illuminating the inner landscape: a Spring 2026 Enneagram Series
Third Session in our Four-Part Spring Series
Whether you join us for a single gathering or the full four-month journey, you’ll gain practical insights, deepen your self-understanding, and connect with others in our Enneagram community.
- Topic: Denial - It's Not Just a River in Egypt. Understanding our Defense Mechanisms
- Date: Monday, April 13, 2026
- Time: 6:30-8:30pm CST
- Location: Carondelet Center, 1890 Randolph Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105
- Presenter: Beth LaRusso, MD, Enneagram Type 6 (she/her)
This spring, we invite you to explore the deeper patterns that shape our Enneagram types through a four-part monthly series designed to expand awareness, insight, and connection. We frequently reference concepts like passion, fixation, focus of attention, and defense strategy—but what do these truly look like in our day-to-day lives? And how do they influence our relationships, our work, and our overall well-being?
To guide our exploration, we’ll use the powerful metaphor of Johari’s Window, a framework that helps illuminate how we see ourselves—and how we are seen by others.
Johari’s Window includes four quadrants:
- The Open Area – what is known to both self and others
- The Blind Area – what others notice that we may not
- The Hidden Area – what we know but keep private
- The Unknown Area – aspects of ourselves still waiting to emerge
Each monthly session will dive into one of the four core elements of the Enneagram through this lens, offering a blend of learning, reflection, and community engagement.
To support different learning styles and facilitation approaches, each month may incorporate a mix of type panels, experiential activities, and large or small group processes.
April Series Topic:
Denial - It’s Not Just a River in Egypt. Understanding our defense mechanisms
As a six, have you ever accused someone you love of being angry at you only to realize later that you are actually the one who’s mad? As an eight, how often do you decline help and insist you’re okay even in the face of a major stressor? As a four, have you ever come away from supporting a friend through a hard time only to feel that you yourself are carrying their pain?
These are three examples of defense mechanisms – projection, denial, introjection – unconscious internal processes that seek to shield us from emotional suffering but actually constitute a form of self-deception that alienates us from ourselves and others. Often overlooked in Enneagram teaching, defense mechanisms are considered the glue that holds the personality together, or as Claudio Naranjo explains, “selective ways of sustaining unconsciousness.”
Join us as we peer through the window of personality to see the hidden mechanisms of the psyche and make the invisible visible through a combination of didactics, group discussion, and an invited guest panel.
In-person events are not recorded.
A Spring 2026 Enneagram Series
Attend one, two, or all four sessions!
February | March | April | May
presenter Bio
Elizabeth LaRusso is a board-certified, practicing psychiatrist, an Enneagram
coach, and a writer. As a psychiatrist, her expertise is in women’s mental health, medical psychiatry, and physician wellness. As a coach, she primarily works with physicians and other high achievers, using the Enneagram as a tool to cultivate inner curiosity and psychospiritual transformation. Her writing reflects on existential themes of individuation, connection, and the burden of being human — but in a funny way. She is a graduate of Harvard Medical School, the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program, and the CP Enneagram Professional Program. She lives in Minneapolis, where she raises teenage children and practices yoga.
You can find her on Linked In and Substack.
