Enneagram type 9

Enneagram type 9 (also written Enneagram 9) is called The Mediator, also known as The Peacemaker. Here you will find a thorough description of type 9: core traits, basic fear, wings, love and relationships, stress and growth. In the Enneagram, type 9 belongs to the body centre along with types 8 and 1.

Characteristics

Enneagram type 9s are warm, pleasant people who are concerned with keeping the good mood in the easiest possible way. They have a special gift for pouring oil on troubled waters, in the form of mediating skills that they use to maintain and restore peace and harmony.

They are perceived as listening and understanding people. They find it easy to understand everyone's views and focus on making sure that everyone is heard.

Enneagram type 9s adapt to their surroundings, in attitude, appearance and language alike. It is not important for them to express their own opinions and needs, and besides, they may not even know what they want or feel like, so the easiest way is to go along with other people's good ideas.

Contributes with

Enneagram type 9s have a reassuring nature, and people experience them as very understanding. With their mediating skills they help to create a good atmosphere and ensure that everyone is heard.

Thrives best with

Type 9s thrive best in a good, harmonious atmosphere, in an environment where there is time to create an overview and find balance.

Resources

• Mediating skills
• Focuses on the good of all
• Trustworthy
• Warm

Direction of stress

When Enneagram type 9s are under pressure and stressed, they become distrustful and sceptical of other people's intentions. They are also critical of themselves and others. The movement goes toward type 6, The Skeptic.

Direction of security

When type 9s are confident and experience harmony, they become effective and start several projects at once. They get a lot done and become goal-oriented. The movement goes toward type 3, The Achiever.

The subtypes of type 9

All nine types come in three subtypes, depending on which instinctual drive weighs heaviest: self-preservation, social or one-to-one. Two people with the same core type can seem surprisingly different, precisely because the subtype colours the entire expression.

The self-preservation type 9

The self-preservation type 9 finds its calm in the concrete and the habitual. Meals, routines, small comforts. There is a down-to-earth contentment here that is easier to inhabit than the big questions. The pitfall is that the small pleasures come to stand in for what really matters.

The social type 9

The social type 9 works hard for the community. It is the one who makes the group function, and it sets its own needs aside without experiencing that as a sacrifice. The pitfall is that you can be deeply involved in everyone else's cause and still not be present in your own.

The one-to-one type 9

The one-to-one type 9 merges with whoever stands closest. It takes on the other person's rhythm, opinions and plans, often without noticing. The pitfall is that one day you can no longer tell the difference between what you want yourself and what you have absorbed.

Type 9 through the nine levels of development

The Enneagram describes not only which type you are, but how that type looks in different shapes. Riso-Hudson divide each type into nine levels of development, gathered into three bands: levels 1, 2 and 3 are the healthy ones, levels 4, 5 and 6 are the average ones, and levels 7, 8 and 9 are the unhealthy ones. You move between them over the course of a life, and often within a single day.

Below, the three bands for type 9 are described in outline. Riso-Hudson describe each of the nine levels in depth, and we work with that material on our courses, where you learn to recognise your own movements between the levels.

The healthy levels — 1, 2 and 3

At the healthy levels, type 9 wakes up inside its own life. It can feel what it wants and say so without the peace being lost. The spaciousness the type has always had is now joined by a distinct presence, and that makes it a rare kind of good place for others to be.

The average levels — 4, 5 and 6

Here comfort becomes a habit. Type 9 accommodates, postpones what is unpleasant and keeps busy with whatever asks it to take no position. The anger is there, but it rarely comes out — it turns into stubbornness and into tasks that never quite get finished.

The unhealthy levels — 7, 8 and 9

At the unhealthy levels the type disappears into itself. It disconnects, stops responding and lets the problems grow without stepping in. From the outside it looks calm, but it is a form of giving up, and it can be hard to come out of on your own.

Your personal path of development

Enneagram type 9's path of development goes through letting go of the fixation on keeping the peace and avoiding conflict. Instead, nines develop the ability to act in the moment from their instinctive sense of things and to get better at speaking up about it, even if it leads to conflict. Through this, nines experience contact with the particular aspect of essence in which the natural state in the moment is love, whether there is conflict or harmony.

Passion

Laziness

Fixation

Indolence

Special ability

Dynamism

Essence

Love