Beatrice Chestnut
Beatrice Chestnut, PhD
One of the most authoritative voices and thought leaders in the modern Enneagram movement, Beatrice Chestnut has been studying and working with the enneagram for 27 years, since she learned about the system from pioneering Enneagram expert, David Daniels, MD.
A licensed psychotherapist, a coach, and a business consultant, she has a Phd in communication and an MA in clinical psychology. She did her early Enneagram training with Daniels and Enneagram author Helen Palmer, receiving her teacher certification through their Enneagram Professional Training Program in 1997. She has taken several of organization development consultant Ginger Lapid-Bogda’s Enneagram in Business trainings, and has participated in Claudio Naranjo’s SAT retreats and subtype trainings.
She became active in the international Enneagram community through attending annual conferences regularly in 2002. She served on the board of directors of the International Enneagram Association (IEA) for 6 years and was president of the IEA in 2006 and 2007. She was founding co-editor of the IEA’s now defunct Enneagram Journal in 2008 with Jerry Wagner and David Burke.
A life-long learner herself, Chestnut has taught on the collegiate level at Northwestern University and San Francisco’s California Institute of Integral Studies. She was trained in group facilitation at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and has worked for many years as a facilitator of human sensitivity training groups associated with the GSB’s legendary “Interpersonal Dynamics” course, also known affectionately as “Touch Feely.”
Beatrice is the author of two books, The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Awareness, and The 9 Types of Leadership: Mastering the Art of People in the 21st-Century Workplace. She also compiled the popular booklet, The 27 Enneagram System’s 27 Personality Subtypes, a short summary of Claudio Naranjo’s seminal subtype teachings, which she is expanding into a larger Enneagram Subtypes handbook to be published in 2018.
Over the last eight years, the center of gravity of Chestnut’s work has shifted from depth psychotherapy to executive coaching, leadership development, and team coaching. She has worked with companies representing a wide array of industries, include biotech, hi-tech, marketing, consulting, finance, and health care.
She also teaches workshops on the Enneagram internationally, focusing on using it as a tool for personal and professional transformation. She has presented her work around the world in places like South Korea, South Africa, Argentina, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Canada and all across the United States.
More than anything, she is committed to “walking the talk” in her Enneagram work—using the Enneagram as a tool in her own ongoing, life-long inner work. Beatrice is passionate about supporting people in doing the work of creating more fulfilling relationships, work, and life experiences. She views the Enneagram as an important vehicle for the larger, all-important goal of raising global consciousness so we can, collectively, create a more positive, sustainable, and self-aware world community.
