# How to determine Tritype order?



## Nephilibata (Jan 21, 2015)

Obviously, not everyone believes or places much importance on the tritype theory within Enneagram, but I do, at least in this point in time, find it to be intriguing enough to go with it.

I've tried finding some stuff on determining the order within tritype, but not much has come up so far. It might have been on the enneagram institute website, but it was a bit too vague for me. Something about how the Head types correspond to avoidance, Heart types to finding meaning and Gut types to expression of social behaviour(?).

I'm fairly sure that my tritype includes 4, 5 and 9. I'm leaning toward 5 as my core type. But where do I go from there? How do you know what comes next? Does the order matter or mean anything?


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## Pastelle (Dec 12, 2016)

If you are for certain 4,5, and 9 are your centers, it's then a matter of which one is the most dominant. I.e, 594. (5w4, 9w1, 4w5). Hope that helps.


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## Nephilibata (Jan 21, 2015)

Pastelle said:


> If you are for certain 4,5, and 9 are your centers, it's then a matter of which one is the most dominant. I.e, 594. (5w4, 9w1, 4w5). Hope that helps.


Thanks! 

I'm probably going to go with 549 but what I can't figure for sure is how to know which one is more dominant, 4 or 9. Is it matter of seeing what my next best 'survival strategy' is? For instance, 549 really letting themselves 'feel' their emotion when objectivity doesn't work, rather than suppressing emotion in 594? I'm not quite sure how the theory goes in this regard.

Sorry if this is nitpicking, sometimes I get a bit too into what others would consider small stuff.


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## Pastelle (Dec 12, 2016)

Nephilibata said:


> Thanks!
> 
> I'm probably going to go with 549 but what I can't figure for sure is how to know which one is more dominant, 4 or 9. *Is it matter of seeing what my next best 'survival strategy' is?* For instance, 549 really letting themselves 'feel' their emotion when objectivity doesn't work, rather than suppressing emotion in 594? I'm not quite sure how the theory goes in this regard.
> 
> Sorry if this is nitpicking, sometimes I get a bit too into what others would consider small stuff.


I would go with that since that's pretty much the basis of enneagram (IIRC). I wouldn't call it nitpicking. I would call it desire for understanding. And you're a 5, they're through. No one will hold it against you


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## Silent Theory (Nov 1, 2014)

I don't really have an answer for you but I'm in the same boat. I'm also leaning towards 5w4 as my core type, and 4w5 and 9w1 as my heart and gut fixes. As of right now, I've settled on 549 but I'm not certain. And I'm also sx/sp and an INFJ.

I'll be following this thread to see if anyone gives some insight.


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## janusz (Feb 5, 2016)

This ist also my favorit subject. I´m 539 and for sure not 593. So in my case not 4 but 3. How do I know? First of all: the feelings are for me much more important than "the outside world/body". I rather overlook things outside (for example never remember who was wearing what clothes), but I pay attention to the feelings (even as a 3!). And the second point is much stronger than the third: for me it is an inner voice acompaning my usual 5 most of the time (looking for being effective and "striving for time" (!) to accomplish tasks). In your case: what is more dominant: longing for something (etc.) or harmony seeking (etc.)? Either the inner voice of 4 or 9 will be always in the background, I suggest.


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## Nephilibata (Jan 21, 2015)

janusz said:


> This ist also my favorit subject. I´m 539 and for sure not 593. So in my case not 4 but 3. How do I know? First of all: the feelings are for me much more important than "the outside world/body". I rather overlook things outside (for example never remember who was wearing what clothes), but I pay attention to the feelings (even as a 3!). And the second point is much stronger than the third: for me it is an inner voice acompaning my usual 5 most of the time (looking for being effective and "striving for time" (!) to accomplish tasks). In your case: what is more dominant: longing for something (etc.) or harmony seeking (etc.)? Either the inner voice of 4 or 9 will be always in the background, I suggest.


Thanks! That's quite insightful, I wasn't really sure how to differentiate.

Hmm, I do put a lot of emphasis on harmony but am learning that 'longing' is often more prevalent for me. It does seem to go with survival strategies too; my dominant is to detach and analyse, my second to accept and deal with emotion/talking it out, and my last to avoid and ignore, as emergency brake, so to speak.


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## Windflily (Feb 25, 2017)

I came across the same issue..


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## Neokortex (May 22, 2015)

I think if you add in instinctual variants to each of your centers, the end result may change. Our core types are not always the ones that stick out easily. If you take one of your Enneagram as a sort of a mind game, then instinct will determine what it is oriented towards to (society, SO, yourself solely?). Often the most obvious behavior is the one which the person puts the most energy into. However, there might be an underlying reason, a preceding motivation for that. Usually, people seem to be confusing the type they want to be, the "wanna-be" type, last strategy with the type they actually, silently are.


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

Not to undermine the question, but in my opinion and experience tritype order doesn't usually stand out enough to make a huge difference. It's nice to know the 3 types themselves, what it feels like to switch between the centers, and what would generally trigger you to use a different center, but the actual "order" is a game of Where's Waldo. 

When you think about the idea of having an order, you have to turn to a specific, detailed architecture of tritype to find the answer, and it simply doesn't exist with the way the theory is currently drawn out. To use myself as an example, I have a type 2 wing and have singled out 5 as my Head type. Because 2 is the wing, am I a 125, or a 152, or 1w2, 5, different Heart type and just not able to pick up on the other Image type? There simply isn't a hard and fast answer, because there isn't anything in tritype theory to explicate these kinds of scenarios. It's not a logical or systemic theory; it's really at the level of descriptive personality, with some commentary on defense strategy that seems sensible to some people. It sounds cool to talk about these orders, and minute variations - but in reality I just don't think the differences are that important if there at all. 

The meat of tritype is really in being able to single out a unique blind area created by choosing 3 types at the expense of 26 other ways of seeing the same situation. I'd focus more on learning to tap into these other viewpoints in times when yours could be supplemented rather than trying to figure out exactness in your own that isn't worth that effort.


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