Enneagram Type 4

What Type 4 is reaching for

Wants

To be genuinely oneself, and to be known as that rather than as a role.

Steers around

Being generic, or being handled as interchangeable with anybody else.

At its best

At their best, Type 4 brings depth and honesty into rooms that were running on politeness. Somebody who will not perform a feeling they do not have is rare, and it gives everyone else permission to stop performing too. The work that comes out of this pattern tends to be the work people remember.

Under strain

Under strain the comparison starts running constantly, and it arrives at the same answer every time. Ordinary belonging starts to look like something other people were issued. Withdrawal follows, and the withdrawal then gets read as proof of the difference that started it.

What people get wrong about Type 4

The caricature is the moody one who enjoys being sad. That misses what is happening. It is not a preference for feeling bad; it is a low tolerance for pretending, and sadness is the feeling people pretend about most. Somebody who will not perform contentment they do not have reads as darker than somebody who will, without being any less happy underneath.

Type 4 wings

The nine patterns are usually drawn as points on a circle, so each one sits between two neighbors. A noticeable lean toward one of those neighbors is called a wing, and it is written with a w: a Type 4 leaning toward Type 3 is 4w3.

A wing does not change what somebody is reaching for. It changes the route they take to get there, which is why two people of the same type can be recognisably different to be around. Some people lean clearly one way; others draw on both neighbors depending on what is in front of them.

• 4w3 Type 3, The StriverMoving toward what's next, and feeling most settled when you're getting somewhere.
• 4w5 Type 5, The SensemakerWanting to understand how something works before you're in the middle of it, and guarding the quiet it takes to do that.

Often confused with

• Type 5, The Sensemaker

  Both withdraw, and the reason differs. Type 5 pulls back to protect energy and think; Type 4 pulls back because the room is asking for a version that is not true.

• Type 2, The Sustainer

  Both feel at volume and both attend closely to relationships. Type 2 moves toward the other person; Type 4 moves toward what is honest, including when that is uncomfortable.

What a type does not say

A type is a starting point, not a verdict. It describes a pattern of motivation, which explains a good deal about why somebody did something and very little about what they will do next. It says nothing about how healthy, mature or capable a person is, and nothing about who they will get on with.

The useful test is recognition, and it is one only the reader can run. Plenty of people read two or three of the nine and find themselves in more than one.

This one is new, and we'd rather say so. It works from the same nine patterns every Enneagram test describes, and the questions are ours. We're now confirming that they measure those same nine patterns, and that takes real people taking them first.