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Classifying human phenotypes
Typology is the science and art of classifying human phenotypes in categories or taxons.
We find such classifications in the history of humanity in all cultures and countries, for example in all the traditional medical systems as Traditional Chinese or Indian Ayurvedic medicine, or in Astrology. In all these systems the purpose is pragmatic, therapeutic or spiritual. In the recent modern history we find also typology in the domain of psychology as William Sheldon somatotypes or Carl Gustav Jung psychological types.
Typology means to classify individuals in a limited number of pre-determined categories.
The goal is to determine which type a person belongs to. It implies to make a diagnosis. We will employ this term in a non-medical and broader sense than usual.
To make a correct diagnosis, it is needed to have criteria, upon which we can based the strategy.
Without a correct diagnosis strategy, the goal is missed and will be of no use; that’s all the point.
For the ancient typology systems, the criteria include the three levels of body, energy and mind; in the West, the more recent typologies speak only about the psychological level.
On a general point of view, there are so to speak two “lineages” of typologies, one is symbolically female based on the number three, and the other is male based on the number four. For example, Ayurveda based on the three humors is a “male” typology, and the doctrine of the four Hippocratic elements is a “female” typology.
In that context, in the years 1970, the enneagram, a nine points based system emerged, propelled mainly by a searcher, Oscar Ichazo and a psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo in the field of the personal and spiritual development.
Birth of the Systemic Typology Model
As a medical doctor specialized in homeopathy, when I (Frederic) met the enneagram, quickly intuited the potential it could have to help the practitioner. The problem was the lack of reliable criteria of diagnosis for that purpose. So, we (Bernadette and Frederic) decide to overcome this obstacle by starting intensive research that lead us to discover a new model that is unique in the history, because it integrates and unifies in a coherent model all the pre-existing male and female systems. We called it Systemic Typology Model. The 3X3=9 points system represented on a circle is the basis of the male typology. The 4+1 points system (formerly subtypes in enneagram) represented on a square is the basis of the female typology.
The union of the two, represented by the mandala, is the sacred marriage of the male and female archetypes inside us (hierosgamos).
This new and integrative model leaded us to develop a new strategy of type diagnosis: the “psycho energy decoding” which is reliable and reproducible.
Once this technical skill is mastered, one can use it in one’s own professional or personal field. Of course, for the professional homeopath it’s a revolution, but in the field of psychology, education, spirituality it is of an invaluable worthiness.