Sundays with the Enneagram

 

The “Three Centres” Myth – Part 7: 

 

If You Really Want Three Domains, Look at the Instinctual Biases (But… Still No Proof)

 

At this point it should be clear that the traditional head, heart, and gut centres do not cleanly describe how the nine types actually function. If someone still insists on having three basic human domains, a far more plausible home for them is in the instinctual biases, not in the centres.

 

Preserving, Navigating, and Transmitting already point to three survival-relevant directions of attention that everyone shares, rather than trying to lock whole types into three unequal buckets.

 

A “certainty” or safety domain sits much more naturally with the Preserving bias: attention to resources, security, health, and what is needed to keep life going.

 

A “bonding” domain aligns far better with Navigating, which is about group belonging, roles, alliances, and knowing how one fits into the social field.

 

An “agency/impact” domain can be seen in Transmitting, with its drive to make an impression, broadcast or narrowcast a signal, and leave a mark on the world.

 

You do not need to force 8-9-1, 2-3-4, and 5-6-7 into rigid boxes to talk about these three currents; you can simply notice how each type expresses all three biases in its own way.

 

Even then, this “better fit” does not magically turn Enneagram teaching into neuroscience or hard psychology. It only shows that if you are going to talk about three broad domains at all, instinctual biases give you a cleaner and more coherent map than the traditional centres.

 

The real work is still the same: observing how your particular fixation and bias play out in real behaviour, relationships, and choices, rather than chasing ever more elaborate stories about which abstract domain you supposedly “live in.” 

 

Next week: how clinging to the centres actually makes mistyping easier and growth harder, by encouraging people to balance imaginary triads instead of changing what they actually do.