The Intimate Four
Suffering by Comparison
The intimate subtype of the Four competes around relationships. Competition is rooted in comparison and Fours and Ones both have the perceptual habit of comparing reality to what should be. This makes the One very critical, it makes the sexual (intimate) subtype Four competitive about emotional status, especially their status with the significant person in their life.
Fours in general believe that love is by far the most important thing in their lives and the sexual subtype in particular believes that when, and only when, they find the perfect love will they be happy. This is often coupled with the belief that once they had a perfect love. Either their mother or some significant person loved them unconditionally and this was the happiest -- and perhaps the only happy -- time of their life. This was the Garden of Eden before they were discovered to be defective and summarily rejected.
Envy
But the competition goes a little further. Intimate Fours compare their state in life with that of others - and suffer by comparison. While they are prone to jealousy with a mate, they are prone to emotional evaluation and comparison with everyone they deem to be their equal. (I have four years of college like she does but I don't have a managerial position. She's so much further ahead than I am. Then... "I wonder what's wrong with me.")
The romantic tendency of the Fours comes out when the intimate subtype not only wants to be the person the mate loves the most, but what would make it perfect would be if they were the only person the mate ever loved. When the Four tries to obtain emotional status, that probably relates to the dependency of the style Two to which they have a strong connection. Twos get identity from being loved, intimate Fours get importance and self-worth as a gift from the one who loves them. Their self-worth is not rooted in the self, it has its origin in the estimation of the mate and of society.
Their envy can easily become professional envy. The professional envy is rooted in a desire for revenge (because I know they don't really respect me) and is rooted in a positive characteristic of the Four, an appreciation of quality. Whereas the Three plays to the crowd in a democratic way, the relational or intimate Four labors to gain the respect of their peers. And not only their peers, but those other professionals who really know quality when they see it. Threes play for the crowd, intimate Fours play for the other musicians, especially the visitors from the symphony.
Emotional criteria
Comparison requires ways and means of keeping score. This is intricate because simple counting won't give you a qualitative analysis. Consequently, they covet prestige. Victories over one's peers is sweet indeed and one must take every effort to be recognized by the best people, especially those acknowledged experts. (Sometimes this is reversed in Social Fours, they want recognition only from those rejected by society but like all mirror images the importance remains constant).
In the movie Amadeus, the outrage, self-loathing and envy so transparent in Soliari when he talks about the music of Mozart is instructive. Because Mozart was talented, Soliari was tormented. The nature of competition is that if you win, I lose. In America competition is always an emotional threat.
Out of my league
A special cross for intimate Fours to bear is that they are drawn to precisely what they can't have. This is romantic tragedy. We are perfect for each other, but she lives in San Francisco and I dwell in Santa Fe. So we commute every third month. We have a wonderful week or weekend and then return to our respective hells. Or he is a carpenter and she is an opera star. Or she is wealthy and he sells siding. Any obstacle will do as long as the intimate Four doesn't have to endure the real relationship. It is so much sweeter in the mind than in reality.
But when the obstacle is taken away, then the habit of comparing reality to the ideal (which worked fine when I idealized her as she lived in San Francisco) sets in, and I begin to notice that she has shoddy taste in Impressionism, actually listens to Metallica and may have voted for George Bush. How can I possibly live with such a creature? The comparative thinking leads to fault finding as it compares a real person to an ideal.
This can set up a push/pull relationship. I love you while you are absent, but up close I notice you have a lot of faults. But as soon as you go, I begin to idealize you and get in touch with the really deep feelings I have for you. Please come back and torture me again.
The Self-Preservation Four
Dauntless, NOT Ordinary
Even though one might think of Fours with their emotional intensity as primarily passive in the outer world, Self-Preservation Fours can be extremely aggressive. Even if you don't follow basketball, you'll still have heard of Dennis Rodman. With his Technicolor hair, cross-dressing, and aggressive style of professional basketball, you can probably see (vividly, as Fours would prefer) the style of the Self-Preservation Four. If your interests are more esthetic, you can follow the adventures of Nicholas Cage, with his motorcycle exploits and flamboyant lifestyle.
Remember the starting point for understanding Fours is Envy. Emotionally that means that Fours see themselves as defective. They turn that defect into a badge of entitlement as way to get what they have coming to them. Everybody has it better, so they should get compensated.
Self-Preservation Fours are termed Dauntless by the Enneagram tradition. The compulsion is to spice things up in order to make sure that I am special. To avoid the ordinary, Self-Preservation Fours take reckless chances, are drawn to the bizarre, even death, and see their lives as catastrophes. An Enneagram coach might reframe a chronicle of emotional turmoil as bragging: "I have more turmoil than anyone." Why?
Search for Emotional Intensity
What's going on here? Well, if one's worst fear is ordinariness, then you want your life to look like the evening news. Where's the drama, the emotional intensity, the juice? Self-Preservation types of all numbers have a stronger physical preoccupation than the others, so their risks, their exploits, their flamboyancies tend to be more physical.
Most types have an idealized self-image. The one that plagues the Self-Preservation Four is immortality. No matter what chances I take, I won't get hurt. I'm invulnerable. But if I do die, then you will miss me terribly, probably erect a monument and I will live on in the hearts and minds of millions. Shakespeare, a Four, told the lady of his affections that his poetry would confer immortality on her. But Self-Preservation Fours confer it on themselves. There must be a way around death.
Depression is one way of anticipating death. If I rehearse death through feeling dead, then I will be able to handle it when it really happens. If I can go to the depths and deaths of depression and recover, I'll get the hang of it so when I die... And during the process, at least I'm involved in something important, something of a life-and-death issue. And if I'm involved in this important struggle, I certainly am not just numbly going through life. After all, Thoreau was right, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."
Watch Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. One way to take chances is to run off to Africa and try to create a farm without having the wherewithal to do it. And then, extend your risk-taking by falling in love with a Seven (Robert Redford) who offers dash and panache and precious little in the way of security. Then organize supply trains to bring to the military and be heroic when everything fails. But lament your state as though everything were God's fault.
Death Rehearsal
Most Self-Preservation types have a paranoid streak somewhere. That's why their concern is Self-Preservation. The self is under attack in some way. The specific way the self is under attack in the Four strategy is through dull, unimaginative, unrelenting ordinariness. One might as well be dead as stuck here in this (small town, boring relationship, monotonous job) environment. Life without emotional intensity is not really life.
The worst case scenario of a depressed Self-Preservation Four is, of course, suicide. Read Hamlet's soliloquy from the point of view of a Self-Preservation Four and it is quite enlightening. The fundamental question of a Self-Preservation is being: how to be, and more radically, whether to be or not to be.
An upside to this lust for intensity is that when a crisis does hit, they can often be heroic. When the floods hit or the car crashes, they can be superhuman in their struggles to help themselves and others. The drama of the situation calls forth all their resources and with their powerful imaginations, they understand the situation and can demonstrate tenacious perseverance. Fours naturally have the widest and deepest range of emotions anyway, so when the situation calls for it, they can access depths nobody dreamed they had.
If that dramatic struggle is an artistic one, they can do without everything but the barest survival necessities while they devote themselves to completing the great American novel or the finest in impressionist painting. The intensity of the struggle contributes to the greatness of the art. This is the artistic temperament. (A note: many beginners assume that every artist is a Four. Artist refers to talent and can occur in any number. The artistic temperament, so called, is frequently a Four, especially the starving artists who can often be Self-Preservation Fours locked in life-and-death-battles, being fought largely in their imaginations.
The Social Four
An Idealized Self-Image
The social Four is depicted in a fine Enneagram movie, Heavenly Creatures. The storyline is set in England and features two teenage girls, both Fours. The dark haired one, Paula, is a Four with a Five-wing and she is a intimate subtype. Her friend, Gina, is a Four with a Three wing, and she is a social subtype. They are pretty good examples of how the subtypes work.
The issue for the social subtype is shame. The sin of envy is related here to the group opinion. The belief is that the group has what I do not. I'm defective and the group knows it. Therefore I am ashamed because I am different. Perhaps because of the Three wing which increases awareness of group norms, I agree with the judgment of the group. I should be ashamed of my deformity.
Fours have an idealized images, as do all the types, but it is reversed. Fours do have an idealized self-image, but they assess their relationship to it negatively. I know what I should be like and it is such a shame that I can not and never will be able to measure up to that idea. Shame on me.
Stereotypical male homosexual culture has a Four aura about it. That is the stereotype you see in the movies and TV. For them, coming out of the closet and facing their shame is facing their deepest Enneagram problem and social rejection at the same time. For someone with a Three wing to have society reject you at your deepest orientation, it can feel like total rejection. It can be really excruciating, especially if their family -- one's first social group -- rejects them.
Inner reality most important
Fours turn to their inner imaginative life for solace. Social Fours can fantasize how they will become a social celebrity and then heap scorn on all the people who looked down on them before their national recognition. Revenge frequently plays a part in the fantasy life of Fours. Sometimes this revenge sharply colors the real-life relationship and they reject a person before that person can get to place where they might be able to reject the Four. This preemptive strike can emerge as generalized hostility.
Because they see themselves as defective, they are frequently extremely sensitive to criticism. Low self-image is their defining quality, practicality and criticism merely confirms what they have felt all along. Shakespeare's lines of Sonnet 29 begins "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state. I trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries and look upon myself and curse my fate." That's not a temporary emotional affliction for a social Four. It's a way of life.
With their emotional resources, however, they may resort to charm to cover their inner desolation, especially if they have a Three wing. No one will ever know what I have suffered...kind of attitude. But Condon points out that with a Five wing, they can grow antisocial and depressed like Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant's Woman. "The shame is more than I can bear." (In Batman Returns, The Penguin is a Four who is defective and wants revenge for the way people have looked down on him.)
Nobody loves me
The group rejection that social Fours feel (and resent) is not based on any specific social skill or attribute they feel they should cultivate. The group just "knows" they are made wrong and should have been rejected at the factory. You see the high side of this in the writings of St. Therese of Liseux, who is a clear Four. She writes so eloquently of the mercy of God because that is her issue: she needs mercy for the inner wrongness she knows darn well is there. She knows she's bad but her faith assures her that even so, God's mercy is greater. (Now we all know that in some way, but it's not the inner song we sing all day...)
The perception that I am wrong inside is only slightly different from the One's inner critical voice. The difference is that Ones are critical of everything, Fours are critical largely of themselves. But both Fours and Ones have the nasty perceptual habit of comparing reality to what should be. This habit costs Fours some important relationships. In the case of social Fours, it makes them social critics and makes them critical of social norms. At times this can give them permission to do things that are immoral because they don't care about social injunctions. They then tend not to like working for organizations or belonging to institutions. And if they do belong, they can be highly critical.
Extra Descriptions:
The Dramatic Four
So Long Suffering
Fours share some characteristics of Twos and Threes in the heart center. Fours share some of the emotional habits in that they tend to be excessively influenced by others. All three lack a certain inner density. They are not sure of who they are and they tend to confuse seeming with being. They pay too much attention to what others think of them and they tend to interiorize in one way or another the opinions of others about themselves. Twos do it by emotionally investing in others by helping; threes do it by performing for others.
Fours have a negative relationship to others. They take pride in being different, especially being defective. All the while they lament their lot in life; you can hear a faint bragging: I have been singled out by fate, God, the Universe, name your deity to suffer. And my suffering makes me special. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, and nobody appreciates how I've handled it, absorbed its bitter dregs and these dregs have become medicine. Nietzsche said, "What does not kill me strengthens me." Fours feel that in some way. Their traditional sin is envy. On a superficial level, one might ask, "Why commit such a painful sin?" Pride looks like fun at times (Two) and deceit has its rewards, (Three) especially in a context of high performance with the applause in the background. But envy?
First, most sins are not enjoyable. They are experiences of powerlessness. St. Paul said, "The good that I want to do, I don't do and the evil I don't want, that I do." Second, and to the point here -- Fours make envy pay off.
The play's the thing
One payoff reveals itself in their speech pattern of lamentation. Listen to an entranced Four for a while and you hear this dramatic recital of how difficult her life is (especially compared to your own ordinary white-bread existence). The drama's the thing. Fours have a keen sense of drama, their esthetic sense is highly developed whether they are healthy or not. So their lamentations are dramatic presentations of an important moment or experience in the life of an important person. Envy is really their ticket to esteem. They are other directed, and expect esteem from others precisely because of their suffering. This frequently can create a disdain for the ordinary. Many Fours have real trouble with the nitty-gritty of life. One Four friend talks with terror about "logistics," getting him and his stuff from her to there on time and in one piece.
This is coupled with a vivid inner life. I had a sensitive Four confide in me that he often couldn't hear what important people in his life said to him because he was paying so much attention to his inner feelings.
The movie, Heavenly Creatures, based on a true story, illustrates, a lot of these dynamics. It's a complex and rewarding movie. Watch for the following. Notice the two girls (both are Fours, Paula has a Five wing and Gina has a Three wing) start their friendship in earnest by comparing illnesses and then declare themselves special because of their flaws. Within the Four trance, that makes perfect sense.
Notice their inner imaginative life is so powerful they can't distinguish it from outer reality and they end up imposing fantasy on reality with real consequences. The life of the imagination takes emotional precedence over family, school, morality -- everything. (They are both probably self-preservation subtypes; but they are different because of their wings. The Three wing of Gina makes her more outgoing and accomplished. The Five wing of Paula tends to make her appear more sullen and introverted). They are both unhealthy and display some of the entitlement attitude often prominent in unhealthy Fours. The envy shows up in the anger against the parents. The parents, regardless of what they have done for them, haven't given them the only important thing - the chance to be together. So they focus on what is not there and get angrier about it as time goes on. Fours have a tendency to compare what is with what is missing and then spend a lot of emotional energy lamenting absence.
For a nice contrast between a little healthier Four and a light-hearted (and selfish) Seven, see Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. Redford is the Seven she loves even though he is absent most of the time (a typical snare for some Fours) and she loves being tragically beautiful. And beautifully tragic. You can feel the violins coming from afar. She is a dauntless Four, taking chances in the real world to prove an emotional inner world point. If you like her Fourness (she is a One in real life with an apparent strong feeling for her Four connection), then watch her really dramatize it in The French Lieutenant's Woman.
If your tastes are literary, here's a self-revealing poem by Shakespeare who was mostly likely a Four. Notice the abandonment, the envy of everyone and then notice he takes consolation in the memory of love, not in the love itself.
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state
I trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
and look upon myself and curse my fate. (There's the lament).
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least (Now the envy)
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For they sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
(Notice the entire poem describes a succession of inner states. He internally generates the lament, he creates the envy and he solves it by remembering. He never ventures outside).
Four, by God
The Book of Jonah is a brief biting satire on the sense of entitlement some of the Jewish people had developed. (Jewish culture has a strong Four flavor: a sense of entitlement, a large of body of lamentation psalms and a tradition of being special as the chosen people.) I was at a conference and this Jewish lady exclaimed, "Oh, I'm a Four and I'm Jewish, I'm special no matter how you look at it!) When you read the book of Jonah, notice how bad everything Jewish looks and how wonderful everyone in Nineveh from the King down to the cattle behaves (even the cows fast!). Only one Jew could satirize the other Jews with this kind of biting detail. It's funny, it's brilliant and it is an attack on unhealthy attachment to privilege. The Hebrew Scriptures are unique among sacred literature for their ability to be self-critical and this is a superb example.
The "Special" Four
Symbols and Metaphors
Let's begin this exploration on style Fours with a look at the Penguin in the movie Batman Returns. I do this not to mock, or even tease Fours, but because Fours more than any style, have an ability to think in symbol and metaphor; they have a rich and intense emotional life and this lends itself to artistic expression, and if not artistic, at least symbolic. Many Fours have trouble connecting to the outside world; they prefer their own interior life to outward reality, but the word symbol means "to throw together," and so Fours do a number of symbolic things to "throw together" their relationship between inner and outer reality.
Jim Morrison (you can see his Fourishness in the movie of his life, The Doors) wrote that the outer world was in black and white but his own thoughts and imaginations were in color. Some Fours say their inner world is more real than the outer world. I know a therapist who has trouble hearing his patients. He tells me that the client will tell him something; he will begin immediately to reflect on his own experience. His experience will be more vivid than what the client is saying and he will miss some of the next words. He has a series of questions and probes to find out what the client said.
The Penguin's drama (and Fours love to dramatize everything) begins with his parents rejecting him. (That mysterious scene in which he is thrown into the river). Many authors see both, but at least one, parent rejecting the child. Many Fours have a recollection of having lost (through abandonment, death, emotional rejection) one or more parent and often if the loss happens a little later in life when they can remember it, it is remembered as the loss of a perfect love.
The Penguin sees himself as a freak, and his freakishness is seen as something to glory in, as when he tells Batman, "You're jealous. You have to wear a mask to be a freak, but I'm a freak even without one." He sees his early deprivation as earning him the right to rule Gotham City, as unhealthy Fours can see their inner poverty a claim on the wonderful things everyone else has. The Four's benefit in being a freak lies in their non-ordinariness. Fours say they can live in agony or ecstasy, what they can't handle is dull ordinariness. This often leads to a secondary gain of making everything they do "special." They will be the bank teller with the $100 dollar fountain pen, the monogrammed shirts from Goodwill industries or as one of my friends does, insist on having a 1984 Buick because it won an award for styling (and was a mechanical disaster in his case). Think Four, think flair. Panache. An Enneagram coach can use this penchant for the extraordinary in their appeal to the Four's creativity.
I have a Four friend who was flamboyantly neurotic, but articulate and artistic. He reported to me with unconcealed delight that his therapist told him that even though he was seriously dysfunctional, "You've got style." Made his day. The following is true: As I am writing this, the above mentioned Four called me and told me of listening to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. It took him twenty minutes to tell me of his emotional reactions to the beauty of Mozart - and he was never boring or repetitious. He was enthralled and enthralling. The description of his emotional parade as he shared his pleasure was rich, so nuanced and intense only a Four could have spoke thus!
If Fours are entranced enough, they create an outer world of chaos and torture to reflect the inner world of self-pity and search for authenticity. Fours are the stereotypical starving artist. Too good for this world, unable to work at a boring, unfulfilling desk job that would earn money, they live in an unheated garret painting (or writing or composing music) living on fast food and chemical stimulants.
Fours can be an emotional teeter-totter of idealism and criticism. Having lost the early love they spend their lives searching for it. So when they are attracted to someone, they expect that this love is going to fulfill them in the same way the first love did. Of course, this leads them to idealize the lover. But the flip side of idealism is disillusionment and soon the Four begins to notice and become highly critical of small faults. Each fault is symbolic and points to larger, ominous character defects.
When the attraction is real, the Four often will live at some distance from the loved one. While they are together, the Four will be critical, but when the loved one is gone, Four remembers the deep feelings (and nobody has deeper feelings than a Four) he had. Remembering these feelings he begins to idealize the absent lover and the cycle begins all over. When I see lovers who live in different towns (She lives in Denver and he lives in New York and they get together for a torrid weekend of romance every month or so) I usually suspect one or both of them is a Four. What keeps the Four coming back is the remembrance of his feelings. Fours can fall in love with the experience of love more than with the person. Falling out of love is tumultuous and often the Four never really lets go of the lover. A female Four with a rocky romantic road behind her told me she is accused of still being in love with her first three husbands!
Source: Enneagram Central - Enneagram Style Four
Suffering by Comparison
The intimate subtype of the Four competes around relationships. Competition is rooted in comparison and Fours and Ones both have the perceptual habit of comparing reality to what should be. This makes the One very critical, it makes the sexual (intimate) subtype Four competitive about emotional status, especially their status with the significant person in their life.
Fours in general believe that love is by far the most important thing in their lives and the sexual subtype in particular believes that when, and only when, they find the perfect love will they be happy. This is often coupled with the belief that once they had a perfect love. Either their mother or some significant person loved them unconditionally and this was the happiest -- and perhaps the only happy -- time of their life. This was the Garden of Eden before they were discovered to be defective and summarily rejected.
Envy
But the competition goes a little further. Intimate Fours compare their state in life with that of others - and suffer by comparison. While they are prone to jealousy with a mate, they are prone to emotional evaluation and comparison with everyone they deem to be their equal. (I have four years of college like she does but I don't have a managerial position. She's so much further ahead than I am. Then... "I wonder what's wrong with me.")
The romantic tendency of the Fours comes out when the intimate subtype not only wants to be the person the mate loves the most, but what would make it perfect would be if they were the only person the mate ever loved. When the Four tries to obtain emotional status, that probably relates to the dependency of the style Two to which they have a strong connection. Twos get identity from being loved, intimate Fours get importance and self-worth as a gift from the one who loves them. Their self-worth is not rooted in the self, it has its origin in the estimation of the mate and of society.
Their envy can easily become professional envy. The professional envy is rooted in a desire for revenge (because I know they don't really respect me) and is rooted in a positive characteristic of the Four, an appreciation of quality. Whereas the Three plays to the crowd in a democratic way, the relational or intimate Four labors to gain the respect of their peers. And not only their peers, but those other professionals who really know quality when they see it. Threes play for the crowd, intimate Fours play for the other musicians, especially the visitors from the symphony.
Emotional criteria
Comparison requires ways and means of keeping score. This is intricate because simple counting won't give you a qualitative analysis. Consequently, they covet prestige. Victories over one's peers is sweet indeed and one must take every effort to be recognized by the best people, especially those acknowledged experts. (Sometimes this is reversed in Social Fours, they want recognition only from those rejected by society but like all mirror images the importance remains constant).
In the movie Amadeus, the outrage, self-loathing and envy so transparent in Soliari when he talks about the music of Mozart is instructive. Because Mozart was talented, Soliari was tormented. The nature of competition is that if you win, I lose. In America competition is always an emotional threat.
Out of my league
A special cross for intimate Fours to bear is that they are drawn to precisely what they can't have. This is romantic tragedy. We are perfect for each other, but she lives in San Francisco and I dwell in Santa Fe. So we commute every third month. We have a wonderful week or weekend and then return to our respective hells. Or he is a carpenter and she is an opera star. Or she is wealthy and he sells siding. Any obstacle will do as long as the intimate Four doesn't have to endure the real relationship. It is so much sweeter in the mind than in reality.
But when the obstacle is taken away, then the habit of comparing reality to the ideal (which worked fine when I idealized her as she lived in San Francisco) sets in, and I begin to notice that she has shoddy taste in Impressionism, actually listens to Metallica and may have voted for George Bush. How can I possibly live with such a creature? The comparative thinking leads to fault finding as it compares a real person to an ideal.
This can set up a push/pull relationship. I love you while you are absent, but up close I notice you have a lot of faults. But as soon as you go, I begin to idealize you and get in touch with the really deep feelings I have for you. Please come back and torture me again.
The Self-Preservation Four
Dauntless, NOT Ordinary
Even though one might think of Fours with their emotional intensity as primarily passive in the outer world, Self-Preservation Fours can be extremely aggressive. Even if you don't follow basketball, you'll still have heard of Dennis Rodman. With his Technicolor hair, cross-dressing, and aggressive style of professional basketball, you can probably see (vividly, as Fours would prefer) the style of the Self-Preservation Four. If your interests are more esthetic, you can follow the adventures of Nicholas Cage, with his motorcycle exploits and flamboyant lifestyle.
Remember the starting point for understanding Fours is Envy. Emotionally that means that Fours see themselves as defective. They turn that defect into a badge of entitlement as way to get what they have coming to them. Everybody has it better, so they should get compensated.
Self-Preservation Fours are termed Dauntless by the Enneagram tradition. The compulsion is to spice things up in order to make sure that I am special. To avoid the ordinary, Self-Preservation Fours take reckless chances, are drawn to the bizarre, even death, and see their lives as catastrophes. An Enneagram coach might reframe a chronicle of emotional turmoil as bragging: "I have more turmoil than anyone." Why?
Search for Emotional Intensity
What's going on here? Well, if one's worst fear is ordinariness, then you want your life to look like the evening news. Where's the drama, the emotional intensity, the juice? Self-Preservation types of all numbers have a stronger physical preoccupation than the others, so their risks, their exploits, their flamboyancies tend to be more physical.
Most types have an idealized self-image. The one that plagues the Self-Preservation Four is immortality. No matter what chances I take, I won't get hurt. I'm invulnerable. But if I do die, then you will miss me terribly, probably erect a monument and I will live on in the hearts and minds of millions. Shakespeare, a Four, told the lady of his affections that his poetry would confer immortality on her. But Self-Preservation Fours confer it on themselves. There must be a way around death.
Depression is one way of anticipating death. If I rehearse death through feeling dead, then I will be able to handle it when it really happens. If I can go to the depths and deaths of depression and recover, I'll get the hang of it so when I die... And during the process, at least I'm involved in something important, something of a life-and-death issue. And if I'm involved in this important struggle, I certainly am not just numbly going through life. After all, Thoreau was right, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."
Watch Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. One way to take chances is to run off to Africa and try to create a farm without having the wherewithal to do it. And then, extend your risk-taking by falling in love with a Seven (Robert Redford) who offers dash and panache and precious little in the way of security. Then organize supply trains to bring to the military and be heroic when everything fails. But lament your state as though everything were God's fault.
Death Rehearsal
Most Self-Preservation types have a paranoid streak somewhere. That's why their concern is Self-Preservation. The self is under attack in some way. The specific way the self is under attack in the Four strategy is through dull, unimaginative, unrelenting ordinariness. One might as well be dead as stuck here in this (small town, boring relationship, monotonous job) environment. Life without emotional intensity is not really life.
The worst case scenario of a depressed Self-Preservation Four is, of course, suicide. Read Hamlet's soliloquy from the point of view of a Self-Preservation Four and it is quite enlightening. The fundamental question of a Self-Preservation is being: how to be, and more radically, whether to be or not to be.
An upside to this lust for intensity is that when a crisis does hit, they can often be heroic. When the floods hit or the car crashes, they can be superhuman in their struggles to help themselves and others. The drama of the situation calls forth all their resources and with their powerful imaginations, they understand the situation and can demonstrate tenacious perseverance. Fours naturally have the widest and deepest range of emotions anyway, so when the situation calls for it, they can access depths nobody dreamed they had.
If that dramatic struggle is an artistic one, they can do without everything but the barest survival necessities while they devote themselves to completing the great American novel or the finest in impressionist painting. The intensity of the struggle contributes to the greatness of the art. This is the artistic temperament. (A note: many beginners assume that every artist is a Four. Artist refers to talent and can occur in any number. The artistic temperament, so called, is frequently a Four, especially the starving artists who can often be Self-Preservation Fours locked in life-and-death-battles, being fought largely in their imaginations.
The Social Four
An Idealized Self-Image
The social Four is depicted in a fine Enneagram movie, Heavenly Creatures. The storyline is set in England and features two teenage girls, both Fours. The dark haired one, Paula, is a Four with a Five-wing and she is a intimate subtype. Her friend, Gina, is a Four with a Three wing, and she is a social subtype. They are pretty good examples of how the subtypes work.
The issue for the social subtype is shame. The sin of envy is related here to the group opinion. The belief is that the group has what I do not. I'm defective and the group knows it. Therefore I am ashamed because I am different. Perhaps because of the Three wing which increases awareness of group norms, I agree with the judgment of the group. I should be ashamed of my deformity.
Fours have an idealized images, as do all the types, but it is reversed. Fours do have an idealized self-image, but they assess their relationship to it negatively. I know what I should be like and it is such a shame that I can not and never will be able to measure up to that idea. Shame on me.
Stereotypical male homosexual culture has a Four aura about it. That is the stereotype you see in the movies and TV. For them, coming out of the closet and facing their shame is facing their deepest Enneagram problem and social rejection at the same time. For someone with a Three wing to have society reject you at your deepest orientation, it can feel like total rejection. It can be really excruciating, especially if their family -- one's first social group -- rejects them.
Inner reality most important
Fours turn to their inner imaginative life for solace. Social Fours can fantasize how they will become a social celebrity and then heap scorn on all the people who looked down on them before their national recognition. Revenge frequently plays a part in the fantasy life of Fours. Sometimes this revenge sharply colors the real-life relationship and they reject a person before that person can get to place where they might be able to reject the Four. This preemptive strike can emerge as generalized hostility.
Because they see themselves as defective, they are frequently extremely sensitive to criticism. Low self-image is their defining quality, practicality and criticism merely confirms what they have felt all along. Shakespeare's lines of Sonnet 29 begins "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state. I trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries and look upon myself and curse my fate." That's not a temporary emotional affliction for a social Four. It's a way of life.
With their emotional resources, however, they may resort to charm to cover their inner desolation, especially if they have a Three wing. No one will ever know what I have suffered...kind of attitude. But Condon points out that with a Five wing, they can grow antisocial and depressed like Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant's Woman. "The shame is more than I can bear." (In Batman Returns, The Penguin is a Four who is defective and wants revenge for the way people have looked down on him.)
Nobody loves me
The group rejection that social Fours feel (and resent) is not based on any specific social skill or attribute they feel they should cultivate. The group just "knows" they are made wrong and should have been rejected at the factory. You see the high side of this in the writings of St. Therese of Liseux, who is a clear Four. She writes so eloquently of the mercy of God because that is her issue: she needs mercy for the inner wrongness she knows darn well is there. She knows she's bad but her faith assures her that even so, God's mercy is greater. (Now we all know that in some way, but it's not the inner song we sing all day...)
The perception that I am wrong inside is only slightly different from the One's inner critical voice. The difference is that Ones are critical of everything, Fours are critical largely of themselves. But both Fours and Ones have the nasty perceptual habit of comparing reality to what should be. This habit costs Fours some important relationships. In the case of social Fours, it makes them social critics and makes them critical of social norms. At times this can give them permission to do things that are immoral because they don't care about social injunctions. They then tend not to like working for organizations or belonging to institutions. And if they do belong, they can be highly critical.
Extra Descriptions:
The Dramatic Four
So Long Suffering
Fours share some characteristics of Twos and Threes in the heart center. Fours share some of the emotional habits in that they tend to be excessively influenced by others. All three lack a certain inner density. They are not sure of who they are and they tend to confuse seeming with being. They pay too much attention to what others think of them and they tend to interiorize in one way or another the opinions of others about themselves. Twos do it by emotionally investing in others by helping; threes do it by performing for others.
Fours have a negative relationship to others. They take pride in being different, especially being defective. All the while they lament their lot in life; you can hear a faint bragging: I have been singled out by fate, God, the Universe, name your deity to suffer. And my suffering makes me special. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, and nobody appreciates how I've handled it, absorbed its bitter dregs and these dregs have become medicine. Nietzsche said, "What does not kill me strengthens me." Fours feel that in some way. Their traditional sin is envy. On a superficial level, one might ask, "Why commit such a painful sin?" Pride looks like fun at times (Two) and deceit has its rewards, (Three) especially in a context of high performance with the applause in the background. But envy?
First, most sins are not enjoyable. They are experiences of powerlessness. St. Paul said, "The good that I want to do, I don't do and the evil I don't want, that I do." Second, and to the point here -- Fours make envy pay off.
The play's the thing
One payoff reveals itself in their speech pattern of lamentation. Listen to an entranced Four for a while and you hear this dramatic recital of how difficult her life is (especially compared to your own ordinary white-bread existence). The drama's the thing. Fours have a keen sense of drama, their esthetic sense is highly developed whether they are healthy or not. So their lamentations are dramatic presentations of an important moment or experience in the life of an important person. Envy is really their ticket to esteem. They are other directed, and expect esteem from others precisely because of their suffering. This frequently can create a disdain for the ordinary. Many Fours have real trouble with the nitty-gritty of life. One Four friend talks with terror about "logistics," getting him and his stuff from her to there on time and in one piece.
This is coupled with a vivid inner life. I had a sensitive Four confide in me that he often couldn't hear what important people in his life said to him because he was paying so much attention to his inner feelings.
The movie, Heavenly Creatures, based on a true story, illustrates, a lot of these dynamics. It's a complex and rewarding movie. Watch for the following. Notice the two girls (both are Fours, Paula has a Five wing and Gina has a Three wing) start their friendship in earnest by comparing illnesses and then declare themselves special because of their flaws. Within the Four trance, that makes perfect sense.
Notice their inner imaginative life is so powerful they can't distinguish it from outer reality and they end up imposing fantasy on reality with real consequences. The life of the imagination takes emotional precedence over family, school, morality -- everything. (They are both probably self-preservation subtypes; but they are different because of their wings. The Three wing of Gina makes her more outgoing and accomplished. The Five wing of Paula tends to make her appear more sullen and introverted). They are both unhealthy and display some of the entitlement attitude often prominent in unhealthy Fours. The envy shows up in the anger against the parents. The parents, regardless of what they have done for them, haven't given them the only important thing - the chance to be together. So they focus on what is not there and get angrier about it as time goes on. Fours have a tendency to compare what is with what is missing and then spend a lot of emotional energy lamenting absence.
For a nice contrast between a little healthier Four and a light-hearted (and selfish) Seven, see Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. Redford is the Seven she loves even though he is absent most of the time (a typical snare for some Fours) and she loves being tragically beautiful. And beautifully tragic. You can feel the violins coming from afar. She is a dauntless Four, taking chances in the real world to prove an emotional inner world point. If you like her Fourness (she is a One in real life with an apparent strong feeling for her Four connection), then watch her really dramatize it in The French Lieutenant's Woman.
If your tastes are literary, here's a self-revealing poem by Shakespeare who was mostly likely a Four. Notice the abandonment, the envy of everyone and then notice he takes consolation in the memory of love, not in the love itself.
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state
I trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
and look upon myself and curse my fate. (There's the lament).
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least (Now the envy)
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For they sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
(Notice the entire poem describes a succession of inner states. He internally generates the lament, he creates the envy and he solves it by remembering. He never ventures outside).
Four, by God
The Book of Jonah is a brief biting satire on the sense of entitlement some of the Jewish people had developed. (Jewish culture has a strong Four flavor: a sense of entitlement, a large of body of lamentation psalms and a tradition of being special as the chosen people.) I was at a conference and this Jewish lady exclaimed, "Oh, I'm a Four and I'm Jewish, I'm special no matter how you look at it!) When you read the book of Jonah, notice how bad everything Jewish looks and how wonderful everyone in Nineveh from the King down to the cattle behaves (even the cows fast!). Only one Jew could satirize the other Jews with this kind of biting detail. It's funny, it's brilliant and it is an attack on unhealthy attachment to privilege. The Hebrew Scriptures are unique among sacred literature for their ability to be self-critical and this is a superb example.
The "Special" Four
Symbols and Metaphors
Let's begin this exploration on style Fours with a look at the Penguin in the movie Batman Returns. I do this not to mock, or even tease Fours, but because Fours more than any style, have an ability to think in symbol and metaphor; they have a rich and intense emotional life and this lends itself to artistic expression, and if not artistic, at least symbolic. Many Fours have trouble connecting to the outside world; they prefer their own interior life to outward reality, but the word symbol means "to throw together," and so Fours do a number of symbolic things to "throw together" their relationship between inner and outer reality.
Jim Morrison (you can see his Fourishness in the movie of his life, The Doors) wrote that the outer world was in black and white but his own thoughts and imaginations were in color. Some Fours say their inner world is more real than the outer world. I know a therapist who has trouble hearing his patients. He tells me that the client will tell him something; he will begin immediately to reflect on his own experience. His experience will be more vivid than what the client is saying and he will miss some of the next words. He has a series of questions and probes to find out what the client said.
The Penguin's drama (and Fours love to dramatize everything) begins with his parents rejecting him. (That mysterious scene in which he is thrown into the river). Many authors see both, but at least one, parent rejecting the child. Many Fours have a recollection of having lost (through abandonment, death, emotional rejection) one or more parent and often if the loss happens a little later in life when they can remember it, it is remembered as the loss of a perfect love.
The Penguin sees himself as a freak, and his freakishness is seen as something to glory in, as when he tells Batman, "You're jealous. You have to wear a mask to be a freak, but I'm a freak even without one." He sees his early deprivation as earning him the right to rule Gotham City, as unhealthy Fours can see their inner poverty a claim on the wonderful things everyone else has. The Four's benefit in being a freak lies in their non-ordinariness. Fours say they can live in agony or ecstasy, what they can't handle is dull ordinariness. This often leads to a secondary gain of making everything they do "special." They will be the bank teller with the $100 dollar fountain pen, the monogrammed shirts from Goodwill industries or as one of my friends does, insist on having a 1984 Buick because it won an award for styling (and was a mechanical disaster in his case). Think Four, think flair. Panache. An Enneagram coach can use this penchant for the extraordinary in their appeal to the Four's creativity.
I have a Four friend who was flamboyantly neurotic, but articulate and artistic. He reported to me with unconcealed delight that his therapist told him that even though he was seriously dysfunctional, "You've got style." Made his day. The following is true: As I am writing this, the above mentioned Four called me and told me of listening to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. It took him twenty minutes to tell me of his emotional reactions to the beauty of Mozart - and he was never boring or repetitious. He was enthralled and enthralling. The description of his emotional parade as he shared his pleasure was rich, so nuanced and intense only a Four could have spoke thus!
If Fours are entranced enough, they create an outer world of chaos and torture to reflect the inner world of self-pity and search for authenticity. Fours are the stereotypical starving artist. Too good for this world, unable to work at a boring, unfulfilling desk job that would earn money, they live in an unheated garret painting (or writing or composing music) living on fast food and chemical stimulants.
Fours can be an emotional teeter-totter of idealism and criticism. Having lost the early love they spend their lives searching for it. So when they are attracted to someone, they expect that this love is going to fulfill them in the same way the first love did. Of course, this leads them to idealize the lover. But the flip side of idealism is disillusionment and soon the Four begins to notice and become highly critical of small faults. Each fault is symbolic and points to larger, ominous character defects.
When the attraction is real, the Four often will live at some distance from the loved one. While they are together, the Four will be critical, but when the loved one is gone, Four remembers the deep feelings (and nobody has deeper feelings than a Four) he had. Remembering these feelings he begins to idealize the absent lover and the cycle begins all over. When I see lovers who live in different towns (She lives in Denver and he lives in New York and they get together for a torrid weekend of romance every month or so) I usually suspect one or both of them is a Four. What keeps the Four coming back is the remembrance of his feelings. Fours can fall in love with the experience of love more than with the person. Falling out of love is tumultuous and often the Four never really lets go of the lover. A female Four with a rocky romantic road behind her told me she is accused of still being in love with her first three husbands!
Source: Enneagram Central - Enneagram Style Four
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