Enneagram Type Four: The Individualist

The Enneagram Blogspot

"Creatures of emotional extremes, enneagram type 4s are awash in a stormy sea of emotions. They are all about relationships and seem to be always beginning, ending, or analyzing relationships. They feel frustrated in their search for connection to others. As children, they didn’t feel like the parents really understood them or were there for them emotionally. Whether or not this was really true is beside the point. They feel like they were born into the wrong family and continue to seek out people who will nurture them, mirror them, and rescue them from their suffering."

"People of Enneatype Four construct their identities around their perception of themselves as being somehow unique and fundamentally different from others. This deep felt sense of being “different from” or “other than” pervades the Four’s sense of self, and functions as the basis for the Four’s attempt to create a persona that properly reflects who they feel they really are. Fours are not content (or even able) to live out the role assigned them by their societies or their families; they self-consciously search for an expression they feel will be truly authentic. Of all the types, Fours are the most acutely aware that the persona is a construct – something which has been created and can thus be re-created. This is indeed the fundamental respect in which Fours are artists; they may or may not be artists in the conventional sense of the term, but all Fours have a sense that their identities are, in some respect, their own creation."

 I have always felt that who I am is very subjective.  The me, as I view myself, can change from day to day, season to season, even moment to moment.  The joy I feel is stronger than other people's joy.  The pain I feel must be that much stronger.  One of my favorite quotes is from Daffy Duck, "I can’t stand pain, it hurts me!"  It is too easy to get lost in my own fantasy realm of emotions; joy, pain, loss, emptiness.  Notice that the negative frequently outweighs the positive.

I type as a 4 with a 5 wing (4w5).  Described as the following:

"Healthy side of this wing brings a withdrawn, complex creativity. May be somewhat intellectual but have exceptional depth of feeling and insight. Very much their own person; original and idiosyncratic. Have a spiritual and aesthetic openness. Will find multiple levels of meaning to most events. May have a strong need and ability to pour themselves into artistic creations. Loners; can seem enigmatic and hard to read. Externally reserved and internally resonant. When they open up it can be sudden and total. When entranced or defensive, Fours with a 5 wing can easily feel alienated and depressed. Many have a sense of not belonging, of being from another planet. Can get lost in their own process, drown in their own ocean. Whiny - tend to ruminate and relive past experience. Prone to the emotion of shame. Air of sullen, withdrawn disappointment. May live within a private mythology of pain and loss. Can get deeply morbid and fall in love with death."

 I analyze to the point of stagnation and immovability.  My desire to acquire knowledge extends to my own internal turmoil and I find it easy to become lost in my own personal melancholy.  To break this cycle of mental-lock-down, requires taking a step back from how I am feeling and acknowledge that I am NOT my emotions.  Emotions provide a lens for viewing reality, but do not dictate my reality. 

Enneagram Institute

Riso & Hudson provide the following levels of personal development, specific to 4s.

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. 

Maintaining a healthy mental state requires allowing my emotions to surface, examining their direction and intensity, and then accepting the conclusions that can be drawn from my experiences.  This provides a healthy feedback system that enables me to maintain a sense of purpose and clarity.  Am I on the right path?  Is what I am doing making me happy?  At all times, I must refrain from allowing my fantasy world from overtaking reality.  Obsession and over-analysis result in a negative feedback loop that shuts down all rational thought.

Integration (Self Realization and Productivity)

"As Fours become more aware of their tendency to brood and to fantasize about their many hurts and disappointments, they also become aware of the cost to themselves of this way of being. As they relax and accept themselves more deeply, they gradually become free of their constant emotional turbulence and their need to maintain emotional crises or to indulge themselves as a consolation prize for not fulfilling their potential. Gradually and naturally, they become more objective, grounded, and practical, like healthy Ones. They also become more realistic and able to operate in the real world. Without imposing harsh disciplines or expectations on themselves, integrating Fours want to become involved in matters beyond themselves, such as in community work, politics, the environment, or in other worthwhile ways to engage their minds and hearts. On some level, they choose no longer to indulge themselves but to live within the constraints of reality. When they do so, they find the payoffs and the pleasures—and their creativity—are deeper and much more fulfilling."

At my most productive, my type shifts to resemble that of Type 1.  Objective, practical, realistic and capable of operating in the real world.  I find it interesting that my personality type gravitates to those who have personality traits that I envy or desire, and my partner is a type 1.  Obviously, my subconscious knew something I did not.  It would seem imperative that I continually strive to break the cycle of emotional over-analysis.  Reality does not change because I have an anxiety attack over an imagined insult or slight.  Even legitimate criticism should be met with logic and reason.  Did I fail in my obligations?  Am I capable of improving my performance?

"Fours grow by recognizing that while the hurts and losses of the past were real enough, there is no need to keep revisiting them in the imagination. On the contrary, doing so keeps drawing them out of the richness and depth of the present moment—the one time and place in which their real feelings and their true identity can be found. Fours need to see how working up their feelings actually moves them further away from their most authentic self and their truest self expression."