Understanding personality

Why Understanding Personality Makes You a Better Therapist

By Ann Galloway, LPC · 5-minute read

“I know this isn’t good for me. So why do I keep doing it?”

Most therapists have heard some version of that question. Our clients may understand that a relationship is painful, that a boundary is needed, or that something has to change. And yet they keep finding themselves in the same place.

Part of what they’re asking us to do is help them make sense of something they can’t quite see for themselves. This is where understanding personality can add an important dimension to our work.

Watch on YouTube

Key ideas from the video

• Clients may be too close to their experience to see the pattern. Therapy helps them step back and begin recognizing the larger picture.
• Similar problems can have different motivations. Understanding the person helps us understand what keeps a particular difficulty going.
• Insight is only part of the work. A client may need support taking action, experiencing their own worth, or bringing emotional understanding into daily life.
• Personality adds another lens to case conceptualization. We bring together knowledge of the issue, the client’s lived experience, and an understanding of their personality.
• Recognizing a pattern creates room for choice. Clients can develop a way of understanding themselves that remains useful beyond therapy.

Stepping back from the painting

I often tell clients that our lives can be a little like a Monet painting.

Up close, we see colors, brushstrokes, and blobs of paint. But as we step back, a picture begins to emerge. There’s the water. There are the trees. There are the water lilies.

Our clients are living inside their emotions, relationships, fears, and habits. Sometimes they’re so close to the experience that it’s difficult to see how those pieces fit together.

Part of our work is to help them gain enough perspective to recognize what is happening. To do that, we need to understand both the difficulty they’re facing and the person experiencing it.

The person experiencing the problem

Knowledge of anxiety, trauma, depression, or relationship dynamics matters. So does listening carefully to the client’s account of what happened and how it affects their life.

But clients may not yet recognize the motivations underneath their responses. They can tell us what they do without fully understanding why they do it.

What do they automatically notice? What do they avoid? How do they protect themselves? What feels at risk when they consider doing something differently?

For me, the Enneagram provides a framework for exploring these questions. It helps me listen for patterns in thinking, feeling, and taking action—and consider where growth may be needed.

What different clients may need

Consider a Type Nine who already understands that a boundary is needed. More insight may not address the place where they’re stuck. The work may involve helping them access their own energy and take a meaningful step on their own behalf.

For a Type Two, setting a boundary may bring up a different question: Who am I if someone doesn’t need me? We may need to explore the connection between being helpful and feeling lovable, rather than stopping at boundary-setting advice.

A Type Four may bring considerable emotional depth, insight, and imagination. Growth may involve bringing that inner understanding into purposeful action, rather than waiting to feel differently before living differently.

These are possibilities to explore with the client. Their individual experience remains central to how we understand and use the framework.

Great therapy begins with understanding people.

From recognizing a pattern to having a choice

I want clients to leave therapy with more than a way to manage the problem that brought them into my office. I want them to understand themselves differently.

That might begin with noticing, “There I am disappearing when conflict shows up,” or “There’s the part of me that needs to be needed.”

Recognizing the pattern creates a little space. Within that space, a different response becomes possible.

When we bring together our knowledge of the presenting issue, the client’s lived experience, and an understanding of personality, we can develop a fuller picture of what is happening—and what growth might look like for this particular person.

We begin to see how the brushstrokes fit together.

A question to take into your next session

Think of a client who understands their difficulty but continues to feel stuck. What might you need to understand about their motivation to make your next intervention more useful?

For the full conversation and examples, watch the original video.

Ann Galloway is a Licensed Professional Counselor and the founder of Enneagram in Therapy.