Why Each Enneagram Type Seeks Therapy | Personal Growth with Enneagram Therapy
I understand how overwhelming it can feel to navigate trauma, anxiety, or complex family dynamics. Enneagram therapy is an incredibly powerful tool to uncover the root causes of these struggles and help you move forward in a more conscious, empowered way. When paired with therapy, the Enneagram becomes even more effective, guiding you through personal growth and transformation. As an Enneagram therapist, I specialize in helping individuals understand their type and how it influences their experiences and coping mechanisms in life, particularly when it comes to anxiety, family dynamics, and the effects of childhood trauma.
We are born with our Enneagram types, and these exist on a spectrum from healthy to unhealthy. I prefer using the terms "expanded" and "fixated" to describe this range. Stress and trauma shape where you fall on this spectrum, often leading to personality-based coping mechanisms designed to manage stress and meet our needs. However, not all of these coping strategies are effective or serve us well in the long run. Each type has tendencies that, while originally aimed at achieving love, autonomy, and personal power, can sometimes lead to disconnection, codependency, or disempowerment.
As an Enneagram therapist, my goal is to help you uncover the ways your type might be working against you and support you in the often-challenging work of growth. I offer online therapy in North Carolina and Enneagram coaching worldwide, providing a secure space to explore your type and its impact on your emotional health and relationships.
If you're interested in understanding how your Enneagram type relates to coping with trauma, you may also find my popular article, "Your Enneagram Type is How You Cope with Trauma", helpful.
What to Expect in Enneagram Therapy
In our initial sessions, we’ll explore your history, how you experience your type, and identify your strengths. Together, we’ll define your goals and uncover what’s working—and what’s not—in your life. Through guided questions, I’ll help you dig deep to understand the patterns of your type, how they contribute to anxiety, and how they limit your ability to resolve past trauma.
A key part of our work will involve integrating the three intelligence centers—body, heart, and mind—which are central to both Enneagram work and trauma healing. This process will help you grow into the healthiest version of your type while reducing anxiety and addressing past wounds. Through this holistic approach, we work together to foster balance, resilience, and clarity in your life.
What If I Don’t Know My Type?
That’s okay! I can help you discern your type and subtype. Working with an Enneagram therapist gives you the opportunity to receive direct feedback, including insights from your presence and patterns. Misidentifying your type is common, often due to over-identification with one aspect of a type. Using the Embodiment Tradition of the Enneagram, I can help you gain clarity through direct observation and exploration, allowing you to connect with your true type in a deeper way.
How Enneagram Type 9s Benefit from Therapy: Finding Voice and Personal Empowerment
As a Type 9, you’ve spent much of your life focusing on keeping the peace and avoiding conflict. It feels safer not to rock the boat, even if it means putting your own needs aside. Anger can feel threatening, and you’d rather avoid it than risk hurting anyone. You often feel overwhelmed by the weight of the world and your place in it. This overwhelm can lead to self-doubt and anxiety, leaving you wanting to disconnect and rest.
You may worry about not showing up for the relationships that matter to you, but more deeply, you fear not showing up for yourself. Learning about your Enneagram Type might feel validating, but also scary. You’re curious to learn how to stop avoiding conflict and face your emotions, but it’s difficult to imagine how to do so. Therapy offers the chance to step out of overwhelm and feel grounded in yourself, with the support you need to move toward a more balanced and fulfilling life. If you identify with Type 9, you may benefit from learning how your type responds to trauma and how Enneagram therapy can help you navigate the challenges of maintaining balance and connection in your life. Learn more about Type 9’s trauma response and therapy benefits here.
How Enneagram Type 8s Benefit from Therapy: Healing the Protector
As an Enneagram Type 8, you’re known for your strength, resilience, and your ability to take charge. You naturally protect those you care about, often stepping into leadership roles with ease. But this drive to remain strong can sometimes leave you feeling misunderstood, especially when others perceive your intensity as controlling or intimidating. Beneath the surface, your tendency to avoid vulnerability can lead to overwork, emotional isolation, and burnout.
You might seek therapy when the weight of responsibility becomes overwhelming or when relationships feel strained due to miscommunication or unmet emotional needs. Therapy can provide the secure space you need to explore vulnerability, identify unhelpful patterns, and reconnect with your own emotional and physical well-being. By facing the root causes of your behaviors, you can find balance, develop deeper connections, and experience a new kind of strength—one rooted in authenticity and wholeness. Explore Type 8’s trauma response and how Enneagram therapy can support you here.
How Enneagram Type 7s Benefit from Therapy: Navigating Avoidance and Finding Fulfillment
As a Type 7, you’ve likely spent a lot of time leaning into optimism, avoiding anything that feels heavy or painful. This tendency to stay positive has helped you in many ways, but it can also leave you disconnected from your deeper emotions. You may find yourself avoiding difficult feelings out of fear they’ll trap you in pain without a way out. Deep down, though, you know that slowing down and facing these feelings is key to your growth.
Therapy offers a supportive space to face your fears, helping you navigate challenges without the need to escape or distract yourself. By working with an Enneagram therapist, you can reconnect with your emotions, ground your energy, and learn to sit with discomfort. This process will help you move toward a more fulfilling, balanced life where you can thrive without running from your pain. Therapy will give you the tools to stay present, build healthier relationships, and embrace the full range of your experiences. Click here to learn more about Type 7’s trauma response and how therapy can help.
How Enneagram Type 6s Benefit from Therapy: Managing Anxiety and Building Trust
As a Type 6, you’ve probably felt like you’re always on high alert, constantly scanning for potential threats or risks. Your vigilance and loyalty are strengths, but the anxiety and self-doubt they bring can be draining. Trusting others, or even yourself, can feel like a challenge, and you might oscillate between overly trusting people and fearing they’ll let you down.
Therapy can help you find balance, reduce anxiety, and strengthen your trust in yourself and others. Working with an Enneagram therapist provides a secure space to explore the roots of your fears and hypervigilance. Together, we can untangle your doubts, quiet the overthinking, and rebuild trust. You’ll learn to approach challenges with clarity, gain confidence in your decisions, and feel more secure within yourself and in your relationships. Therapy offers the opportunity to transform your relationship with fear, allowing you to feel calmer and more grounded. Discover how Enneagram therapy can help Type 6s with their trauma response here.
How Enneagram Type 5s Benefit from Therapy: Overcoming Detachment and Building Connection
As a Type 5, you’ve likely been drawn to systems like the Enneagram to help you better understand yourself and others. Learning about your type may feel like uncovering a guide to your inner world, helping you understand your need for privacy and boundaries. You may long for deeper connections but feel overwhelmed by the demands others place on you.
Therapy provides a supportive space where you can explore these dynamics and learn to balance your desire for connection with your need for autonomy. By working with an Enneagram therapist, you can navigate the tension between engaging with others and protecting your personal space, building trust in your ability to maintain your boundaries. Therapy can also help you connect with your emotions and address the fear of depletion that comes from overextending yourself. Through this process, you’ll gain insights into how your habits of withdrawal may keep you stuck, and you’ll develop strategies for healthier, more fulfilling relationships. Read more about Type 5’s trauma response and how therapy can support your growth here.
How Enneagram Type 4s Benefit from Therapy: Embracing Emotional Balance and Authentic Self-Expression
As a Type 4, you may find yourself struggling with feelings of being different or misunderstood. You long for deep, authentic connections but often feel isolated by your emotions and self-perceptions. Learning about your Enneagram type might feel validating, but it can also bring up painful beliefs about being inherently flawed or disconnected from others.
Therapy offers a space to process these emotions, challenge self-critical thoughts, and work through the fear of being unworthy. It provides an opportunity to shift from comparing yourself to others to embracing your uniqueness, ultimately helping you foster self-acceptance and create meaningful connections with others. Through therapy, you can learn how to move beyond feelings of isolation and build the deeper relationships you crave. Learn more about Type 4’s trauma response and how therapy can help you heal.
How Enneagram Type 3s Benefit from Therapy: Healing the Drive for Success and Cultivating Authenticity
As a Type 3, you may have spent much of your life driven by a desire for success, validation, and achievement. The discovery of your type may bring up feelings of shame, particularly when you realize how much your worth has been tied to external accomplishments rather than your true self.
Therapy provides the supportive space you need to explore these feelings of inadequacy, as well as the vulnerability that comes with allowing others to see the real you. It’s a path toward shifting your focus from external validation to internal self-worth. Through therapy, you can learn how to embrace authenticity without fearing judgment and work through the pressure to constantly perform. It will help you build deeper, more fulfilling relationships based on who you truly are. Click here to read more about Type 3’s trauma response and how therapy can support you.
How Enneagram Type 2s Benefit from Therapy: Healing People-Pleasing Tendencies
As a Type 2, you may find that you often put others’ needs before your own, neglecting your own well-being in the process. Learning about your type may be confronting, as it reveals how your desire to be loved, needed, and appreciated often leads to self-sacrifice. This can create feelings of guilt and shame, especially when you realize that you struggle to ask for help or prioritize yourself.
Therapy offers a secure space to break free from the cycle of people-pleasing, helping you develop healthier boundaries and focus on your own needs. The goal is to learn how to care for yourself with the same generosity you extend to others and to embrace your inherent worth without feeling the need to earn it through self-sacrifice. Discover more about Type 2’s trauma response and how therapy can help you prioritize yourself here.
How Enneagram Type Ones Benefit from Therapy: Healing the Inner Critic and Embracing Self-Acceptance
As a Type 1, you may have always struggled with the harsh inner critic that demands perfection from you. Learning that you are a Type 1 can bring relief but also discomfort, as it highlights the rigid standards you set for yourself. Therapy provides the opportunity to explore self-compassion, challenge the belief that you must be perfect to be worthy, and give yourself permission to make mistakes.
As an Enneagram therapist, I’ll work with you to cultivate inner peace, allowing you to accept both your strengths and limitations without judgment. Together, we’ll break the cycle of perfectionism and embrace your true self, helping you live with greater freedom and ease. Learn more about Type 1’s trauma response and how therapy can help here.
Why Therapy with an Enneagram Therapist Can Help
Combining therapy with Enneagram insights offers a holistic approach to healing trauma and building healthier relationships. Whether you’re navigating trauma responses, anxiety, or struggles with self-worth, understanding your Enneagram type provides clarity and practical tools to help you move forward.
If you're in North Carolina and looking for therapy or anywhere in the United States and seeking Enneagram coaching, I offer online sessions to support your unique path. Click below to learn more how therapy with an Enneagram therapist can help you overcome challenges, promote personal growth, and create lasting transformation. Let's explore how we can work together to help you achieve your goals.
Hanna Woody is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor with over a decade of experience in helping individuals navigate trauma and personal growth. Based in Asheville, North Carolina, she specializes in Enneagram therapy, focusing on resolving intergenerational trauma, childhood wounds, and anxiety. Hanna is certified in the Embodiment Tradition of the Enneagram, bringing over 150 hours of specialized training to her practice.
Hanna’s trauma-informed approach integrates the Enneagram to support deep personal growth and transformation. She offers online therapy for individuals across North Carolina, including Asheville, Raleigh, Charlotte, and Winston-Salem, as well as Enneagram coaching and group training for clients nationwide.
Services Offered
Trauma Therapy for Cycle Breakers
Anxiety Therapy
Enneagram Therapy
Enneagram Coaching
Narcissistic Abuse Recovery
Childhood Trauma Therapy
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If you’ve found this information helpful and are curious about how Enneagram therapy can support your personal growth, I invite you to schedule a consultation. Together, we can explore how your unique Enneagram type interacts with your experiences and work towards meaningful transformation.
Also, check out more Enneagram insights in my other articles to learn more about how therapy can help you build healthier relationships, resolve trauma, and embrace personal growth. Explore more articles here.