The Heart-Centre Patterns: Two, Three and Four

What you'll be able to do

• Describe Two, Three and Four as Chestnut and Paes teach them, and separately as Riso and Hudson teach them.
• Say where each pattern's attention may go and one way it may show in a manager's week.
• Update your card without starting a new one, and write a Revision line: keep, narrow or drop, with a reason.
• Explain why a pattern that sounds kind, successful or creative is not evidence about anyone.

One group, two names

Chestnut and Paes put Types 2, 3 and 4 in the heart centre (PDF page 16). They say these types are usually empathetic and value connection, and that they can be too focused on image and can fear rejection. Riso and Hudson call the same three types the Feeling Triad (PDF pages 26 and 45). They say the three share a problem with identity: each rejects its own authentic self in favour of a persona (a public image) that it believes would be more acceptable (PDF page 52). Two names and two reasons for one grouping, so we keep them apart.

Type 2

• Chestnut and Paes. The passion is pride and the virtue is humility. Pride here means a need to be important or valued (PDF page 56). The book says a Two may pay attention to other people's feelings more than their own (PDF page 54). It lists patterns such as not asking for help, "giving to get" (giving in order to earn approval while saying you want nothing back), and trying to be indispensable (PDF page 57). It says a Two may believe the support is sincere service, and that this may be true "some of the time", but that the need to feel important often fuels efforts to control others (PDF page 54).
• Riso and Hudson, "The Helper". Their Key Motivations line includes wanting to be loved, needed and appreciated (PDF page 73).
• Course summary (ours). Attention may go to what others need and to being needed. A possible manager hook: doing a team member's task for them, so that the team member never learns it. A misuse risk: deciding that a generous colleague is "controlling". A helpful colleague may simply be helping.

Type 3

• Chestnut and Paes. The passion is self-deceit and the virtue is veracity. Self-deceit here means changing yourself, without noticing, to match what others will approve (PDF page 84). The book lists patterns such as shape-shifting (changing how you present yourself to suit each audience), a need to appear successful, and finding it hard to slow down (PDF pages 82 to 83). It uses the word "workaholic" for a tendency it describes in this type (PDF page 82).
• Riso and Hudson, "The Motivator". Their Key Motivations line includes wanting to feel valuable, to be affirmed, to be admired and to impress others (PDF page 109).
• Course summary (ours). Attention may go to what the people who matter value, and to visible results. A possible manager hook: putting the team's effort into work that senior people will see, and less into work they will not. A misuse risk: calling a hard-working colleague "a Three", or reading adaptability as dishonesty.

Type 4

• Chestnut and Paes. The passion is envy and the virtue is equanimity. Envy here means wanting for yourself good things that someone else has (PDF page 112). The book lists patterns such as devaluing the present, comparing yourself with others as either "less than" or "better than", living mostly in your inner world, and believing in your own unworthiness (PDF pages 110 to 112).
• Riso and Hudson, "The Individualist". Their Key Motivations line includes wanting to be itself, to express itself in something beautiful, and to take care of emotional needs first (PDF page 148).
• Course summary (ours). Attention may go to what is missing, in the work and in oneself. A possible manager hook: giving feedback that lists only the gaps. A misuse risk: calling a quiet or creative colleague "a Four", or treating a sad day as a type.

What you can and cannot see

Both books describe inner states under visible behaviour: a need to feel important, a fear of rejection, a belief of being less than others. A manager cannot see these. Nobody can tell from outside why a person helped, worked late or went quiet. Kindness, ambition and creativity are ordinary qualities at work; they are not evidence of a pattern in anyone. And no pattern is ever read from how a person looks or sounds, or from their gender, age or nationality.

Adding a Revision line

Your card from Lesson 9 has four lines. Now add a fifth, Revision (this course's design). After you test a pattern against an event that does not fit, write one of three words and a reason.

You may add a second pattern block below the first on the same card. Do not erase the first. Choose the pattern you doubt most, because Riso and Hudson warn that people tend to pick the type they would like to be (PDF page 58). "Not sure" is still a complete answer.

Worked example

Taleen leads a customer-support team of six. After Lesson 9 her card said "not sure". Here are three ways she could update it. None is the "right" one.

An update that narrows.

• Pattern: "I am testing whether Pattern 2 helps explain some of my reactions."
• Fits: "On Sunday I carried the boxes of printer paper upstairs myself, although two colleagues were next to me, and I did not ask them."
• Does not fit: "On Monday I told a team member plainly that I could not review her draft until Thursday."
• Change my mind: "If I ask colleagues for help with small tasks most days for a month."
• Revision: "Narrow. It may explain how I act with small physical tasks, not how I answer requests."

An update that drops.

• Pattern: "I am testing whether Pattern 3 helps explain some of my reactions."
• Fits: "Before the quarterly meeting I asked two colleagues which of my results the director would care about most, and I put those first."
• Does not fit: "On Monday I showed the director unfinished figures and said which part was missing."
• Revision: "Drop. Asking what a director cares about is ordinary preparation, and Monday shows the opposite."

An update that stays "not sure".

• Fits (maybe Pattern 4): "When the team's weekly report was praised, my first thought was about what it lacked."
• Does not fit: "On Thursday I told a colleague what worked in her plan before I said what was missing."
• Revision: "Keep as a question. Two events are too few."

Every update names a contrary event, every revision gives a reason, and no update names a colleague's pattern.

Your turn

Do this privately. Nobody collects or checks it.

Part 1. A supplied record. Osama supervises a pharmacy stock team. Here are four entries from his record. Update a card as if you were Osama, in the first person.

• Sunday: Osama stayed 40 minutes after his shift to finish a colleague's stock count. He did not tell the colleague. On Monday his manager thanked a different colleague for the count, and Osama noticed that he felt let down.
• Tuesday: Osama asked his manager for two more hours of cover for Thursday and said why. His manager agreed.
• Wednesday: before a visit from head office, Osama changed the layout of his weekly figures three times so that they looked tidier. He did not change any number.
• Thursday: in the team meeting Osama said, "Last month's error count was higher than the month before, and I do not yet know why."

Choose one of Two, Three or Four that the entries let you test, or write "not sure". Fill in the five lines, including Revision. Then, for each of the three patterns, write one line naming an entry that may fit (or "nothing here to test yet") and one that does not fit or does not bear on it. Do not say why Osama did anything.

Part 2. Your own card (private). Add a block to your own card. Test one of Two, Three or Four, or write "not sure", with one event that fits, one that does not, and a Revision line.

Extra practice (optional)

A fifth entry: Friday, a team member asked Osama to approve a leave swap. He said yes at once. That evening he reorganised three other entries on the rota himself and told nobody. Rewrite your Part 1 card. Say keep, narrow or drop, and why. If the entry does not bear on your idea, say so.

Knowledge check

Key takeaways

• Chestnut and Paes call Two, Three and Four the heart centre. Riso and Hudson call them the Feeling Triad. Their descriptions stay separate.
• Each pattern has an attention habit, a possible manager hook and a misuse risk. These are author descriptions and course summaries, not measurements.
• Kindness, ambition and creativity are not evidence of a pattern in anyone.
• Your card now has five lines. The new one is Revision: keep, narrow or drop, with a reason.
• Next, Lesson 11 reads the head-centre patterns, Five, Six and Seven. You add to the same card.

Sources

• Chestnut, B. and Paes, U. (2021) The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up. Hampton Roads Publishing. PDF pages 16 (the heart centre), 54 (Type 2: attention to others' feelings; the support may be sincere "some of the time", but the need to feel important often fuels efforts to control), 56 (pride), 57 (Type 2 patterns: not asking for help, "giving to get", trying to be indispensable), 74, 101 and 130 (the virtues humility, veracity and equanimity), 82 to 83 (Type 3 patterns, including "workaholic"), 84 (self-deceit), 110 to 112 (Type 4 patterns), 112 (envy). The printed page number is the PDF page minus 13.
• Riso, D. R. with Hudson, R. (1996) Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery (revised edition). Houghton Mifflin. PDF pages 26, 45 and 52 (the Feeling Triad and its shared problem with identity), 58 (people tend to pick the type they would like to be), 72, 108 and 147 (The Helper, The Motivator, The Individualist), 73, 109 and 148 (their Key Motivations lines). PDF page numbers are used because the printed pagination was not checked.
• Rules of this lesson that are ours, not the authors': the hypothesis card, its Revision line and the words keep, narrow and drop; choosing the pattern you doubt most; the course summaries, manager hooks and misuse risks; and the rule never to type a colleague. These are this course's design, not tested methods.
• Taleen, Osama and the model cards are this course's own fictional examples, not the authors'.