Resources
The Enneagram is not a hobby or field of study or even a passion with me. It is a tool. The Enneagram is a powerful diagnostic tool to discover what central constellation of perceptions, responses and behaviors tend to dominate our life. Technically, it is an ego-state and ego, as I'm using it here, is our organized way of coping with what we see of the world. It is not our personality, nor our identity. If I asked you, "What kind of car are you in your imagination?" Your answer should be a metaphor of your ego -it's how you motor through life.
The resources listed below are not just more detailed descriptions of our ego-style, they also describe places you can use the Enneagram (Enneagram Applications), where you can see fine literary minds putting flesh on Enneagram theory (The Literary Enneagram and The Enneagram Movie and Video Guide) and how two experienced coaches (Mary Bast and I) use the Enneagram to help people.
For those who want to use the Enneagram for more spiritual purposes, I offer you my book, Parables and the Enneagram.
And if the Nine Styles are not enough for you to discern your own Enneagram style, please read the lightly written, highly accurate introduction to the Enneagram: The Enneagram Made Easy.
If you wish to order any of these, you can order Parables, Out of the Box, Enneagram Applications, Not Only Angels Have Wings and Deliberate Love from me. Just e mail me at coach@fairpoint.com. All are available at www.Amazon.com and your bookstore.
Out of the Box: Coaching with the Enneagram, Mary Bast and Clarence Thomson. $20 with s&h
This a practical book on how to coach each Enneagram style. Mary and I have 30 years of coaching between us. We took dozens of case histories and explain what we did and how it worked. We give detailed descriptions of what problems our clients faced, how they did and did not cope and our suggestions. This book is for coaches, managers and teachers who deal with personnel problems in the workplace.
Out of the Box is also available from Enneagram Central as an e-book for $8.
Link to Enneagram Central E-Books
Parables and the Enneagram, Clarence Thomson for $17.95
I have an MA in theology and am a pretty serious scripture student. Contemporary sophisticated scripture scholarship is embedded in my explanations of why parables have the ability break our Enneagram trances. When they asked Jesus why he taught in parables, he said, "Because seeing they do not see." That's a good definition of an Enneagram trance. So I selected specific parables that would weaken specific Enneagram trances. The book has been a best-seller for Crossroads for several years.
Enneagram Applications, edited by Tom Condon and Clarence Thomson $17.95
This is a collection of Enneagram practitioners telling how they use the Enneagram in their field. We have pharmacists, business executives, therapists, ministers and coaches all explaining how the Enneagram is employed in their lives and work.
The Enneagram Movie and Video Guide, Tom Condon $14.95
Would you like to see what an Enneagram style looks like? The movies, for those with Enneagram eyes to see, feature talented actors illuminating characters who are displaying Enneagram style-traits. The book is unerringly accurate. I use it to teach the Enneagram with great success. But even if you don't see the movies, Condon's pithy descriptions of why the characters do what they do are vivid and illuminating. I recommend reading it all the way through.
Deliberate Love, Jim Roberts $18.95
This is not about the Enneagram, but Roberts is a therapist with 25 years experience and one of my Enneagram students. He devised dozens of really helpful exercises to do one thing: change your focus. An Enneagram style starts with focus of attention and it is difficult to modify. Roberts does. He tells you stories/cases and then devises exercises to enable people to improve their relationship by the way they see each other. It works!
The Literary Enneagram, Judith Searle $23.95
I'll confess. This is one of two Enneagram books that I read more than once. The other is Condon's Movie Guide) Searle's work shows with hundreds of examples, just how Enneagram styles unfold as the character arc in literature develops. The literary snippets are excellent, and her Enneagram identifications are superb. She isolates wings, stress and security points, she discerns levels of health with rich literary examples. She is precise, clear and vivid. If you teach the Enneagram, it is permissible to use these engrossing stories as though you knew them all along.
The Enneagram Made Easy, Baron/Wagele $16.95
A best selling classic. The Enneagram is not easy, but this is as close as you get. The book has little tests, descriptions, lists and abundant cartoons. Be not deceived. The cartoons are as right-brain accurate as the text is left brain precise. The material is profound, even if the presentation is light. This is the best book to use for Enneagram 101. If you took my on-line test and still are not sure, this is next.
Not Only Angels Have Wings, Blomgren/Thomson $10
This best-selling CD for Credence Cassettes has nine songs, each one describing an Enneagram style. Blomgren is a professional song writer and she uses a different musical genre (march, soap opera, country, even rap) for each style. My poetry isn't bad and Blomgren's music is really good. I use it to teach all the time. Some people learn best through music and imagery.
In addition to these published resources, I'm going to share a number of stories. The stories accompany the way I teach and coach. All spiritual traditions use ritual and narrative to facilitate spiritual growth. So the stories are a valuable resource to me and my style of coaching. Of course they are mildly entertaining - I am a Seven, you know. But they are resources for molding and remodeling our inner world of imagination. The language of imagination is the language of change. It has enormous power, and when you have the precision of the Enneagram for diagnosis and use stories for your intervention, you have a process tried and true for centuries.