Tritype: your strongest type in each centre

The nine types are split into three centres of three: gut (Eight, Nine and One), heart (Two, Three and Four) and head (Five, Six and Seven). The tritype idea is that everyone has a favourite way of working in each centre. You might handle questions of worth like a Four, uncertainty like a Five and your instincts like a Nine, even though only one of those is your main type.

Put together, those three types make your tritype. It doesn't replace your main type. Think of it more as a sketch of your supporting habits: the moves you tend to make when you step outside your home centre.

We take your highest-scoring type in each centre, then list the three from highest score to lowest. Your main type is your highest score of all, so it comes first. The second number is the top type from your next strongest centre, and the third is the top type from the last.

Say your highest score was Four, and your top types in the other centres were Five (head) and Nine (gut), with Five scoring higher than Nine. Your tritype is 459. If Nine had scored higher than Five, it would be 495: the same three types in a different order.

If two types in the same centre score close together, only one can go in your tritype. It's worth reading about both, because you may draw on either.

There's no single right way to read a tritype, but these questions tend to help.

• Start with the first number. It's your main type, and it carries the most weight.
• Read the second as the type you're most likely to reach for outside your home centre.
• Treat the third as a quieter influence, there in the background.
• Look for what the three share. In 459, for example, all three types tend to pull back from the world for a while, which may add up to someone who needs plenty of time alone.

Your tritype and your wing can overlap. A 4w5 with tritype 459 has Five in both. But they're different ideas. A wing is a neighbour of your main type on the circle. The other two tritype numbers are the strongest types in the centres your main type isn't in, wherever they sit.

Tritype is a newer idea than wings or lines, and teachers use it in different ways. Some find a person's tritype through conversation and reflection rather than scores. Some read the order of the three numbers closely and some put less weight on it. Others don't use tritype at all. Our version is the simplest we know: your strongest type in each centre, ranked by score.

Your scores can also shift with your mood and stage of life, so a retake may give you a slightly different tritype. Treat it as a prompt for reflection, not a fixed code.