This type idealises the universal inner dimension of being called the Markabah (name given by A.H.Almaas). The personality constellates around manufacturing this dimension which includes pleasure, bliss and delight. How do we embody this satisfying, fulfilled state in the world? By using our minds to imagine, plan, and anticipate, by going and doing all of the things, by compulsively keeping our spirits up, avoiding limits, negative people and situations and by making sure we keep all of our options. This Gluttony for experience, Enneagram 7s chief feature (their ‘Passion’) is most in evidence in the domain of the dominant instinct.

Names given to Enneagram Type 7

The Epicure (the Narrative Enneagram), the Enthusiast, (the Enneagram Institute), the Joyful Person (Jerry Wagner), Striving to be Excited (Mario Sikora), Focussed Sobriety (Khaled ElSherbini).

Core characteristics of Enneagram Type 7*

*According to Enneagram teacher and seminal author, Beatrice Chestnut from her book, the Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

Seeking pleasure in different forms as a distraction from the discomfort, darkness and downside of life.
Defending against the experience of pain using intelligence, imagination, charm and enthusiasm.
Automatically retreat into intellect to rationalise away difficult emotional states.
Thinking and moving at a fast pace.
Typically being playful, optimistic, inventive, adventurous, fun-loving, and imaginative with a gift in seeing the best in people and in situations. Bring excitement to what they do.
Being creative, innovative, and flexible thinkers with a natural facility for generating multiple ideas and options. Ability to see interesting ideas and possibilities anywhere.
Having difficulty in relationships when called upon to confront problems, and deal with the pain or discomfort of conflict.
Not liking routine and mundane aspects of life can lead them to become avoidant, distracted, non-committal and irresponsible.

One of the Head Centre types

Along with types 6 and 7, Enneagram 6 belong to the Head triad. If you care about inner development and transformation, you want to ensure that you understand the significance of the Centers. If you intend to self-study, I recommend getting a copy of something like the Wisdom of the Enneagram or the Enneagram Triads.

Because each triad share characteristics, this aspect of the Enneagram can also help you to know whether you are the type you think you are, or whether you have mistyped. Below are some general characteristics that have been associated with the Head types.

Characteristics of Head triad*

From Enneagram teacher Peter O’Hanrahan. See: https://theenneagramatwork.com/defense-systems

Priority: Ideas and concepts; rational thinking; and creating security by understanding the world and other people.
Strengths: Heightened individual consciousness; mental discrimination and analysis; effective plans and strategies; and intellectual work that contributes to the community.
Neurotic style: Distrust leads to withdrawing from contact in order to figure things out and establish safety (paranoid/schizoid process).
Defense: Concentration of energy in the mental center makes it possible to detach from feelings and the body while living in the mind. Fear of life (and death) is countered by thinking, explaining, and rationalizing. Personal wants and needs are intellectualized or simply not felt. Variations of style: hoarding (5), agreement-seeking (6), or re-framing (7).
Key phrase: Detachment/upward displacement.
Primary emotional layer: Fearfulness (even when not experienced directly).
Life challenge: Integrating mind and body.

Enneagram Type 7 Subtypes

As discussed on the instincts page, ‘subtype’ is the name given to what happens when our Enneagram type intersects with the instinctual part of us. Some teachers prefer to simply name this situation as a ‘type/instinct’ combination, versus giving it a special name

Remember that descriptions are approximations. The descriptions below are from Dr Beatrice Chestnut, whose work built upon the teachings of Claudio Naranjo, and Russ Hudson, who has slightly different descriptions (which he shared over a series of Tweets once).

Self-preservation 7

‘Keeper of the Castle’ or ‘Defenders’ (Ichazo, Naranjo and Chestnut)

Express gluttony through the formation of alliances, typically banding around them a ‘good mafia’, a kind of family network through which they can get their needs met.
Very practical, good at networking, and good at getting what they want.
Readily recognize opportunities and know how to make things happen, whether through pragmatic planning or a network of allies.
Tend to have a talkative, amiable, hedonistic style.
Alert and mindful of opportunities that come along that support their survival.
Cultivate a sense of being kind and generous, enjoy being someone who others depend on.
Sly, cunning, and pragmatic, not so much idealistic but cynically mistrustful.
More actively flirty, seductive, and sexual than other subtypes.
Disconnected from their emotions and often lack spiritual aspirations.
When the sexual instinct is second in their stacking, they can look more like 6s; when the social instinct is second, they can look more magnanimous like 8s.

‘Getting Mine’ (Hudson)

Try to take care of themselves through acquiring more Self-preservation supplies.
Master shoppers in all senses of that word. They don’t like to waste money: bargaining and finding deals is part of the fun.
Care for others by sharing the treasures that they have found. Know the latest good movies, good restaurants, good books, good places for a walk or a vacation.
Generally the most practical 7s, deal with anxiety by acquiring comforts.
Tend to be hard-working so self-care tends to be pampering: spas, getting a massage, a nice meal, etc.
Can become grasping, impatient, and materialistic, having infantile tantrums when they do not get their desires met.
Prone to repressed anxiety that bubbles over.
At their best, they know how to orchestrate people and activities to achieve dreams for themselves and others.

Sexual 7

‘Suggestability’ or ‘Fascination’ (Ichazo, Naranjo and Chestnut)

Idealistic dreamers with a need to imagine something better than what might be true in their everyday reality.
Extremely enthusiastic and optimistic, they display a bit too much enthusiasm and optimism and pay disproportionate attention to the positive data in a situation.
Fall in love very intensely.
Gullible, easy to hyptonise and very trusting, displaying a prevalence of thought and imagination over feeling and instinct.
Verbose, and speech is characterised by a flow of wonderful ideas and possibilities.
Tend to seek acceptance, appreciation and recognition and manipulate through seduction.
Earthly things take effort and can feel boring or tedious.

‘Neophile’ (Hudson)

Lover of the new.
Often up on the latest trends and developments in their fields of interest, they are the 7s who most like to synthesize new ideas from different things they have learned about.
Get excited by ideas but can get carried away by them, too.
Love encountering people, but unlike Social 7s they experience people as new worlds to explore: possible sources of revelation about ideas or experiences.
Part of their journey is learning better discrimination.
Believe “you can never have too much stimulation.”
Have the feeling that life could/should be a collection of peak experiences.
Less focused on comfort than Self-preservation 7s: backpacking in Bhutan, trying new foods and meeting fascinating people is more their way.
Can look like 5s: they get turned on by exploring novel, exotic ideas.
Can be charismatic but are not particularly self-conscious about it.
When troubled, Sexual 7s get caught up in increasingly reckless “adventures.”
May harm themselves through their excesses and exhaust their resources, both inner and outer. At their best, they are trailblazers, wise and loving friends. They inspire others to reach for their dreams.

Social 7

‘Sacrifice’ – the countertype (Ichazo, Naranjo and Chestnut)

A ‘pure’ character who consciously avoids exploiting others.
Take responsibility for the group or family and want to be seen as good by easing others’ suffering.
Defer own desires in pursuit of an ideal.
Worry about their diet, their health and their spirit, they are often vegans.
Hungry for love and recognition, they have a hidden gluttony for the acknowledgement of their sacrifice which may feel insatiable.
Want to have a good image, reduce conflicts, and create debts in others, all of which can lead them to enter into relationships that are relatively superficial.
Experience an inner taboo on selfishness and want to be seen as ‘the good person.’
Provocative, enlightened, can be simplistic and can get lazy when the task becomes too demanding.
Have the tendency to manipulate through enthusiasm.
Can look a lot like Type 2s and can also look 1ish.

‘Missing Out’ (Hudson)

Seek connection and contribution, but gluttony causes them to wonder if they should be doing something else. Is there a better job/place for me? Is this it?
Know how to play and explore, but also are dedicated workers, friends, and partners.
Like to explore different social circles, conversations, work and even spiritual paths.
Seek meaningful connection and commitment but want to make sure they have committed to the right work and the right people.
Often express love by showing possibilities that others have not seen.
Often get deeply involved in a project or job, then move on to something else which is not always directly related to their previous work.
When troubled, can become intensely restless, unable to settle in any situation and growing increasingly angry with themselves.
Know that they are smart and talented but cannot galvanize themselves.
At their best generous, brilliant and loyal, raising hopes for all.

Types connected to 7 (and how connected)

Arrow point: Type 1 – the ‘Stress’ point (Hudson) or ‘Resolution’ point (Paes/Chestnut)

The inner lines are important when it comes to a growth path. As a general rule, the more dynamic movement between the arrow points and core point, the less fixated we are in our types. And the more conscious the movement, the greater our depth of presence (and freedom from the patterns).

The lines can also help us to know for sure that we have typed correctly. Following Russ Hudson’s teaching on the lines, moving to this style helps 7s who have been ‘7-ing out’ too much. It’s called the stress point because we tend to go there because the strategy of the core type has been over-exhausted.

When the move to type 1 happens unconsciously, type 7s “become more controlling, self-critical, anal, and uptight; take action out of stress and fear of not being perfect; get more focussed, but also more irritable and controlling, and are more convinced about being right, less tolerant of views that counter theirs”.

When the movement happens consciously, they “have a clearer focus and direction for everything; finish what has been started; their idealism is translated into action, and there is a discipline in life and the inner quest” (ideas from Paes/Chestnut).

Type 5 – ‘the Security’ (Hudson) or ‘Energising’ point (Paes/Chestnut)

Many of us struggle to own the behaviours we see at the security point for our number, in particular the ‘low’ behaviours. However, as discussed elsewhere on this site, the integration of the security point becomes a way of knowing if we’re making progress in our inner work.

When type 7 moves to type 5 unconsciously, they “hide out in thinking and focus on mentally generating ideas; detach to escape the fear of pain; withdraw out of fear of being limited in relationships; their thinking gets deeper but more isolated from others; there is more anxiety about freedom and privacy; and they get quieter and less spontaneous”. On the positive side, they “find balance through introspection and solitude; encounter fear and pain more directly; balance the excess of activities with depth of thought; enhance quality of work; deepen relationships; have a calmer and more centred energy; and are more receptive to feedback” (ideas from Paes/Chestnut).

Centre Integration Point: Type 4 (Paes/Chestnut)

7s have times of very intense feelings, especially as they awaken in the morning when they allow in a range of feelings that include the ‘darker’ feelings.

The ‘Wings’ or types on either side – Types 6 and 8

The presence of the attributes of the types on either side of our core type is another way of knowing whether we have typed correctly. They may be important from a growth perspective too, although they are not as important as the connection points (above).

Enneagram teacher and direct student of Naranjo, Micheal Goldberg, teaches that each Enneagram type is formed out of a reconciliation of the forces of the Wings.

For a 7, this looks like being caught between the cowardice and doubt of the 6, and the lust and revenge of the 8. It is a stretch between the fearfulness of 6 (I am smaller) and the over-insertion of 8 (I am bigger), to which the 7 responds by planning, tasting but not immersing (or savoring). Not knowing where they are literally and figuratively, the stimulation and excitement keep contact mental, and allays fear.

In terms of practical interventions, the development of the 6 wing for a 7 means increasing commitment to a chosen course of action; exploring things at a deeper level; and developing greater seriousness and inhibition by accessing the 6’s sense of risk. Development of the 8 wing looks like accessing own power and becoming more assertive; moving from planning to doing; and becoming more grounded and honest when it comes to interactions with others (Integrative Enneagram Solutions).