Type 4 of Enneagram
Enneagram Type 4 (Enneatype 4) – The Artist
Popularized in the 1970s in the mainstream of humanist psychology, the enneagram is a method of personal development and management.
The Enneagram describes nine different ways of approaching the world, and consequently nine very different ways of interacting with it. Ennea means 9 in Greek. Each of the 9 Enneatypes has its strengths, its weaknesses. Each of us privileges certain information and leaves others aside, in an unconscious way, limiting ourselves to one version of reality. This personal development tool allows you to get to know yourself better and to free yourself from certain sometimes limiting automatisms, and thus improve your interpersonal relationships and well-being.
The enneagram fits well with approaches in modern psychology. Like mindfulness, it emphasizes the importance of arousal over the “autopilot” of daily routines. Like cognitive and behavioral approaches, it relies on beliefs and the identification of inappropriate patterns. Its cognitive and emotional structure can be a useful and powerful guide.
Each individual has the nine profiles of the Enneagram within him, but does not develop them all in the same way. What makes each person unique.
See below the description of type 4 of the enneagram
Famous Artists
What I feel. How i see myself
I can see that the others have an easier life than mine. I wonder how they do it. Besides, I often feel misunderstood and alone because I feel different from others. It is true that I cultivate originality and above all the desire to be myself. I like the intensity of the emotions and my behavior, my way of being can come across as dramatic at times.
Inside me I search for a deep truth and above all to feel alive through my emotions, my feelings, even though I often experience melancholy. I have a feeling of lack and at the same time I am looking for beauty, aesthetics, a unique universe, the passion. I combine the sadness of a lost love with the romantic anticipation of the perfect future companion. Then I don’t like banality. Finally everything that is the routine.
I like
- Share my feelings
- Use my creativity: clothes, work, decoration …
- Live unique, intense moments
- Feel different from others
- Real people
I don't like
- The banal, the routine, the everyday
- Criticism, disrespect
- The obligation to follow closely a procedure
- The fake people, who are hiding
How others perceive me
People of this personality type tend to build their identity around their perception of themselves as being somewhat different or unique. They are thus individualists.
Fours tend to see this difference from others as both a gift and a curse: a gift because it sets them apart from those they perceive as “common”, and a curse because it so often seems to separate them from others. ‘simple happiness that others easily enjoy. Thus, Fours are able to deal with feeling superior to others while secretly harboring some degree of melancholy desire and envy.
Relationship
The Four are emotionally complex and very sensitive. They yearn to be understood and appreciated for their genuine being, but feel easily misunderstood and uncomfortable. So they can very easily go from a euphoric phase to a phase of bad mood or lunatic mood. They are emotionally centered and spend most of their lives immersed in their mental landscapes, where they feel free to cultivate and analyze their feelings. The desire to express this internal world makes them aesthetically sensitive and drawn to self-expression and revelation whether it is in the clothes they wear or in the overall nature of their lifestyles.
Fours have a natural tendency to be melancholy under stressful conditions and to sink into depression. They also tend to be egocentric, even under the best of circumstances, but when the personality loses balance, this easily gives way to a form of self-indulgence that they perceive to be fully justified in compensation for the general lack of pleasure that they experience in life. Rather than looking for practical solutions to their difficulties, 4s tend to fantasize about the coming of a savior who will bring them out of their misfortune.
Fours will tend to focus on what they lack compared to an ideal. This can result in criticism or rejection of the other at some “t” moment. But as soon as the latter is absent, the lack of his presence will generate regrets. Which can lead to very theatrical intimate relationships.
The Enneagram Type 4 Profile
I am genuine and different
Unconditional scheme
“I am different”
“I’m missing something that others have”
Conditional scheme
“If I want to be loved, then I must find what I miss”
Consequences
I look for the ideal or the circumstances that will make me feel like I am fully loved for who I am.
sense of beauty and ideal
Paradoxes :
- Searching for the ideal can only generate dissatisfaction
- Wanting what is missing obscures what is there
sensitivity, creativity, authenticity, compassion
For this: I introject (defense mechanism). I internalize people, things, events through my imagination, my emotions to stay in touch with an ideal. I can then express this emotional overflow outward.
Of what I lack compared to an ideal
Risks :
to be perceived as unstable, dramatic, never satisfied, susceptible, tormented
Equanimity & Critical mind
- Focus on what is positive about the current situation
- Persevere on the action regardless of the fluctuating and intense feelings
- Recognize that feelings are not the only reality
- Knowing how to appreciate the ordinary
Projections and wings
When type 4 is under stress, he projects towards his region of disintegration. He then resembles type 2 by his expansive and possessive side.
In the phase of security and tranquility, type 4 projects himself into his integration zone and behaves like a fulfilled type 1, becoming fair, neutral, with a more acute critical mind and ethics.
- With a pronounced wing 3: the Aristocrat.
- With a pronounced 5 wing: the Bohème.
Confusions and similarities with other types
Enneagram Type 4s sometimes think they are Type 5, and a strong Five Wing can certainly exacerbate this tendency. The Four, unlike the Five, however, tend to be more outgoing and comfortable with emotional expression. They are more outgoing.
The 4 can also be confused with the 7 because of their creativity. The 7 feels special, when the 4 feels different. Both types have an outgoing side. But the 7 is an optimist looking to the future when the 4 will be marked by its melancholy of the past.
Other Enneatypes
Description of each of the other Enneatypes
