People who seek multiple choices and positive futures. May be well-rounded, affirming and generous. When unhealthy they can be narcissistic, escapist and insatiable. 

Seven is the last style in the emotional trio that responds fearfully to life. Whereas Fives withdraw socially and Sixes become self-doubting or suspicious, Sevens manage their fears in a much different way. People with this style tend to suppress and escape their fears by willfully focusing on the positive and imagining plans, options and possibilities. Sevens are natural reframers in that they look on the bright side of things, make lemonade out of lemons, and keep happily active. The defensive point of this strategy is to avoid inner pain and be hard to hit as a moving target.

Healthy Sevens are well-rounded renaissance people who can be highly accomplished in many disparate realms of interest. Healthy people with this style are usually adventurous and multi-talented, with an authentic zest for living. Childlike but not childish, healthy Sevens are great receivers. Most have a stimulating, positive outlook and can enthusiastically appreciate life’s gifts, even the little ones. Many possess an endearing blend of charm and curiosity; they can be creative, outgoing, generous to friends, and progressively interested in new horizons. Healthy Sevens are usually highly resilient and bounce back well from loss and calamity. They are also sensitive and loyal.

At their best, people with this style seek long-range fulfillment and deeper satisfactions. To this end, they are able to accept the realistic necessity for both pain and commitment in their lives. Accepting life’s painful dimension gives a Seven more depth and consequently enhances their joy. Many Sevens report that being willing to make appropriate commitments gives their lives an overall structure within which they can still find variety. 

When less healthy, people with this style are prone to escapism and try to avoid the pain in themselves and others. Sevens project their power onto outside forces that can confine, restrict, depress or judge them. Sevens are self-jailing in that they can surround themselves with people and circumstances that will pin them down or obligate them, mimicking what the Seven does to him- or herself. After creating a jail of expectation and obligation, Sevens feel helpless, as though they have no choice. To compensate, they then hyperflex their capacity to choose.

Sevens control and sublimate their pain by indulging their appetites. These can be for food, drugs, ideas, activity, people, new experiences, etc. Unhealthy Sevens eat life but don’t digest it. They search out the new, trying to maintain a high by flavoring reality with their imaginations and fantasies of what will be. They can be dilettantish, impulsive, undisciplined, impersonal, glib, narcissistic and acquisitive. Sevens may entertain many interests, but indiscriminately; their knowledge is extensive but not deep, rather like a jack-of-all-trades. 

Many Sevens have problems with completion. They tend to be strong on initiating action but weak on follow-through. Sevens are usually not afraid to initiate a course of action or a project. Their difficulty comes in the day-to-day implementation of long-term tasks and enduring their boring stretches.

Some Sevens fear process. They have no well-developed sense of how to do things in a stepwise manner. The thought of putting one foot in front of another is not only boring but also frightening. 

Under stress, Sevens also adopt what are called "as if" frames, where they make up positive fantasies about the future and pretend these are present and real. Sevens sometimes avoid difficult situations this way, eliminating the need to struggle, risk failure or have their actions judged. Most unhealthy Sevens are afraid they are inadequate and unconsciously compare themselves with others. 

When Sevens are deeply unhealthy, the line between reality and fantasy loosens drastically. They often grow obsessed with grandiose visions and inflate themselves narcissistically. Very unhealthy Sevens may completely refuse responsibility for their actions and resist all realistic constraints on their behavior. They can be wild, impatient, chaotic, delusional and eruptive. Tendencies toward addictions and manic-depressive cycles become grippingly strong. Since they can never permanently satisfy their appetites, Sevens can plunge headlong into hedonism, seeking more to consume. Anyone who gets in the way of a manic Seven will be knocked down; all promises to others are broken. When very unhealthy, Sevens call legal forces down on themselves. The world has to restrain the antisocial behavior born from the Seven’s inner cravings. 
 

About the Contributor:

Thomas Condon has worked with the Enneagram since 1980. He has taught classes at schools like Antioch University, and the University of California, Berkeley, as well as hundreds of workshops in the U.S., Asia, and Europe. He is the author of 50 audiotapes, 19 videotapes and two books, soon to be more. You can find more information like this, his books, and his tapes at his wesite here.