Head versus heart and our gut reactions (by Michael Hampson)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s over fifteen years since I read ‘Head versus heart and our gut reactions’ by Michael Hampson. The author has worked as an Anglican minister, also as a teacher and a writer, and is now retired. This book, I recalled, had a Christian focus but was suitable for anyone interested in the Enneagram theory. 

I like reading different perspectives on personality theories, sometimes to find out more about myself, sometimes to help me understand friends better. Not that one can determine a type from a book, but this kind of thing can confirm ideas or behaviours that I’ve observed.

This book is a bit different from other Enneagram books in that it starts with the three basic ways in which people tend to react initially to new situations. For some, the focus is all on the people concerned and others who might be involved. For some, the focus is on practical questions. And for some, there’s a gut reaction that is more physical than either mental or emotional. 

We all have a body, a mind and a heart (ie emotions) but, according to this theory, each of us has one which, most of the time, reacts first. And while we all have access to all three, there are people who have a strong secondary one, and people who have pretty much equal access to both the non-preferred ones. 

In other words, the author states, there are nine variations on human nature: someone who is basically all ‘gut’ with secondary head and heart, someone who is mainly ‘gut’ but with strong ‘head’, someone who is mainly gut with strong ‘heart’ - and so on. He numbers these on what he calls a strategy table, with the numbers one to nine running clockwise around, and nine at the top.  Nine is the ‘all gut’ position, one is the ‘gut with heart’ position, two is the ‘heart with gut’ position, three ‘all heart’... and so on. 

Anyone unfamiliar with the Enneagram may be totally confused by this explanation, which works much more easily with a diagram. There are many such diagrams available online, but I quite like the way that this book begins with the centres, and then looks in an organised, logical fashion at how each of the nine types is likely to function. Many Enneagram books and sites begin with the fact of nine types, each distinct, without explaining how these types come about.

There are generalisations, of course, but the author is careful to explain that each individual is unique - we might be able to predict some patterns of behaviour, but we’re affected by our upbringing, our culture, and much more so that no two people are exactly the same. Nonetheless, there are observable patterns which refer to something deeper than most personality questionnaires or theories - although many of them are more accessible and perhaps more useful in understanding people. 

I reread this book over about three weeks, usually one broad section at a time, as there was a lot to take in. The Christian focus is quite low-key earlier in the book. Some biblical characters are suggested as typical of the different types, but that's about all. At the end of the book there are appendices focussing on different parts of the Lord’s prayer, different seasons in church life, aspects of Jesus and more - there’s even something about cars, which made my mind glaze over. I read some of the appendices and skipped over others; I began to feel that the author was somewhat pushing the theory into places where it didn’t entirely fit. 

But the main section of the book is, in my opinion, very well written, and non-judgemental. No Enneagram type is better or worse than any other. Each type has healthy and unhealthy patterns of behaviour that tend to emerge in different situations, and there are clear paths where one type might start to look like another one under stress, or - by contrast - when feeling secure and content. Other Enneagram authors describe this aspect of the Enneagram without really explaining why it happens. Michael Hampson makes it feel much more natural and logical. 

I hope I’ll remember some of this; I’d forgotten most of it from my first reading of the book. Some of the theory helps to explain why some relationships (platonic or otherwise) can be easier than others, although there’s no suggestion that any pairing is impossible. But being aware and knowing when to pause and consider the other person’s personality and reaction style may be useful for resolving conflict. 

It’s not the easiest Enneagram book, but one of the most helpful ones in understanding the theories behind the system. I would recommend it to anyone interested in knowing something about how and why it works.

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