Attachment Styles and Enneagram Types: Development and Testing of an ...

Attachment Styles and Enneagram Types: Development and Testing of an Integrated Typology for use in Marriage and Family Therapy

Kristin Bedow Arthur

Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy In

Human Development

Dr. Katherine R. Allen, Chair Dr. Megan L. Dolbin-MacNab

Dr. Margaret L. Keeling Dr. Fred P. Piercy

August 29, 2008 Blacksburg, Virginia

Keywords: attention, emotional regulation, Experiences in Close Relationships ? Revised, relationship satisfaction, spirituality

Attachment Styles and Enneagram Types: Development and Testing of an Integrated Typology for use in Marriage and Family Therapy

Kristin Bedow Arthur

ABSTRACT

This study developed and tested a new typology for use in Marriage and Family Therapy. The typology was created by integrating two already established typologies currently in use in MFT, the attachment style typology and the Enneagram typology. The attachment typology is based on attachment theory, a theory of human development that focuses on how infants and adults establish, monitor and repair attachment bonds. Differences in attachment style are associated with different kinds of relationship problems. The Enneagram typology categorizes people according to differences in attention processes. These differences in attention processes are also associated with different kinds of relationship problems, but also with different kinds of spiritual problems and talents. Support was found for both the internal and external validity of the integrated typology. The results were discussed in terms of relationship satisfaction and attachment based therapy. Implications for using the integrated typology to address spirituality in MFT were also discussed.

DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my beloved attachment teachers:

My parents, Bob and Gail, My siblings, Jon, Jamey, and Karen,

My husband, Jeff, And my sons,

Michael and Christopher

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee, as a group and individually, for their interest in, and patience with, the somewhat long and convoluted path I took to the completion of this dissertation. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Dolbin-MacNab for bringing attention to the importance of methodological and analytic clarity, in a way that made the work seem energizing and interesting; I would like to thank Dr. Keeling for bringing attention to the importance of seeing and valuing every individual as a unique, irreplaceable entity, and the possibility of integrating this perspective with the abstraction of typologies; I would like to thank Dr. Piercy for bringing attention to the importance of thinking beyond the immediate in research, and towards future directions and contributions; and finally, I would like to thank my chair, Dr. Allen, for bringing attention, by her own example, to the importance and possibility of engaging in every stage of a research project with courage, honesty, and compassion for self and others.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract

ii

Dedication

iii

Acknowledgements

iv

List of Tables and Figures

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Chapter One: Introduction

1

Attachment Style Typology

2

Attachment Styles

3

Strengths of the Attachment Typology

4

Limitations of the Attachment Typology

4

Enneagram Typology

5

Enneagram Types

6

Strengths of the Enneagram Typology

7

Limitations of the Enneagram Typology

7

Effective Typologies

7

Characteristics of Effective Typologies

8

Research Questions

10

Overview of Research Design

11

Typological Analysis

13

Methodological Procedures

14

Configural Frequency Analysis

15

Philosophical Assumptions

16

Dual Structure of Human Consciousness

16

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