What is a type blend?
Some people know their Enneagram type right away. Others circle around it for a while. Either way, it’s common to read a description and feel like it almost fits, but not completely. If that’s been your experience, you’re in the right place.
The nine Enneagram types describe core motivations. They’re remarkably accurate at that. But most people experience themselves as a primary type with a strong secondary influence — a second type that shapes how their core motivation actually shows up in the world.
A type blend names that combination. If you’re a Three with a strong Two influence, you’re not just an Achiever — you’re the kind of Achiever who needs the people around them to feel good too. That’s a specific experience. It has a name. It’s the Driven by Heart type blend.
There are 72 of them. Each one sits in the space between two types, and each one has its own name, its own portrait, and its own way of moving through the world.
The number tells you what drives you. The blend tells you how that drive actually lives in you.
All 72 type blends — eight for each of the nine types
Wings are a real thing. If you’re a Four, your wing is either a Three or a Five — whichever adjacent type you lean toward. Wings are useful. They add nuance. But they’re limited to the types directly beside yours on the Enneagram circle, and they’re often treated as a minor modifier rather than a full second pattern.
A type blend goes further. Your secondary type can be any of the other eight — not just the ones next door. A Three with a Seven influence is a very different person from a Three with a One influence, and neither of those is well described by “Three wing Two” or “Three wing Four.” The blend captures the actual combination, not just the nearest neighbor.
Your wing is always one of the two types beside you on the circle. Limited to 18 possible combinations across the whole system.
Your secondary type can be any of the other eight. 72 distinct type blends, each named and fully described.
Katherine Fauvre’s Tritypes identify your dominant type in each of the three Enneagram centers — head, heart, and body. It’s a rich framework and it adds real depth. But it’s also a lot. Three types to hold simultaneously, three layers of motivation to track.
A type blend is simpler on purpose. It’s one primary type and one secondary influence. Two things in relationship with each other. That’s the combination that most people actually experience — and it’s specific enough to be genuinely useful without becoming a full-time study.
Tritypes and type blends can absolutely coexist. They’re answering different questions. Tritypes ask: where does my energy sit across all three centers? Type blends ask: what does my specific combination of motivations actually look and feel like, day to day?
The Enneagram has always been about liberation, not labeling. It’s a tool for self-understanding, not a ceiling. And that’s exactly what type blends are meant to be.
Knowing your type blend isn’t about finding a more specific category to live inside. It’s about having language precise enough to actually describe your experience — so you can see it clearly, work with it intentionally, and stop wondering why the description almost fits but not quite.
You’re not becoming something new. You’re recognizing something that was always true. The blend just gives it a name.
Start with your core type and let the resonance do the rest.