The Hidden Visual Archetypes of the Nine Types
A downloadable chart of visual archetypes from our original 2021 research into symbolic self-perception
When most people see visual representations of the Enneagram types on social media, whether it’s collages, aesthetic mood boards, or color palettes, they often assume the imagery reflects taste: what someone likes, finds beautiful, or how they would decorate their home. However, this confuses two distinct questions.
When we conducted our 2021 lexical analysis study, we weren’t interested in surface-level presentations because our entire approach to the Enneagram is to look beyond pop-Enneagram, meme-worthy descriptions, and delve deep into the inner psychology of the types. Therefore, we didn’t ask, What do you like aesthetically? We wanted to know what imagery best represented people’s true personality and inner experience of self, rather than their projected image or aspirational style.
From that research question, a crucial distinction was delineated. Aesthetic taste is shaped by trends, subcultures, and external influences, whereas the inner, symbolic world is something wholly different. The inner archetypal experience is rooted in instinct, narrative identity, archetypal resonance, and deeply felt psycho-spiritual experience that bypasses aesthetic trends.
The images you’ll read in the chart we’re sharing today are based on that layer: the private, unspoken layer of the psyche that responds viscerally to the truth of the type structure. Participants were asked to choose from curated archetypal imagery that best reflected their inner landscape, rather than what they wanted to be or how they hoped to be seen. Many were surprised by what they selected.
About the Chart
This chart presents a small snapshot of the findings from our 2021 Lexical Analysis Project, which emerged from our original Empathy Lexical Analysis Test (ELAT) and a follow-up questionnaire that asked participants to choose between symbolic images and word clusters. These selections were then compared with typed interview data and cross-referenced to clarify patterns.
To filter out false positives, we intentionally made the image choices more extreme and archetypal than stylized. For instance, many people thought they resonated with Four imagery because they were introspective, creative, or liked muted colors. But when confronted with the true archetypal spectrum of the Four, the intensity, the ache, and painful solitude, as well as the mythic or vampiric melancholy, it clarified the difference between feeling creative and being structured by the Four’s characteristic inner landscape of dearth and loss. The same held for images associated with Five, Seven, and Eight. Personal taste can often obfuscate the inner experience, whereas the use of strong archetypal image choices helps us cut through trends or aesthetic whims.
What You’ll Find in the Chart
We’ve created a free download summarizing the visual language of all nine types. For each type, you’ll find:
A brief archetypal summary of common visual expressions
A list of symbols and imagery that showed up repeatedly in the research
A quick breakdown of Instinctual Variants and their unique visual tendencies
These are not meant to be comprehensive or definitive. They are distilled impressions from a much larger research body, presented here as an entry point to deeper understanding.
If you’re interested in diving deeper, consider our Enneagram coach certification program or our complimentary course bundle here.
Download the Chart 👇🏼
