Often Known As: Individualist, Romantic, Melancholic, Artist (note that names are as limiting as they are revealing.)
Sin/Passion: Envy
Focus: on what’s missing and what they are missing
Fear: that they’ll never be someone because they lack what it takes
Energy Center: Heart (energy is transformed)
Social Stance: Withdrawing
Key Positive Traits (Embodied at their best): Quiet, Reflective, Sensitive, Intimate, Poetic, Compassionate, Authentic, Original, Bittersweet, A lover of beauty, Expressive, Elegant, Imaginative, A connoisseur of emotions and states of being, Individualistic, True to self, Complex, Deep, Empathetic
Key Negative Traits (Embodied at their worst): Envious, Spiteful, Ill-wishing, Moody, Exaggerating, Egotistical, Unstable, Negative, Mopey, Pining, Despairing, Finding solace in others’ suffering, Given to Schadenfreude and to pouring salt in others’ wounds, Melodramatic, Fastidious, The only one who knows what suffering means
Growth and Stress Directions: to One and Two respectively

Introduction

It is hard to introduce Enneagram Type Four by presenting general traits, as Fours are a varied lot. Perhaps the most common thing you’ll see in a Four is their look of deep suffering, as though they have just come out of the shock of receiving some terrible news, or as if they are longing for the breath of fresh air that is going to anchor them to life. They often give off the image of someone who has lost something or someone important and is waiting for rescue.

Melancholy is a word that gets thrown around a lot with Fours, and for good reason. Fours are the most willing to delve into negative feelings. If a situation is not at least bittersweet, then it is shallow and unreal. For Fours, discovering themselves and their own complexity and seeing the tragic and poetic aspect of life is the same thing. They are often capable of great empathy with others’ suffering exactly for this reason.

Often attracted by beauty and by ideas of balance, equipoise and elegance, Fours tend to have an aesthetic approach to life, being disdainful of anything that they perceive as ordinary. In personal relationships they prefer deep, special bonds where they feel profoundly seen and understood, but they also tend to feel incredibly hurt when someone misunderstands them, which with Fours is a very easy thing to do, as they themselves often can’t put into words what they are about, peferring individual instances of self-expression to general definitions.

Core Mechanism

Fours are deeply focused on their sense of being defective in one way or another. “Something’s missing…” is their inner catchphrase. They feel that they alone have been singled out by life, fate or the universe to be a catalyst of misfortune.

The main area where they feel their deficiency is their inner self. Everyone else, life at large in fact, seems to “have it together” while Fours often struggle with their identity and their own path. Often, Fours scour their past in search of the incidents that have left them scarred or wounded as a way of tracing their current situation back to a mythical source, from which they can finally find their true path.

Initially this may be done in an attempt to heal, but it quickly turns into an exaggeration of the wound’s importance, to the point where Fours become identified with whatever negative experiences they have gone through–or, sometimes, even with whatever positive experience they manage to interpret negatively.

Because they are so unsure about themselves and their place, Fours tend to see the world as a negative place from which they wish to be rescued. They tend to hold out for a deep, meaningful connection with someone special who will see their specialness. In fact, even in their everyday life, Fours tend to romanticize the relationships they have, which of course creates the potential for disappointment.

Another way Fours cope with their condition, in addition to needing deep relationships, is to fantasize about better futures, alternative presents and lost pasts. This does not help them get out of their predicament, but in fact feeds their mechanism of feeling lost, which in turn makes them long more.

Passion

Four’s passion is Envy. Even etymologically, the word “envy” is connected with the sense of sight, as the latin word invidia means “the act of staring in an ill-wishing manner.” Envy is structually connected with what we see in others that we feel we lack or have been unfairly deprived of. It’s a gnawing sensation that the good things that happen to others are more undeserved than one’s current unhappiness.

Fours are deeply envious of others, but sometimes they don’t even know what it is that they are envying (often they don’t even realize they are envious). There may be obvious targets, but usually, behind it all, what Fours envy in others is a certain quality of “being-there-just-so”, the sense that others perfectly fit within the great scheme of things, while Fours have been deprived of this and have been somehow doomed to unhappiness.

Shakespeare’s Jago is the perfect embodiment of this idea, as he feels himself lost, uses this feeling to fuel his envy of Othello, which in turn reinforces his feeling of being doomed. Jago sees the ease, authenticity and naturalness of Othello’s behavior and overinterprets it, seeing all kinds of meaning behind it. In the same way, a Four sees the ease, authenticity and naturalness displayed by other people and comes to the conclusion that the cosmic mechanism is stacked against them and they can never achieve this ease.

Ultimately, a Four’s envy is broadly directed at what makes other people “normal”, and this may seem weird at first, as Fours tend to take pride in what makes them abnormal. But keep in mind that this emphasis on being unique is really a coping mechanism for the sense of desolation that Fours experience from not finding their identity and therefore a place for such identity (you can’t find a place for something if you don’t know what it is).

Misconceptions

A typical misconception is that Fours are all artists and that all artists are Fours. This is patently untrue. While it is true that Fours have a certain aesthetic approach to life, this can manifest in so many ways that reducing it to becoming artists would be silly. Just like being depressed doesn’t make you a Four, neither does being an artist.

In reality, a Four’s interests will depend on their background, education and personal outlook, among other factors. Furthermore, any type can yield great artists, though the art they produce can and often is influenced by their type.

Another misconception has surfaced in recent years, mostly due to the popularization of the Enneagram over the internet, and that’s the idea that Fours tend to suck the air out of a room as soon as they come in. This stereotype did not exist in the older literature, and has only come about due to the romanticization of this type in certain corners of the internet.

As a matter of fact, Four is among the types that are least likely to do something like this. It is much more likely that a Four will sulk in a corner looking mysterious and hoping to attract the attention of someone, so that they’ll finally be approached and asked if anything is wrong. While Fours can throw hissy fits, it is usually when they feel that they are being misunderstood or not seen for who they feel they are, or when they believe their feelings are being slighted.

Being somewhat like Baudelaire’s albatross, Fours may even resent the ease with which more outgoing and carefree people win over others and create meaningful connections.

Wings

4w3: Fours with a Three wing are usually somewhat more upbeat and image-conscious. They are the Dorian Gray’s of the Enneagram, with an intuitively aesthetic understanding of life, relationships and most other fields. Usually more outgoing than the other wing, their sense of uniqueness is a bit more conventional and dictated in part by considerations about social worth. Often impeccable in presentation and a tad more sensual.

4w5: usually, Fours who have a Five wing tend to have an intellectual, cerebral streak. They also tend to withdraw with greater determination from others and are usually interested in exploring themselves, their experience and their feelings from a more systematic angle. They are often philosophical and love thinking of themselves as deep. They dislike following as much as leading. However, they still retain the need for deep, meaningful and authentic relationships, although they can become despairing of ever finding any.

(note that wings can have some minor descriptive power in terms of superficial behavior, but they are irrelevant in terms of what motivates the person. Many people have no noticeable wing, while few show signs of both.)

MQS