The Repressed Centers: A Glimpse at Transformation©
By Angelina Corbet | July 09, 2026 | Spirituality


The Nine Types of the Enneagram Through the Lens of the Repressed Centers©

By Angelina Corbet, Founder, The Mobius Company

Kathleen Hurley and Theodorre Donson, two under-appreciated pillars of the Enneagram community and two founders of the International Enneagram Association were pioneers in the use of the Repressed Center as a tool for transformation and soul making.

As they expressed in their book My Best Self; Using the Enneagram to Free the Soul, “Until we can touch and kiss and heal our own wounds, we will continue to tear open the wounds of others. In becoming soul makers, we become healers. In becoming healers, we become co-creators with God of our own destiny and the destiny of the world.”

Kathy and Theodorre saw the Enneagram, first and foremost, as a tool for healing and spiritual transformation. They dedicated their lives to teaching people to develop the soul using the Enneagram as a tool for growth and change. Furthermore, they believed that it was in releasing the gifts in your Repressed Center and achieving the integration of the three centers – Relational, Intellectual and Creative (Feeling, Thinking and Doing) that yielded a Fourth Center, the Center of Communion.

Kathy and Theodorre based their work on the teachings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers of the early Christian church, G.I. Gudjieff and Maurice Nicholl.

In the late 1990s I had the good fortune of being certified by Kathy and Theodorre to teach this Repressed Center approach after attending classes at their home in Colorado. Likewise, I was given written consent to use their copywritten material. Their work was known as The Enneagram of Transformation and The Enneagram in the Healing Tradition. They expressed many of their ideas in their three books: 1) What’s My Type, 2) My Best Sel: Using the Enneagram to Free the Soul, and Discovering Your Soul Potential: Using the Enneagram to Awaken Spiritual Vitality. They also shared their ideas with us in classes and in conversations with us over the years.

As simple as I can explain one aspect of their work in in this short article, quoting from their copywritten teaching material and outlined in their book Discovering Your Soul Potential: Using the Enneagram to Awaken Spiritual Vitality, they suggest the following to start the process of transformation:

  • Sevens, Eights and Threes repress the Feeling Center:
    • Sevens – Seek drive to completion, slow down your pace of living, commit to relationships.
    • Eights – Reflect upon, understand and experience your emotions, be emotionally present to others, be open to others without defending your emotional availability.
    • Threes – Slow down to experience emotion, be present to others, find creative expression (as a Three, I finally found my creative expression. I make custom journals for the people I love.)
  • Ones, Twos and Sixes repress the Thinking Center:
    • Ones – Focus expression of personal emotion, develop personal relationships, set boundaries at work.
    • Twos – Experience the joy of living, take care of ourself, become appropriate assertiveness.
    • Sixes – Develop intimate relationships and honest acceptance of others, search out your own insights, develop an openness to new information.
  • Fours, Fives and Nines repress the Doing Center:
    • Fours – Notice what needs to be done and do it, devote yourself to purposeful activity, cease feeling a victim or circumstance.
    • Fives – Empower others by sharing ideas with them, deal with situations directly, let the plans leave the drawing board to take action.
    • Nines – engage in creative goal setting, notice what needs to be done and do it the way it needs to be done, develop confidence in yourself.

Each of the nine Types is unique in its Sacred Wound, Passion, Preferred Center, Dominant Center, Support Center, Repressed Center, Time-orientation, Repressed Virtue, Divine Image and many other features included in their Illusionary System and Process of Transformation.

For the last 30 years, my primary work has been to facilitate Enneagram programs through the lens of these Repressed Centers. Soon after my time with Kathy and Theodorre, I met and took classes with Michael J. Goldberg. Michael introduced me to new way to look at the Wings; the Shadow Point and Ally Point as expressed in his book The 9 Ways of Working. I have included the tools and techniques that he taught me in my classes for almost 30 years. To have lost both Kathy and Michael within a year of each other saddens me. It also inspires me, as a Global Ambassador for the IEA, to broaden my outreach to better share the work of these pillars of the Enneagram community.

All of them introduced me to the presence of the feminine and masculine in the world of the Enneagram. My own thoughts are expressed in my book The Little Pink Book of Feminine Leadership: A Personal Journey.

In the tradition of Hurley, Donson and Goldberg, I not only view the Enneagram as a tool for spiritual transformation, I acknowledge the power of the Enneagram in my own kundalini awakening in 2023. I am humbled by the presence of the Divine in my continuing awakening process and my Enneagram endeavors.

I will be teaching, The Enneagram: The Power of the Repressed Centers© in October 2026.

Wisdom, love and abundance. Namaste, Angelina