enneagramwing

Concept

Enneagram subtypes: finding your leading instinct

Next to the type number on your result sit two letters, sp, so or sx, and on Enneagram forums people sign their posts with strings like sx/so. What follows is what those letters stand for and how the three instincts line up inside a single person. The names themselves are the worst guide: social sounds like outgoing, sexual sounds like something else entirely, and both point the wrong way.

Cell with the turn mark: the countertype, one for each type

01

The three instincts

spI cover my own needs first
soI read where I stand with people
sxI go all in on one person

Each of the three instincts keeps watch over something different. Self-preservation makes sure the body and the household hold up: sleep, food, money, something set aside for a lean month. Social tracks where a person stands among others and how the group sees them. Sexual keeps one connection charged: who they are drawn to and where life runs hottest. Everyone has all three; what sets people apart is which one gets the energy first when it runs short. The first week at a new job shows it: one person learns where the kitchen is and how overtime works, another works out who actually decides things, and someone else finds the one colleague worth talking to.

Social does not mean outgoing: someone led by it can stay silent all evening and still know who in the room makes the calls, while the life of the party may be led by self-preservation. Sexual is not about sex. It is about the current between two people, which is why the narrative school calls it one-to-one; this site keeps the older word, the one people search under. Here a subtype means only a type paired with its leading instinct, never a wing, though some books have used the word for wings.

Oscar Ichazo described the three instincts, and Claudio Naranjo built out the twenty-seven subtypes: a subtype is the passion of a type running through a leading instinct, so each type comes in three versions. One of the three pulls against its own type's passion and resembles the type least; Naranjo and Beatrice Chestnut call it the countertype. Riso and Hudson do not use the idea.

02

Stacking: leading, second, neglected

    1. sp/so/sx
      1. sp
      2. so
      3. sx
    2. sp/sx/so
      1. sp
      2. sx
      3. so
    1. so/sp/sx
      1. so
      2. sp
      3. sx
    2. so/sx/sp
      1. so
      2. sx
      3. sp
    1. sx/sp/so
      1. sx
      2. sp
      3. so
    2. sx/so/sp
      1. sx
      2. so
      3. sp

Six stackings: two for each leading instinct

Inside one person the three stand in an order, leading, second and neglected, and that order is what a test result calls the stacking. There are six possible stackings, which is simply how many ways three things can be lined up, and a label like sx/so names the first two places. Stacking came into the model later than the twenty-seven subtypes. Naranjo worked with a leading instinct and a dormant one; the three-part stack comes from Riso and Hudson and from Katherine Fauvre, and not every school accepts all six, since Mario Sikora recognizes only three of them.

The neglected instinct is not missing. It is the place nobody checks until something forces the matter. Neglected self-preservation is the stack of unopened letters from the tax office and the dental checkup pushed back for another year. Neglected social is honest surprise at what the team thinks of them, and learning the unwritten rules only after breaking one. Neglected sexual is a life that is orderly and decent with nothing in it that takes the breath away, an absence that can go unnoticed for a very long time.

Whether the order shifts over a lifetime is where the authorities part ways. Naranjo allowed that a different instinct may lead in youth and give way to the one that shows later on. Riso, Hudson and Chestnut left no direct answer, and nobody has the data to settle it. The result therefore describes the stacking as it looks now, not as it was or will be.

03

How to find yours

A good week: there is enough for everything, and three people look alike

    1. sp
    2. so
    3. sx
    1. sp
    2. so
    3. sx
    1. sp
    2. so
    3. sx

A hard week: each takes one thing first, and the other two wait

    1. sp
    2. so
    3. sx
    1. sp
    2. so
    3. sx
    1. sp
    2. so
    3. sx

An instinct is easier to spot in a bad week than in a good one. When time, energy or money runs low, there is one thing a person deals with first without deciding to, and two others that can wait. What someone enjoys says little here, because anyone can enjoy anything; what they spend themselves on when stretched thin says a great deal.

Three questions help. When you are worn out, what do you put right first: sleep, groceries, the bills? That answer points to self-preservation. After an awkward gathering, what keeps you awake: what people made of you and whether your standing slipped? That is the social instinct talking. In a bad month, what keeps you going: one person whose company recharges you, or a project you have fallen for? That is the sexual instinct.

Two mix-ups send people the wrong way. The first is reading the name of the instinct as a trait, so the talkative file themselves under social, the homebody under self-preservation, the romantic under sexual. The second is subtler. Every type has one subtype that looks close to the opposite of its type description, and a person with it, failing to recognize themselves, decides the number was wrong, when the number was right and the leading instinct had turned the passion around.

04

How the instinct shows in the result

  1. Everything separated: subtype and the full stacking

  2. Second and neglected close: subtype without the stacking

  3. Leading and second close: two candidates

The test reports four things, and the instinct is the one we're least sure about. We'd rather tell you that than bury it. For about half the people who take it, the three instincts come out too close to call, and when that happens we show you the top two instead of picking one. The instinct is worked out from all the answers at once; there is no separate block of instinct questions. The leading instinct comes with a note on how firm the call is, the neglected one follows the same rule and appears only when the third has clearly fallen behind the second, and the full order shows only when both gaps hold. There are no extra instinct questions on purpose: the gap between first and second is often smaller than the instrument can resolve, and more questions would not create it.

05

By subtype

06

Questions

What does a label like sx/so mean?

It lists the first two instincts in order, leading and then second. sx/so means energy goes first into one connection and then into standing among people, with self-preservation neglected; the third is left off because it follows from the first two. Only the leading instinct decides the subtype. The second letter pair adds a shade and leaves the subtype itself unchanged.

The test did not name my neglected instinct. How do I find it?

The test names the neglected instinct only when the third has clearly fallen behind the second. Without that, look at the part of life that keeps catching you off guard: health and money, what people think of you, or the absence of a live connection. The one you remember last, and with a wince, is probably the neglected one.

How is a subtype different from a wing?

A wing is a lean toward one of the two neighboring types on the circle, and it changes manner. A subtype is the direction in which a type spends its energy: on its own provision, on its place among people, or on one connection. The two are independent, any wing goes with any instinct, which is why two people with the same wing can look nothing alike.

Why do the three subtypes of one type look so different?

The instinct gives the type's passion something to work on, and each instinct gives it something different. The same passion ends up fixed on whether one can hold out, on one's standing among people, or on a single person, and from outside that reads as three separate characters. The kinship shows from inside: the question a person keeps asking themselves is the same, only the material changes.

How many subtypes are there, and where do the names come from?

Twenty-seven: nine types times three instincts. Names such as anxiety, seduction or totem came from several hands, Ichazo, Naranjo and Chestnut among them, and one subtype can go by different names in different books. A name is a tag for the most visible thing about a subtype rather than a description, which is why each subtype page explains what its name points to.

Find your type, wing and level

108 items, result right away

Find your type, wing and level