Helen Palmer

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Psychologist, teacher and author Helen Palmer is the developer of the Enneagram model which profiles nine distinct personality types - the Perfectionist, the Giver, the Performer, the Tragic Romantic, the Observer, the Loyal Skeptic, the Epicure, the Protector and the Mediator - the idea being that understanding our 'type' helps us clarify what we observe about ourselves - and others - and in turn this clarity helps us let go of rigid thinking and responses. (Want to discover your Enneagram type? Here's the test.)

“It is important to stress the ways that people are different from each other, because so much of the suffering that we experience in our relationships with other people is caused by the fact that we are blind to their point of view.” ― Helen Palmer, The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and Others in Your Life

What's been helpful: Until recently, the sciences that had most excited my sense of curiosity about 'the unknown' were along the lines of astrophysics and quantum mechanics until I became aware of the deep influence of philosophers and psychoanalysts on the thinking of many of the very scientists constructing these new models of reality. Helen Palmer is another such example - a psychologist and teacher who is informing the thinking in her field with a deep spiritual awareness. In this short SAND presentation, Our Intuitive Capacity for Spiritual Wisdom, Helen's personal stories and professional expertise combine for an interesting teaching on how to use the tools of psychology to observe self. And I recognize in her Enneagram model many of the same types of egoic conditioning patterns discussed by other teachers, making this another of the tools we can choose from as we seek understanding during our inner journeys. Helen's 2014 ConsciousTV interview, Relationships Matter - The Enneagram Tells Us How, is another good introduction to the Enneagram model and how it developed.