could be weeded out, and what could be abstracted. I’ve also, in hindsight, been struggling a bit with my own past writings on the 16 personality types as I’ve become more and more aware of these intricacies. (Apparently, I have a bit of a perfectionist streak when it comes to my writing which makes me want to burn all my past work to the ground.)

In Conclusion…

As per usual, I welcome your thoughts in the comments. I’ve been mulling over this for quite some time, and this is basically where I’ve landed. I think it’s fairly common for people to make more of something than it is, to add complexities for the sake of complexities, thinking that they’re adding depth. But, it’s important to strive to hone in on what’s actually key to the system you’re working within, and what’s just potential manifestations. I’m going to continually work on refining my understanding of personality theory towards that end.