NICKNAMES: Individualist, Artist, Mystic, Melodramatic, Elitist

ENERGETICS: Internalization and Absorption - emotional boundaries are absorbent

HIDDEN ESSENCE: Loving Radiance, Divine Beauty, Sacred Intimacy

Subjective

People with the Four pattern fixate on being unusual and having an unique image as a means to attract love. They feel a deep lack of love and consciously believe a unique image will be valued by others.

They feel different, misunderstand, unappreciated, and outside from others. They always feel different – sometimes better, sometimes worse - but always special.

They often feel they are more creative and artistic, or that their ideals and beliefs are deeper and more profound. They often feel they have suffered more or are more dysfunctional than others.

They isolate and feel lonely and abandoned. A tragic story becomes their identity, and they unconsciously hold onto it. They find the world taxing - feel sensitive, have limited energy, and feel weighted down.

They feel a lot of shame and self hatred. They believe that they are deeply flawed, responsible for their misery, and the awful events of their lives. They have tremendous guilt. This leads them to compare and either feel envious or better than others. They can also have a sense of entitlement as if they deserve more because they have suffered more.

Being ordinary is dreaded - an ordinary job or conventional lifestyle feels like a death sentence. They loath the idea of starting at the bottom and working their way up, they feel they shouldn’t have to endure what others go through.

Objective

They have an unusual style of dress and general appearance. They take care with every aspect of their appearance, yet they want to appear natural and effortless to maintain an image of being authentic.

They tend to be very attractive people. They are prone to eating disorders, which can make them over or under healthy weight.

They have a talking style that oozes deep emotion - a melancholy resonance in expression that sounds sexy or sensual. Even when they are happy, content, or in repose their facial expression seems melancholy.

Sadness is the emotion they express and feel most. They are attracted to tragic stories and events, and dwell on them. They want/need attention and draw it out with emotions.

Even though they are melancholy and have low energy, they like to have fun. They can be spontaneous and live on the wild side. Others often enjoy being around them. Their intense or deep demeanor can be attractive.

Others often back off when they get dramatic and repeat their sad story. When they are focused on a tragic loop the people around them feel drained. This response in others can validate the feeling that they will never be understood and lead them to isolate again.

Childhood

Children with the Four pattern feel different than their parents. They believe they are not seen by their parents.

There is the feeling that they were kicked out of the nest because there is something tragically wrong with them. Often there is some event that changes the family structure and stands out as the event that changed everything.

Some remember a time when everything was wonderful and a moment when they were rejected for no apparent reason. They spend their childhood trying to regain love by being special.

Subtypes

SELF-PRESERVATION, THE QUIET ENDURER

They quietly endure suffering so that others will love them. They endure pain without wincing, make a virtue of suffering, resist feeling pain. They don’t fully look like fours, but they still have a melancholy demeanor.

SOCIAL, THE OUTWARD SUFFERER

They suffer outwardly so that others will love them. They are more socially active and long to be involved with others. They depend too much on others to take care of their needs. They feel the most shame, need for self abasement, and competitiveness. They lament to draw attention.

SEXUAL/ATTRACTION, THE SEDUCTIVE ANGRY PARTNER

They use anger to get loved and insist on getting their needs met. They believe the more they complain the more they will get. Envy makes them angry and aggressive. They can be volatile and outspoken. They are intense, deep, emotionally turbulent, seductive, jealous, possessive, and insecure.

Wings

3 WING, THE ARISTOCRAT

They are self absorbed, competitive, grandiose, successful, over achiever, more extroverted

4 WING, THE BOHEMIAN HIPSTER

They are eccentric, unusual, dwell in imagination, isolate, more introverted

Continuum

LOWER - Self destructive, suicidal, depressed, alienated, rejecting, unable to support themselves.

MIDDLE - Pretentious, indulgent, self centered, melancholy, nostalgic, isolating, comparing, and envious.

HIGH - Creative, sensitive, self aware, joyful, embrace life, self supporting, but still ego based.

Essence - loving radiance

The essence of each type is the quality of character - a particular expression - that remains when the fixation softens and releases. While these qualities are human they are not personal and cannot be developed.

The essence is revealed when fixation is recognized and freed through awareness and compassion. We all have the potential to realize the essence of our type - our more subtle authentic nature. This authenticity means living from open, free, wholeness.

The essence of the type Four is divine beauty and loving radiance.

Each type has a blind spot that creates a unique experience of separation. Each blind spot is directly related to the essential nature of each type. People with the Four pattern have a blind spot for authentic beauty and loving radiance.

This blind spot prevents them from perceiving and experiencing authentic beauty and love. All nurturing environments are inadequate to some extent. This inadequacy is experienced personally and interpreted through the enneagram pattern. When this is experienced by the child with the type Four, they fixate on a lack of love.

Miles Davis’ music has a type 4 quality.

Virginia Woolf’s writing has the type 4 quality.

Enneagram Type 4