The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge

by Beatrice Chestnut

Moving back to Eight with awareness can thus be a way for Fives to re-engage with their lost sense of their power and authority, a way for them to feel more strength in dealing with fear, engaging with their emotions, and interacting with others.

By reincorporating Type Eight attributes, Fives can consciously remind themselves that it’s okay to own your authority, express yourself more powerfully, and use strength to both make boundaries and open up to the vulnerability entailed in sharing yourself more with other people.

TYPE FOUR REPRESENTS THE ARCHETYPE of the person who experiences an inner sense of lack and a craving for that which is missing, and yet can’t allow for the attainment of what might provide satisfaction.

This archetype’s drive is to focus on what is lacking as a step to regaining wholeness and connection, but through an over-focus on the experience of a flawed self they become convinced of an inner deficiency that prevents fulfillment.

While this entails an understandable frustration with regard to deprivation, an overidentification with the frustrated, deprived state leads to an inability to t...

Type Fours overidentify with those parts of ourselves we’d rather others don’t see. Although Fours may also recast their sense of deficiency as being “special” or “unique” as a way of valuing themselves on a surface level, they identify with a deficient self more than an idealized self.

The Four archetype also represents the archetype of the tragic artist who suffers in the service of artistic self-expression. It suggests an idealistic vision of the value of emotions, especially the way in which authentic emotions are usefully expressed through art in a mode that inspires, moves, and unites people.

The Four’s resonance with the Shadow can also be seen in the fact that they have a natural gift for understanding the deeper emotional level of experience and seeing the beauty in darker emotions that other types would rather not feel, much less acknowledge. This can make them feel dangerous to others on an unconscious level, as Fours...

Type Fours are thus the prototype for that part in all of us that feels dissa...

This archetype thus represents the tendency we all have to develop an “inferiority complex,” which makes it difficult to feel good about ourselves and take in what is good from the outside.

Relatively unafraid of intense feelings, Fours value the expression of authentic emotion and can support others with great care, respect, and sensitivity when they are experiencing painful emotions.

Fours are highly empathic and can see the beauty and power in painful feelings that other types habitually avoid.

Fours’ “superpower” is that they are naturally emotionally intuitive. Fours’ regular contact with their own emotional terrain gives them a lot of comfort and strength in being with intense feelings an...

they do have an artistic impulse that enables them to see and respond to the poetry in life, and to highlight for others the way everyday experiences can be viewed and commu...

While they have a gift for emotional sensitivity, they can become attached to their feelings in a way that can prevent them from thinking objectively or taking action. They can see what’s missing so clearly that they may be blind to what is good or hopeful in a situation, often to their own detriment.

Fours belong to the “heart-based” triad associated with the core emotion of sadness or grief.

The three heart types also share a central concern with image—a self-consciousness about how they might appear in the eyes of others.

their grief over having lost touch with their real selves because they’ve disowned who they really are and created a specific image to try to get the love (or approval) they need.

While Twos strive to have a likable, pleasing image, and Threes create an image of achievement and success, Fours present themselves as unique and special.

As Naranjo points out, while Type Threes identify with an idealized image of the self, Fours identify with that part of the psyche that “fails to fit the idealized image, and is always striving to achieve the unattainable.”

Fours’ desire for admiration leads to a sense of failure because of an inner sense of “scarcity and worthlessness.”7

Most Fours report having suffered some sort of actual or perceived loss of love early in life.

while their mistaken sense that something about them caused the rejection persists as a inner sense of unredeemable deficiency.

Fours adopt a strategy of focusing on and longing for that which was lost, and at the same time making themselves “bad” as a way of explaining and controlling it.

[Type Fours] harbor a keen sense of ‘lost paradise.’”

For non-Fours, the Four coping strategy can seem counterintuitive, as it rests on feeling bad about yourself as a way to avoid feeling worse about yourself. As Naranjo points out, this is a strategy of “seeking happiness through pain.”

By hiding out in suffering, by having a need to suffer, Fours distract themselves from the inner work they would need to do to open up to receiving what they really want—what they incorrectly, but defensively, believe they can’t have.

Introjection is the Four’s primary defense mechanism. It is a psychological defense through which Fours internalize painful feelings as a way to protect themselves. As psychologist Nancy McWilliams explains, “Introjection is the process whereby what is outside is misunderstood as coming from inside.”

For type Fours, this means that they continue to subject themselves to experiences that were painful from the inside, both as a way of taking it in and trying to manage it and as an effort to protect themselves from being reinjured in a similar way.

Fours primarily focus their attention on their internal experience, their emotions, the emotions of others, and interpersonal connection and disconnection.

Fours are more self-referencing than other-referencing, meaning their attention is aimed more at their own inner experience than at what is going on with other people. At the same time, Fours naturally tune in to the state of their connections and to their perception of the underlying emotional tone or status of their relationships.

Fundamentally, Fours focus on thinking about and expressing what they are feeling. Fours also focus on what others may be thinking or feeling about them, and whether or not they are achieving authentic connections with the people around them.

they tend to over-identify with their emotions, and when absorbed in this way, they may find it difficult to shift their attention to other aspects of their experience.

Fours have a tendency to both feel like a misfit and want to stand out as unique and special.

Fours will automatically focus on what they see as ideal and absent—on what is missing that would make the situation better or what isn’t working well because something specific is lacking.

They frequently become preoccupied with a sense of envy: comparing themselves with others, thinking about what others have that they don’t have, and focusing on their imagined deficiencies (while sometimes attributing this perception to others).

In the face of feelings of dissatisfaction, they often lack a sense of agency. It may feel hard to them to change their feelings or the world through their own efforts or force of will.

others may find Fours excessively dramatic.

Finally, Fours tend to focus on the past. They may replay old hurts or disappointing experiences over and over again,

Envy is the passion of Type Four, and it organizes the personality around a sense that what is valued and needed is outside of you and somehow unavailable.

Fours can also have a perception that “things come easily to other people, but not to me.”

This tendency to compare themselves with others contributes to Fours’ painful sense of lack and shame. Naranjo points out that while the emotional state of envy is an understandable reaction to early frustration and deprivation, Fours’ envy ends up being a self-frustrating factor in the psyche, because the intense “craving for love that it entails never answers the chronic sense of inner scarcity and badness, but on the contrary, stimulates further frustration and pain.”10

This sense of envy contributes to a longing for love and acceptance on the one hand and a sense of shame for needing and not feeling worthy of love on the other. Fours’ sense of inner lack also contributes to a painful cycle in that it intensifies their sense that something good—and outside of them—must be sought and gained, even as they believe...

The Social Four dwells in a sense of deficiency and shame heightened by actively envying others; the Self-Preservation Four denies envy by strenuously pursuing whatever is seen as lacking; and the Sexual Four gets competitive, striving to prove themselves as superior, in response to feeling envious.

Fours hold beliefs and ideas related a sense of personal deficiency and the inevitability that they will be rejected or abandoned because they are flawed.

If you expect others to reject or abandon you—if you anticipate negative results—you end up creating an external reality that confirms your negative expectations.

My intensity makes me special.

I am special, but others don’t recognize it.

belief in your own inner deficiency can’t help but perpetuate feelings of hopelessness, melancholy, or depression.

Believing goodness exists on the outside means that Fours view themselves as lacking important and positive traits and qualities.