An Augustinian Enneagram An Augustinian Enneagram using Beesing and Horney (working paper) This Augustinian Enneagram is based on the Niebuhrian-Augustinian personality theory that Terry D. Cooper has suggested in Sin, Pride & Self-Acceptance. Maria Beesing's The Enneagram was the first book on the Enneagram that I read. This excerpt from Beesing (pp. 8-9) represents her overall view of fixation and the fixations. "The discovery of one's type will also point out a lack of faith on a deep level. Underlying the compulsion of each type is a way of defending the self which is selfish and disruptive of bondedness with others. As a strategy for self-protection it is a chosen way of "self-salvation." The personality has simply chosen a way to achieve security and fulfillment by its own efforts. This is, of course, a mistake. Through the discovery of one's Enneagram type there can be awakened a whole new sense of needing salvation, instead of simply relying on one's own stratagems and resources for personal fulfillment. "As has been said, each personality type is characterized by a strategy to defend and protect the self. This means that the compulsion is fundamentally the avoidance of something. Its power in one's life is felt precisely in this avoidance. This is generally not recognized for the problem it is; indeed, it is often labeled as something one can be proud of. Although people are not generally proud of what they call their sins, they do tend to be proud of the compulsion characterizing their personality type. They think it makes them superior to those who do not have this compulsion." According to Beesing (passim 11-13), these are, in a word, the avoidances of the types: anger recognizing they have needs failure ordinariness emptiness deviance pain weakness conflict Maria Beesing, Robert J. Nogosek, and Patrick H. O'Leary (1984). The Enneagram: A Jouney of Self-Discovery. Denville, N.J: Dimension Books.

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