The Phenomenon of Mistyping

For most, mistyping seems to an inevitable part of learning about the Enneagram. Even as we grow in our awareness of how to "tune into" someone's Enneagram-type (our own or someone else's), we may in fact sometimes be tuning into a false awareness of what turns out to be a superficial aspect of a person. This does not mean that all our judgments of type need to be subject to constant second-guessing - over time with an individual, we may experience a much more solid sense of type. But especially for those with less experience with the system, there may be large shifts of perception as we look at our judgments about type over time and/or hear other perspectives.

One aspect of mistyping concerns stereotypes: as we shift our perspective on a person (again, ourself or another) we may realize that whereas we may have thought we were relating to someone's actual depths of intentionality - we were actually being affected by their external attributes. So - when I have met somoene in a given context and seen them in a certain way - if I ask myself about their type (perhaps especially if I want to be able to type them before I really can) I may find later I have unconsciously generalized from some inessential attribute of theirs. For example, if someone is a creative artist and I am impressed with their work (or perhaps, for some reason I want to be impressed) I may decide this person must be an Enneatype-Four since they are so creative - without noticing the real patterns going on with this person.

Mistyping can take on a momentum of its own. To continue with this (imaginary) example, once I have decided I am dealing with a Four, my very consciousness this perceived Four-ness will of course affect how I relate to this person. I will look for other attributes of Type Four besides creativity - noticing evidence in the person of great esthetic sensitivity in everyday life, tendencies to live in romantic fantasies, perhaps darker aspects of Type Four such as deep self-absorption and self-disintegrative behavior. The more settled my conviction about the Four-ness, the more I may resist seeing evidence to the contrary. It may take some kind of shock in the relationship to shake me out of my false assurance, that is, for me to realize the person is actually some other type.

Mistyping thus has two aspects - an objective side related to stereotypes of varying accuracy about types and their attributes/behaviors in the world - and a subjective side in the mind of the person who is doing the typing, who may have many (typically unconscious) reasons for seeing and relating to someone even while I am seizing on what turns out to be an inessential aspect of them. Such is the power of the Enneagram, that after we have realized we have mistyped someone, we can usually see that the patterns associated with what we now see as their true type were also present in our interaction - we were simply hung up on looking at superficialities, and "missing the forest for the trees". I may ask myself, why did I mistype this person? and come up with a whole narrative about them, and an entirely different narrative about myself - and both will be valid as explanations.

We will have a brief formal presentation about mistyping from the "objective" side - though there is too much to be said on this topic to do full justice to it except on a summary level. Excerpts from Enneagram books will be quoted about mistyings - which are more common, which less common, what common stereotypes may come into play in various situations.

The discussion will then be opened up to more subjective accounts of mistypings. Please take a few moments to reflect on a situation in which you changed your mind about someone's type (could be your own type), if you have had this experience. Why do you think you may have missed the deeper patterns in this relationship? Could there be a pattern about the types you are more sensitive to and those you have trouble discerning, or possibly tend to mistake for others? Potentially, there is alot to discuss here. If you can focus on considering a single mistypting- experience you have had with someone (if you have had one and are willing to discuss it) it would be helpful. The more authentic sharings we have in the group as a whole about our own processes, the more we can deepen our group-process of learning to use this tool together.