Enneagram Type 4 - The Individualist

Characterological Structure

Fixation: Melancholy Never happy with the present, always looking toward a happy future. Trap: Authenticity For this person, the really real mate will always be just around the comer of the next hour or day, or year. With such a mate, this person will then be fulfilled and so authentic. Holy Idea: Holy Origin Once he realizes that his essence originates from perfect being, then he knows that he is “really real” now, and not sometime in the future. Passion: Envy The Ego-Melancholy person, hoping for the perfect mate or situation in order to feel really real and fulfilled, tends to think most others have achieved this and, of course, is envious of their seeming happiness and earthiness. Virtue: Equanimity Happiness in the present moment or equanimity will help overcome the envy of the happiness of others.

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https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sbSCTDWTTIXE8tdWKUXdOE-yVcROxFgo

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x-yandcDDv7ZwhQ9xkZkMqzwjtYBjVciPo2XxAEez1k/edit 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18jo41v9k-4h24qIP4HXa85WfwdlCkpjhq7lo2MBcEaU/edit 

Modern Enneagram

Passion and Fixation

The Enneatype 4 character has as their passion Envy, which looks at what others' have and creates a desirous feeling for them, and as their fixation, False-deficiency, which is an existential viewpoint that convinces them that they are inherently less than others, especially for not having what they have. Being situated at the bottom of the Enneagram with E5, this is an especially existential and "over-ontic" character who deliberates every psychological affect in consciousness, so it is based on feelings of lacking. The types at the top fall asleep to their lack, the types at the bottom do the same, but try to compensate for it by trying to overfocus on it. In E4 this becomes an excessively pessimistic character who never seems to have things go right for them.

Contrition and Victimization

Defense Mechanisms

Childhood

Comparisons

E4 and E5

E4 and E5 are both intellectual characters residing at the bottom of the Enneagram, so both share the disposition towards considering everything in an existential light, as well as are predisposed towards feelings of lacking. However, the E4 is more emotional, aesthetic, and attached to people, while the E5 is more intellectual and is very detached from other people. The E4 is characterized with a wet depression (emotional), and E5 with a dry one (intellectual).

E4 and E1

Types that are often confused with each other. The E1 and E4 both share a high superego that influences their actions and both are predisposed towards the denial of pleasure. The E1 moves towards E4 and away from E7 in this sense, they move towards the depression of the pleasurable influence. The E4 is the same way, however less perfectionistic, actionable, and imposing. The E4 is instead focused on the emotional and aesthetic representation of reality, as well as is much more ridden with a guilty conscience and a depressing view on existence.

Theophrastus & Commedia Dell'arte

Theophrastus - "Whining Man"

If a friend sends him a ration (of food) from a banquet, he tells the bearer: “I suppose that your master considers me unworthy of his soup and his wine, since he has not invited me to the feast.” When his lover showers him with kisses, he says: “I find it strange that you love me with all your soul.” If he has bought a slave at a good price due to having bargained insistently with the seller, he says to himself: “I’ll be amazed if he is in good shape, being so cheap.”

Commedia Dell'arte - Pedrolino

In the Commedia Dell’Arte, EIV is Pedrolino, the sad and lovesick clown better known to us as the French Pierrot. No less appropriate are the caricatures that William Steig has created in his book Rejected Lovers of the desperate musician and of a character who cries “Mommy” with a yearning expression of abandon, while he feels himself fall into the abyss. A profound observation of attachment to suffering and of the use of this to attract attention is reflected in the joke about the lady who is periodically heard to complain on a night train: “Oh my, I am so thirsty!” After some time, someone who cannot get to sleep gets up and gets her a glass of water. For a few moments there is silence and the passengers feel relieved, but then they hear: “How thirsty I was!”

- Enneagram of Society, Naranjo

Idealized Aspect - The Point

The experience of the Point is of self-realization—it is the recognition that who you are is Essence. The actual experience is sometimes of being a shining star emerging out of the vast blackness of space, luminous and radiant, with a sense of meaning, value, importance, and appreciation for our individual uniqueness. Fours want to be seen as unique, original, and authentic, since they lack this sense of identity with Being. Because of their estrangement from Being, they often feel lonely and disconnected, and long for a sense of relatedness with others. They are acutely sensitive to being abandoned and neglected, and tend to dramatize their emotions and often feel dissatisfied and melancholic. Others seem to Fours to have what they lack, and what they have and who they are never seems quite enough. They seem to suffer more than others, and their longing for authenticity makes them controlling of themselves and of others. Fours may seem sad or depressed, but this is not always the case. Some seem happy enough although somewhat dissatisfied, with an air of vacancy despite the apparent strength of their emotions.

The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues, Maitri

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Protoanalysis

Fixation: Melancholy Never happy with the present, always looking toward a happy future. Trap: Authenticity For this person, the really real mate will always be just around the comer of the next hour or day, or year. With such a mate, this person will then be fulfilled and so authentic. Holy Idea: Holy Origin Once he realizes that his essence originates from perfect being, then he knows that he is “really real” now, and not sometime in the future. Passion: Envy The Ego-Melancholy person, hoping for the perfect mate or situation in order to feel really real and fulfilled, tends to think most others have achieved this and, of course, is envious of their seeming happiness and earthiness. Virtue: Equanimity Happiness in the present moment or equanimity will help overcome the envy of the happiness of others.

Structure

The reasoner starts efficiently [III], the active, then when things are not going well, he moves to the point of observation [V], the attractive. Becoming indecisive, the function, he goes to his point of reasoning endlessly, the result.

Point 4 is known as “Ego-Melancholy”. The fixation is also known as “Over-Reasoner”.

The over-reasoner character wants to understand the outside. He wants to find beautiful reasons. He is always going to have a question, because he doesn’t have explanations for the reasons. When he turns inside, he is going to reason about himself, and he is going to continue asking ‘why?’ and ‘why?’ indefinitely. Whatever the reason is, there is always going to be another ‘why?’ Simply speaking, the Reasoner Fixation can be described as a constant ‘questioner.’ This makes Reasoners elaborate formulas and systems as mechanisms of defense for answering their constant ‘why’ and disbelief, which finally produce their typical melancholic attitude. It could be described as a constant intellectual frustration, because the Reasoner questions ‘why,’ not in a transcendental way, but in a small, personal way as in, ‘Why was I born a woman?,’ ‘Why are my parents such and such?,’ ‘Why doesn't anybody love me?’ If they go out shopping on a rainy day, they will ask, ‘Why does it have to rain when I go shopping?’ The constant questioning of the Reasoner is the questioning of one taking too much of the load of the world on their shoulders. Because of this, they are extremely susceptible, believing they are constantly cheated, and they see the world in general as being opposed to them, not giving them their ‘fair share.’

This ego derives from the Image Ego, which is a response to the Relation Instinct, which in Type IV becomes over-dominant resulting in an attitude of comparisons. The psychic poison of the Relation Instinct at the root of Ego-Melancholy is Jealousy.

Ego-Melancholy experiences a sense of being criticized in the childhood relationship, or having the child's core identity called into question and there arises a feeling of being flawed, with a Father figure. The ego leads to being envious of the lives of others who seem to be so free of flawed nature found within those who reside at the 4th fixation so naturally the question arises, “why must I have been denied a proper life?”

The main ego-characteristic of this fixation is Melancholia. The Passion which feeds this ego is Envy. The primary defense mechanism is Sublimation, the transferring of unacceptable behaviors, idealizations, and ideals into more socially acceptable forms of activities. Sublimation commonly gives rise to 3 professions: Art, scientific inquiry and higher physical activity. The agency responsible for sublimation is a conflict of the Id and Superego which gives rise to the Ego as the only stable structure (Hence why the Type 4 is an Ego type) since the type 4 has no stable Id or Superego. The 4th point's true ideals are rising to the top in various expressions that are unknown to the outside observer and as such the true nature of such an individual is obfuscated to the outside world. Worsening of this fixation can lead to Borderline Personality Disorder. A secondary defense mechanism is Reaction-formation against envy, and deems other things mundane and ordinary and as such unworthy of their attention, which is done in defense of an image. Further worsening leads to psychosomatic illness.

Domain

Domain of Intellect
+	Reason	Overview
-	Sophistry	Superficiality
=	Argumentative	Shallow

Becoming fixated in the Intellectual Domain, there is a swing to the dichotomies of that domain. This can manifest in a positive sense as a focus on Reason on one side, or having an Overview at the other side. It can manifest in a negative sense as Sophistry at one extreme or Superficiality at the other extreme. These dichotomies are represented by two characters: the Argumentative character at one end, the Shallow character at the other. Envies invade the consciousness in this domain, manifesting as the desire of connection or understanding of another which is not present. The stress of being fixated and imbalanced in this domain can lead to Crime as a compensatory mechanism. The poison of this domain is Deception, a riptide ranging from reason to fallacy.

Liberation

The Trap which simultaneously restricts but potentially liberates this ego is its focus on Analysis, not to be confused with the 5th points trap of observation, to be observed requires a detachment and withdrawal; this is rather a search of reason for all that is around the individual. The Way of self-realization of this ego is the Way of Clarity, or the way of pure, clear, objective analysis, embodied by point 1 on the Enneagram.

The Holy Idea which acts as a catalyzer for the transformation of this ego is Holy Origin, or Divine Origin. This can lead to the Virtue (energy) of Equanimity.

According to Ichazo, Divine Origin is:

The awareness that all individuals are born as the result of natural, objective laws; that these laws continue to operate within them throughout their lives. Because all the laws are interconnected, each individual always has an intimate physical connection with the Totality of Reality – the Cosmos. From this springs true originality.

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On the Symbol

Lines to E2 and E1

The unconscious of the E4 is represented in the E1, which ultimately influences the way the E4 sees the world. While both are dissatisfied with reality in some way, the E1 opts for moving reality to its own will under the idea that is has already achieved perfection and is therefore justified in its actions. The E4, on the other hand, represses the side that views the self as perfect and others as imperfect, and instead recognizes itself as flawed and needing to measure up to others through envying them. The line to E2 is seen in the symmetry between their fixations, the E2 has a false-abundance of love to give and to believe about oneself, while the E4 has a false-deficiency of love that it uses to draw others to them.

E5 and E3 Adjacence

From E3 the E4 takes the fundamental passion of Vanity, which manifests the E4's desire to measure up to an idealized image amalgamed from what they envy of others. Through the image of suffering they express a frustrated form of vanity. From E5 they share the existential and intellectual attitudes, as well as the basis of lacking and feeling "poor in spirit."

The fourth enneatype (EIV) is between EIII and EV. It is very like EV with respect to lacking, and its proximity to EIII may be understood if we consider that it resembles a frustrated form of vanity: these types of people tend to blame or belittle themselves. In contrast with EV, which is more intellectual, EIV is more emotional; while EV is retentive of its energy and participation, but unattached to people, EIV is attached to people. 

E8 and E4 - Sado-masochism

E8's polarity with E4 is that of sado-masochism. While the former is more explicitly sadistic and the latter is explicitly masochistic, both of them have inverse implicits, i.e. E8 has a secret masochism to them and the E4 has a secret sadism. The E8 is masochistic in that it seeks out anxiety inducing situations in order to transform the anxiety and pain experienced into a feeling of conquering, of desensitizing to it, while the E4 is sadistic in that it loves to bemoan its existence and by drawing attention to their feelings of existential deficiency they make others feel bad for them, which "validates" their existence.

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Triads

Corner

Emotional - Intellectual

Hornevian

Moving-away

Love

Compassionate (agape) - Admirative (philia)

Freudian

Ego

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References

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