Enneagram Subtype Articles

Katherine is an IEA Accredited Professional with Distinction and an IEA Board Member from 1997-1999. She is a Triple-certified Enneagram Teacher with Palmer-Daniels, Riso-Hudson, and Hurley-Donson. She has the distinction of being the only person to have attended intensives with both Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo, with Naranjo validating her 1994 qualitative research on the subtypes in 1996.  Katherine was inducted into the Marquis Who’s Who in America Biographical Registry, the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) in 2023, and awarded the Top Enneagram Coach of the Year 2023, Best Consultant of the Year for the City of Menlo Park for 2015 and 2023, named the IAOTP Empowered Woman of the Year for 2024, and in 2025, IAOTP voted Katherine as the Best Enneagram Coach of the Decade.

Enneagram Instinctual Types, Intimacy, and Pair Bonding

©1995 Katherine Chernuck (Fauvre)

A noteworthy point of interest that emerged in my first Instinctual Subtype Research Study was the manner in which the three instinctual types seek and secure a mate.

All of us have or will seek a mate at one time or another.  Whether the mate is a close platonic friend or a romantic partner, the needs remain the same. Early research revealed that the dominant instinctual drive: self-preserving (survival), social (prestige) or sexual (Intimacy) will shift to the other two instincts as needed to ensure its influential role in this trialectic instinctual system. The way in which the dominant instinct employs the other two instincts appears to be very specific and predictable. The dominant instinctual drive maintains the role of the commander in chief and the other two are channeled through its lens.

For example…

The self-preserving instinct may consider a mate as an essential resource in order to maintain and insure security. Or, the self-pres instinct may avoid having a mate that could drain resources. They report that when they wish to attract a mate, they try harder to look desirable and pay greater attention to their appearance. They spend extra time and effort to that end and may workout, wear sexier clothing and/or cologne. Once a mate is secured, the self-preserving type will return to basic routines that are more focused on comfort and ease. An area of pain and disappointment for the self-pres type is when they have a mate that is unwilling to pay attention to issues of security and disrupts their need for security and inner calm.

The social instinct will seek a mate that could potentially insure the desired security that rank and social status can provide… or a mate with a shared social vision. Or, the social could be anti-social and avoid having a mate and others. Once the mate chosen and in place, the social will return to their outside interests, groups and/or activities. An area of pain and disappointment for the social type is when they have a mate that is unwilling to pay attention to their need for people, activities, causes and/or is unwilling to share their interest in others.

The sexual instinct will seek the greater world and become more social to find "the" desired mate. It is about chemistry and intensity. One must be social to find "the one" among the many. But, only "the one" will do. Some sexual types will try over an over again to find "the one" while other sexual instinctual types will abstain from dating or pairing until they magically encounter their twin flame or special mate. Once the mate is selected they will focus on twinship and become a pair even in groups. They want to fuse totally and completely with their desired other dissolving boundaries and creating their own private world.  An area of pain and disappointment for the sexual is when they have a mate that is unwilling to pay attention to their need for intimate contact, intensity and union on all levels.