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4
THE INDIVIDUALIST
Enneagram Type Four
The Sensitive, Introspective type:
Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental
For more about the meaning of the arrows, see below.
Type Four in Brief
Fours are self-aware, sensitive,
and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and
personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious.
Withholding themselves from others due to feeling
vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and
exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have
problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity.
At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able
to renew themselves and transform their experiences.
-
Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance
-
Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to
create an
identity)
-
Enneagram Four with a Three-Wing: "The Aristocrat"
-
Enneagram Four with a Five-Wing: "The Bohemian"
Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to
create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and
feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional
needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer."
The Meaning of the Arrows (in brief)
When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), aloof Fours
suddenly become over-involved and clinging at Two. However, when moving in
their Direction of Integration (growth), envious, emotionally turbulent Fours
become more objective and principled, like healthy Ones. For more information,
click
here.
Examples: Ingmar
Bergman,
Alan
Watts,
Sarah
McLachlan,
Alanis
Morrisette,
Paul
Simon, Jeremy Irons,
Patrick
Stewart, Joseph Fiennes,
Martha
Graham,
Bob
Dylan,
Miles
Davis,
Johnny
Depp,
Anne
Rice,
Rudolph
Nureyev,
J.D.
Salinger,
Anaîs
Nin,
Marcel
Proust,
Maria
Callas,
Tennessee
Williams,
Edgar
Allan Poe,
Annie
Lennox,
Prince,
Michael
Jackson,
Virginia
Woolf,
Judy
Garland, "Blanche DuBois" (
Streetcar
Named Desire),
Thomas Merton.
Type Four Overview
We have named this type
The Individualist because
Fours maintain their identity by seeing themselves as fundamentally
different from others. Fours feel that they are unlike other human
beings, and consequently, that no one can understand them or love them
adequately. They often see themselves as uniquely talented, possessing
special, one-of-a-kind gifts, but also as uniquely disadvantaged or
flawed. More than any other type, Fours are acutely aware of and focused
on their personal differences and deficiencies.
Healthy Fours are honest with themselves: they own
all of their feelings and can look at their motives, contradictions, and
emotional conflicts without denying or whitewashing them. They may not
necessarily like what they discover, but they do not try to rationalize
their states, nor do they try to hide them from themselves or others.
They are not afraid to see themselves “warts and all.” Healthy Fours are
willing to reveal highly personal and potentially shameful things about
themselves because they are determined to understand the truth of their
experience—so that they can discover who they are and come to terms
with their emotional history. This ability also enables Fours to endure
suffering with a quiet strength. Their familiarity with their own darker
nature makes it easier for them to process painful experiences that
might overwhelm other types.
Nevertheless, Fours often report that they feel
they are missing something in themselves, although they may have
difficulty identifying exactly what that “something” is. Is it will
power? Social ease? Self-confidence? Emotional tranquility?—all of which
they see in others, seemingly in abundance. Given time and sufficient
perspective, Fours generally recognize that they are unsure about
aspects of their self-image—their
personality or ego-structure itself. They feel that they lack a clear
and stable identity, particularly a social persona that they feel
comfortable with.
While it is true that Fours often feel different
from others, they do not really want to be alone. They may feel socially
awkward or self-conscious, but they deeply wish to connect with people
who understand them and their feelings. The “romantics” of the
Enneagram, they long for someone to come into their lives and appreciate
the secret self that they have privately nurtured and hidden from the
world. If, over time, such validation remains out of reach, Fours begin
to build their identity around
how unlike everyone else they are.
The outsider therefore comforts herself by becoming an insistent
individualist: everything must be done on her own, in her own way, on
her own terms. Fours’ mantra becomes “I am myself. Nobody understands
me. I am different and special,” while they secretly wish they could
enjoy the easiness and confidence that others seem to enjoy.
Fours typically have problems with a negative
self-image and chronically low self-esteem. They attempt to compensate
for this by cultivating a
Fantasy Self—an idealized self-image
which is built up primarily in their imaginations. A Four we know shared
with us that he spent most of his spare time listening to classical
music while fantasizing about being a great concert pianist—
à la
Vladimir Horowitz. Unfortunately, his commitment to practicing fell far
short of his fantasized self-image, and he was often embarrassed when
people asked him to play for them. His actual abilities, while not poor,
became sources of shame.
In the course of their lives, Fours may try several
different identities on for size, basing them on styles, preferences,
or qualities they find attractive in others. But underneath the surface,
they still feel uncertain about who they really are. The problem is
that they base their identity largely on their feelings. When Fours look
inward they see a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting pattern of emotional
reactions. Indeed, Fours accurately perceive a truth about human
nature—that it is dynamic and ever changing. But because they want to
create a stable, reliable identity from their emotions, they attempt to
cultivate only certain feelings while rejecting others. Some feelings
are seen as “me,” while others are “not me.” By attempting to hold on to
specific moods and express others, Fours believe that they are being
true to themselves.
One of the biggest challenges Fours face is
learning to let go of feelings from the past; they tend to nurse wounds
and hold onto negative feelings about those who have hurt them. Indeed,
Fours can become so attached to longing and disappointment that they are
unable to recognize the many treasures in their lives.
Leigh is a working mother who has struggled with these difficult feelings for many years.
“I collapse when I am out in the world. I have
had a trail of relationship disasters. I have hated my sister’s
goodness—and hated goodness in general. I went years without joy in my
life, just pretending to smile because real smiles would not come to me.
I have had a constant longing for whatever I cannot have. My longings
can never become fulfilled because I now realize that I am attached to
‘the longing’ and not to any specific end result.”
There is a Sufi story that relates to this about
an old dog that had been badly abused and was near starvation. One day,
the dog found a bone, carried it to a safe spot, and started gnawing
away. The dog was so hungry that it chewed on the bone for a long time
and got every last bit of nourishment that it could out of it. After
some time, a kind old man noticed the dog and its pathetic scrap and
began quietly setting food out for it. But the poor hound was so
attached to its bone that it refused to let go of it and soon starved
to death.
Fours are in the same predicament. As long as they
believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with them, they
cannot allow themselves to experience or enjoy their many good
qualities. To acknowledge their good qualities would be to lose their
sense of identity (as a suffering victim) and to be without a relatively
consistent personal identity (their Basic Fear). Fours grow by learning
to see that much of their story is not true—or at least it is not true
any more. The old feelings begin to fall away once they stop telling
themselves their old tale: it is irrelevant to who they are right now.
Type Four—More Depth by Level
Healthy Levels
Level 1 (At Their Best): Profoundly creative, expressing the personal
and the universal, possibly in a work of art. Inspired, self-renewing and
regenerating: able to transform all their experiences into something valuable:
self-creative.
Level 2: Self-aware, introspective, on the "search for self," aware of
feelings and inner impulses. Sensitive and intuitive both to self and others:
gentle, tactful, compassionate.
Level 3: Highly personal, individualistic, "true to self."
Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane. Ironic view of self and life: can
be serious and funny, vulnerable and emotionally strong.
Average Levels
Level 4: Take an artistic, romantic orientation to life, creating a
beautiful, aesthetic environment to cultivate and prolong personal feelings.
Heighten reality through fantasy, passionate feelings, and the imagination.
Level 5: To stay in touch with feelings, they interiorize everything,
taking everything personally, but become self-absorbed and introverted, moody
and hypersensitive, shy and self-conscious, unable to be spontaneous or to
"get out of themselves." Stay withdrawn to protect their self-image and to buy
time to sort out feelings.
Level 6: Gradually think that they are different from others, and feel
that they are exempt from living as everyone else does. They become melancholy
dreamers, disdainful, decadent, and sensual, living in a fantasy world.
Self-pity and envy of others leads to self-indulgence, and to becoming
increasingly impractical, unproductive, effete, and precious.
Unhealthy Levels
Level 7: When dreams fail, become self-inhibiting and angry at self,
depressed and alienated from self and others, blocked and emotionally
paralyzed. Ashamed of self, fatigued and unable to function.
Level 8: Tormented by delusional self-contempt, self-reproaches,
self-hatred, and morbid thoughts: everything is a source of torment. Blaming
others, they drive away anyone who tries to help them.
Level 9: Despairing, feel hopeless and become self-destructive,
possibly abusing alcohol or drugs to escape. In the extreme: emotional
breakdown or suicide is likely. Generally corresponds to the Avoidant,
Depressive, and Narcissistic personality disorders.
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