Four - Click into the Unique Artist

Type Fours tend to have an attractive quality and style to them. They have a mood about them that reveals that that they are deeply in touch with their feelings. They are good at gauging the moods and feelings of others more than any of the other enneagram types.

The intrinsic nature of the Four is Joy.  At the Heart lies the fundamental blueprint of Holy and Sacred Divine Union. However the experience of being a type four human lies a deep sense of something missing in a world that is fraught with hurts, pains and disappointment.

Like Fives, type Fours sit at the bottom of the enneagram. Both are acutely aware of a black hole within. Being an emotional/image point, the lower emotions of despair has them feeling that they are fundamentally flawed. This carries a sense of disorientation, vulnerability and shame. They have a sense of feeling out of place or at odds with the environment which brings about the consistent belief that they are very different from others. They feel that no one is able to understand or love them adequately and that they will never be loved as much as they love others. Nonetheless, the hope and yearning to be loved deeply, always prevails.

The fine-tuned psyche of Type Fours is geared towards protecting themselves from a myriad of intense feelings, which are experienced through envy. In fact, every point of interaction with the world is felt consciously or unconsciously through envy. Within their highly active emotional system they will lament for what was, wasn't, what has or could have been. It prevails where ever there may be any opportunity to engage in a holy union with another. As this exchange is often unmet, a sense of disorientation rises and a melancholy or  melodrama pushes them into deep insular seclusion. It is in this space that a unique creative expression is birthed and a reorientation then shifts the envy over to being enviable. This is another feeling that continues to fuel their sense of uniqueness and specialness.

Ever in touch with such deep feelings and emotions, they are constantly churning, digesting and processing pain, loss and grief which can then extend from the emotional system and is thus experienced in the system in the form of pain or sickness. Hospital beds and medical wards are populated by Fours. One may notice that whenever a group adventure or outing occurs, it will always be the Four who will feel sick first or they may fall and hurts their ankle or get stung by an ant, bee or wasp. The other image points also have this tendency but it is most noticeable in the four. 

The source of the Real Self is Joy and the expression of Joy. The type Four identification in a body or separate ego self therefore seeks  to be recognised for what it is and so the desire to bring joy to a world can only be seen and felt in the other if they are able to highlight or bring brightness and shine to themselves and others. When those they love are down, they are swift to serve with loving gestures to ensure that they feel cared for and that life will not stay down for long. When type Fours feel called to serve their loved ones with this level of care and attention, they are able to gain a stronger sense of themselves including a subtle sense of disorientation.

If they are not able to express themselves in this manner, the disorientation rises and a dark mood festers within. On the other hand, as they reorientate themselves and their unique care and beauty is seen, felt and embraced, a warm luminous glow and synergy emits a certain sparkle into the environment and a sense of deep fulfilment washes over them as they are able to recognise what their purpose is and why they were put on this earth.

This brightness is felt by an envious soul somewhere in the collective to poke at these gorgeous souls as is the nature of the human condition to bring about a wash, rinse, and repeat cycle. And if the envy isn't coming from the outside it will most certainly be felt within all over again, similar to the function of the liver/lung process, as they filter the denser human emotions to brightness once again.

Dynamics of the Relationship with Type Four:

Those who are not aware of their function and have little interest in investing in the cultivation of conscious relationships will consciously or unconsciously take advantage of this tenancy.  For example, the nature of a type 6 , being compelled to set limits upon others and themselves. This movement tends to bring about a dynamic where the Four tends to feel taken advantage of resulting in the Four plummeting into the darker depths of their emotional systems.

The only way the Four can manoeuvre themselves is through their unique genius creations of art, beauty and designs to be seen again, rather than stay at the bottom to filter out the negative darker emotions out of their system which sadly, can often come at the cost of the health of type Four.

Metaphorically they are like a fish filter in an aquarium whose function is to bring sparkle and glow to the fish inside. Type Fours have been the cash cows of society, which is a deeper understanding as to why they are referred to as the "Tortured Artist" by Enneagram specialists. They have also been named “The Individualist” and “The Romantic”.

Being highly talented with a rare gift to share, while simultaneously having to navigate the consistency of feeling uniquely flawed or disadvantaged, ignites a focus upon personal differences and deficiencies. They harbour a need to redefine themselves from the harsh experiences of life. The painful history of the Four is often the loss of a strong parent, which they internalise to mean that there is something wrong with them. Marked by this loss as unique abandonment, they tend to develop a sense of elitism where normal rules do not apply and that they can never quite overcome this running feeling.

Healthy Fours are honest, self-reflective types. They own all of their feelings with sincerity by assessing their motives, contradictions, and emotional conflicts without denying or whitewashing them. While they may not necessarily like what they discover, they will not rationalise these states nor try to hide them from themselves or others. A healthy Four is not afraid to see all parts of themselves, “warts and all”, and are therefore willing to reveal highly personal and potentially shameful things about themselves.

Fours tend to be driven to understand the truth of their experience to discover who they are and to come to terms with their emotional history. It is this ability that enables Fours to endure suffering with a quiet strength. It is the familiarity with their own darker nature that makes it easier for them to process painful experiences that might overwhelm other types.

Fours always possess a sense that something is missing in themselves, whether it is will-power, social ease, self-confidence, emotional tranquility or financial security, all of which they see abundantly in others, a sense which is fuelled by the underlying passion of Envy. With sufficient perspective, Fours are able to recognise that they feel unsure about aspects of their self-image or feel uncomfortable about their clear, stable identity. It is this feeling that gives rise to a deep wish to connect with people who understand them. They hold a deep sense of longing for someone who will appreciate the self that they have privately nurtured and hidden from the world. They are therefore considered to be the love addicts or “romantics” of the Enneagram.

They carry a sense of never being able to be filled up due to having suffered so much in life that no one can ever make it up to them. If, over time, this validation remains out of reach, Fours will build an identity around how they are unlike everyone else. They will then find comfort in becoming an insistent individualist where 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 chronic low self-esteem. One strategy used to compensate for this is cultivating a fantasy self, an idealised self-image built primarily upon their imagination: Elton John, Prince, Freddie Mercury all exhibit this compensation.

Over the course of a Four's life, they will have had several different identities based on their preferences around quality, attractiveness, style and charisma. Underneath, however, they still feel uncertain about who they really are.

The problem for Fours is, being an internal emotional point, they base their identities primarily upon their feelings and emotions. As these are ever-shifting and changing, their desire to create a stable and reliable identity becomes troublesome. They therefore get caught in cultivating certain feelings while rejecting others by seeing some feelings as “me” and others as “not me”. While Fours accurately perceive dynamics about human nature, they attempt to hold onto specific moods for themselves in an attempt to create a reliable identity and 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 recognise the many treasures in their lives.

Written by Sunaina Watson and some extracts taken from the Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson.