Where the true self meets the Self beyond self
Most of us remember the first time the Enneagram helped us see through the haze of our type’s automatic habits. A long-standing tension loosened. The inner critic’s grip eased — not in its constant activity, which remains, but in the intensity of its hold. It’s as if the superego loosened its stranglehold just enough for a bit more air to reach our aliveness. In that breathing space, we feel more ease, more emotional range, and a spark of spontaneity that had been missing.
However, this freedom is not equivalent to the dissolution of the superego. Its voice is still constant, still shaping our sense of self and driving much of our striving — including the very search for “true self.” What’s changed is the amount of room it gives us inside its boundaries, not the boundaries themselves.
When “True Self” Still Lives in the Grip of Type
Before we promote the idea of the “true self” — whether in teaching, coaching, or conversation — it serves us, and those we work with, to be clear about what we mean by it. The phrase can point to very different realities depending on context. For some, it refers to a healthier, freer personality; for others, to something timeless and impersonal beyond all personality. Without clarifying which one we mean, we risk speaking past each other or inadvertently promising more than we intend.
The same is true for another word often used alongside “true self” in Enneagram teaching: essence. In many circles, essence is spoken of conceptually — as if naming it were the same as knowing it. But essence, in its original depth traditions, is not an idea or an ideal. It is an actual, felt, living presence — something you can experience as tangibly as you can feel your own hand. Without phenomenological contact with it, the word “essence” can easily become another piece of Enneagram vocabulary rather than a doorway into reality.
In the Enneagram context, the concept of “true self” often refers to recovering parts of ourselves that were previously walled off in order to survive childhood. It parallels Winnicott’s notion of the true self: the spontaneous, alive presence that emerges in a safe, attuned environment. This often means re-inhabiting qualities linked to the “inner child,” such as curiosity, play, tenderness, and creative daring, that were muted when our type’s defenses took over.
This is a stage of liberation. Life feels richer when we are not locked in the same narrow channels of thought, emotion, and action. Our relationships deepen. Our days feel less scripted. We start to believe that maybe this is who we really are. And in an important sense, it is.
Essence and Self Beyond Personality
Yet the deeper traditions point to another level altogether. The Diamond Approach®, like the nondual teachings of Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj, sees our true identity as the unconditioned ground of Being — what remains when all self-images, identifications, and constructs dissolve. Here, “true self” is not the healed or integrated personality. It is not even a state of mind. It is the very consciousness in which personality, history, and even the sense of “me” arise.
The Diamond Approach adds a distinctive richness to this view through its exploration of essence — the living presence of Being in its many qualities — and personal essence, the unique individuation of Being that allows us to live fully human lives while remaining grounded in our essential nature. These are not abstract ideas but directly knowable, phenomenological realities. Greater emotional freedom, compassion, or skillful functioning may emerge as natural byproducts of this orientation, but they are never the ultimate goal.
From this vantage point, there are two distinct uses of the phrase “true self.” One refers to a freer, more authentic personality, enriched by emotional openness and reduced superego interference — though still shaped and driven by that same superego. The other refers to the essential and absolute nature of what we are — whether we call it essence, the Self, or the Absolute — which is prior to and untouched by the personality altogether.
Both have immense value. One restores our humanity; the other reveals what we are before we are human. One is the flowering of personal life; the other is the ground from which all life springs.
Perhaps the invitation is not to choose between them, but to keep both on our map. We can cultivate a truer self — more emotionally free, more compassionate, more alive — while not losing sight of essence as a living presence, and of the truest Self, which needs no cultivation at all. The first makes us better participants in the human story. The second reminds us that we are, at our core, the space in which the story appears.
Two Tiers of “True Self”
| Tier | Definition | Superego Relation | Focus | Outcome | Examples of Traditions/Contexts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Psychological – Emotional True-Self | A freer, more authentic personality with some relief from superego intensity, recovery of disowned parts. | Superego still fully active and driving much of the movement; grip is looser but constant activity remains. | Healing, integration, increased range of feeling and relating. | Greater vitality, creativity, relational ease, self-expression within type structure. | Enneagram personality work, Winnicott’s developmental model. |
| 2. Ontological True-Self / Being / Absolute | The unconditioned ground of Being; essence and personal essence; awareness prior to identity. | Superego and ego constructs seen through and no longer the basis of identity. | Direct realization of our true nature beyond personality. | Recognition of essence as living presence; abiding as the Self/Absolute; liberation from identification. | Diamond Approach, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, nondual traditions. |
John Harper is a Diamond Approach® teacher, Enneagram guide, and a student of human development whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and deep experiential inquiry. He is the author of The Enneagram World of the Child: Nurturing Resilience and Self-Compassion in Early Life and Good Vibrations: Primordial Sounds of Existence, available on Amazon.