Typing our Parents: Enneagram and Family-Structures

One of the uses that many people interested in the Enneagram seem consistently to engage with is how it applies to our important family-relationships and to the life-long consequences of those relationships for us as individuals.

If our parents are the most important people in the world for us to accept and also for us to forgive, then an important aspect of how we use a typing system like the Enneagram is how it applies to these and other basic figures in our lives.

Some of the literature on the Enneagram also suggests that people of different types may have typically different fundamental relationships to parent (or parent-figures) -- e.g., ambivalence with the mother (or nurturing-figure), frustration with the father (or protector-figure), etc.

We will go over basic theory and briefly introduce some new theoretical ideas about different basic structures of pairs and triplets of Enneagram-types, but also plan to leave time for sharing of personal perspectives and stories, as members feel motivated.

If you would like to share, it may be useful to consider in advance -- how do your basic family-relationships shape who you are now? Can you discern ways in which your on-going processes have been shaped in such a clear way that the rest of us (who most likely don't know your family) may be able to experience and feel these effects -- as well as hear about them from a distance.

As a reminder, East-West books charges a $5 admission fee for groups to use their cafe, exclusive of food and drink purchased there. No outside food or drink is allowed.