The Enneagram wings

In the contemporary Enneagram model, each type has two wings - the two points that are on the immediate right and left of each type. So the wings of type 1 are type 9 and type 2; The wings of type 7 are type 6 and type 8, etc.

In the diagram below, the three core types (3, 6, and 9) are shown with each having an inner and an outer wing. The wings of 9, at the core of the Belly center, are 8 and 1; the wings of 3, at the core of the Heart center, are 2 and 4; and the wings of 6, at the core of the Head center, are 5 and 7.

In her first book, The Enneagram (1998), Helen Palmer described the Enneagram wings in terms of core mental and emotional issues of each center. In Palmer’s model of the Enneagram, type 9, at the core of the Belly center, is preoccupied with a mental pattern of self-forgetting and an emotional pattern of anger; type 3, at the core of the Heart center is preoccupied with a mental pattern of paying attention to imageaccompanied by an emotional pattern of continually assessing What am I feeling?; and type 6, at the core of the Head center is preoccupied with a paranoid pattern of thoughts which interacts with a fearful emotional pattern. 

Palmer conceptualized the wings of each core type as expressing either an internal or external tilt to how these core issues are experienced and expressed: 

“The points that appear on either side of the Three-Six-Nine triangle are variations of the core personalities. That means that the two wing points of Three, which are Two and Four, share a common preoccupation with image and also live out variations of the question, “What am I feeling?” The wings of Six (Five and Seven) share an underlying paranoia, as well as emotional habits of fear. The wings of Nine (Eight and One) share a core predisposition toward the sleep of self-forgetting, which is the forgetting of personal priorities, as well as a predisposition toward anger. 

The wings of the Three-Six-Nine triangle represent an externalized and internalized version of the core preoccupations and in therapy the core predisposition is likely to emerge as healing takes place. That would mean that a Seven (externalized fear type), looking initially not at all afraid, would be likely to become more overtly furtive and paranoid (core of Six) as psychological defenses weaken.

Only the wings of the Three-Six-Nine triangle represent an external and internal version of themselves at the wings. For example, the wings of Eight, which are Seven and Nine, do not represent an externalized and internalized version of Eight. The wings of any point are influential, however, because they give a flavor to that personality type. For example, in the anger group at the top of the Enneagram, a Nine, who will prefer to express anger indirectly and passively, will lean either to the Eight side (the Boss), making for a blunt and stubborn ‘don’t push me’ kind of passive anger, or to the One side (the Perfectionist), making for a nitpicking criticality, which will still be acted out in indirect ways.

Likewise, someone with a noncore point, such as Four (the Tragic Romantic), who expresses feelings in a dramatized way, will lean either toward Five, (the Observer), in an internalized depressive stance, or toward Three (the Performer), in a more hyperactive effort to keep melancholia at bay.”¹

1. Palmer, H. (1988). The Enneagram: Understanding yourself and others in your life, HarperCollins, pp 41 - 42.