Type 4 - The Individualist

• Expressive
• Dramatic
• Self-Absorbed
• Temperamental

• They strive to prove their uniqueness and individuality to others.
• Their pervasive, underlying fear is that they would be worthless and unlovable if they were average.
• Therefore, they must cultivate as unique an identity as possible to prove their significance.
• They constantly aim to move away from normalcy and towards expressions of intensity and individuality.

• To find themselves and their significance (to create an identity).

• To be and express themselves.

• You feel estranged, alienated, misunderstood, or different.
• Your search for an ideal self that will be seen as loveable and acceptable.

• Internalizes, or focuses their shame, inwardly.
• There's no way anyone else could understand what they deal with, and they are wholly unique.
• The desire for uniqueness and emotional depth gives a feeling of artistic melancholy on average Fours.
• They tend to be intuitive, unique, self-absorbed, and temperamental.

Personality Type Cross-reference

• INFJ - The Advocate
• INFP - The Mediator

• Temperament Type - Phlegmatic
• Animal Type - Otter
• DISC Type - Influential
• Socio-Communicative Type - Expressive
• True Colors - Blue
• Color Code - Blue
• Personality Compass - West

Traits

Center of Intelligence

Focus of Attention

• Fours focus attention on their feelings, the feelings of others, and interpersonal connection and disconnection.
• They feel deficient about their worth, so they seek idealized experiences of qualities they perceive outside themselves.

Patterns of Thinking and Feeling

• Fours value authentic expressions of a wide range of emotions.
• Their thought patterns center on what is missing in a given situation and on longing for whatever they perceive as ideal and somehow unavailable.
• They appreciate meaningful interactions rooted in real feelings and have a keen aesthetic sensibility based on translating emotional experience into artistic expression. Still, they tend to overidentify with feelings and dwell in melancholy (or anger).

Behavior Patterns

• Fours can be reserved, withdrawn, energetic, active, or both.
• They are emotionally intuitive, empathic, and intense. While specific behavior patterns vary according to subtype.
• Fours generally aren’t afraid of conflict, will work tirelessly when they feel passionately connected to something, and can see what’s missing and speak to it.

Passion—Envy

• Envy manifests as a painful sense of lack and a craving toward that which is felt lacking.
• For Fours, Envy grows out of an early understanding of loss that leads to a perception that something good is outside the Four’s experience—and that this something is necessary but missing because of an inner deficiency.

Arrows

Wings

Relationships

Addictions

• Over-indulgence in rich foods, sweets, and alcohol to alter mood, to socialize, and for emotional consolation
• Lack of physical activity
• Bulimia
• Depression
• Tobacco, prescription drugs, or heroin for social anxiety
• Cosmetic surgery to erase rejected features

Red Flags

• Fantasize about people, events, or scenarios to stir up emotions or create and sustain moods, intensify feelings to bolster a sense of self
• Living in imagination rather than the real world
• Oppressive sense of alienation
• Unable to sustain relationships,
• Overly touchy
• Outburst of hostility
• Chronic hopelessness

Interpersonal Coping Style

• Withdrawn - Withdraw because they do not believe they will be able to express themselves wholly or have the ideal relationships they long for.

Conflict Style

• Reactive - Identify with and act on strong emotional reactions; withdraw into the inner world; issues become larger than life, despairing and hopeless.

Self-Preservation Subtype

• Where some Fours are dramatic and emotional, this countertype has learned to live with pain, suffering stoically and internalizing negative emotions, and wants to be recognized for being ‘tough’ and not complaining.
• Even though they are quite sensitive, they may be disconnected from their feelings and prefer not to share their pain with others.
• They are empathic and look out for and try to support others who suffer.
• As the countertype of the Fours, Self-Preservation Fours are stoic in the face of their inner pain and don’t share it with others as much as the other two Fours.
  
• This person learns to tolerate pain and do without as a way of earning love. Instead of dwelling in envy,
• Self-Preservation Fours act out their jealousy by working hard to get what others have and they lack.
• More masochistic than melodramatic, these Fours demand a lot of themselves, have a solid need to endure, and have a passion for effort.

Social Subtype

• This emotionally sensitive Four is deeply connected to their suffering.
• They find comfort in suffering and express it to others, often attracting support and admiration.
• They are not competitive but have a deep desire to be understood for who they are.
• They often doubt themselves and focus on what they see as inferiority; they compare to others and blame themselves, triggering strong envy and shame.
• The Social Four suffers more, feels more shame, and is more sensitive than the other two Fours.
• Envy fuels a focus on shame and suffering as they employ a strategy of seducing others into meeting their needs through an intensification of pain and suffering.
• They experience a sense of comfort in feeling melancholy.
• Envy also manifests in lamenting too much, taking on the victim role, and focusing on their inferiority.
• Social Fours don’t compete with others as much as they compare themselves to others and find themselves lacking.

One-to-One Subtype

• This Four subtype is intense and vocal about their needs and feelings and are often described as ‘more shameless than shameful’ and mistype with Three and Eight.
• They tend to be demanding and competitive, escaping suffering by being the best in what they do.
• Demanding that others appreciate their needs may lead to a cycle of rejection, frustration, and anger.
• Their ability to express these feelings of demand and anger may mask how sad or confused they feel.
• They make others suffer as an unconscious way of trying to rid themselves of painful feelings of deficiency.
• In denying their suffering and being more shameless than shameful, they express their needs more and can be demanding of others.
• In seeking to be the best, they say envy in its manifestation as competition.
• They express “an envy that wants,” unconsciously turning their pain at inner lack into anger about not getting what they need from others.

Dilemma

• Fours face the temptation to strive frantically for authenticity.
• Children, nature, and everything that radiates originality awakens in them the longing for simplicity and naturalness they lost at some point.
• The specific defense mechanism of fours is artistic sublimation.
• Feelings are not expressed directly but indirectly through symbols, rituals, and dramatic styling.
• Many fours like having long conversations over tea or red wine at night.
• The root sin is envy.
• They see immediately who has more style, more class, more taste, more talent, more unusual ideas, and more genius than they do.
• Fours often fear that somebody else could be more attractive, original, and interesting as a partner.
• Self-conscious fours have an internal child that is struggling with feelings of inferiority,
• “I don’t deserve to be loved. I must make an impression to avoid being overlooked and abandoned again.”
• Fours avoid ordinariness; everything that is current, conventional, and normal.
• The requirement of being like everyone else can unleash downright panic among them.
• The pitfall of fours is a “sweet sadness” that lies over their whole lives like a fog.
• Fours must be depressed and occasionally suffer from being happy.
• Fours are often associated with death, perhaps because it means the ultimate lament, the definitive longing, or because only death can make beauty eternal.
• Fours need friends and partners who will bear with them without letting themselves be drawn into the mood shifts that fours have.
• They need to experience a loyalty that stands firm.
• Balance is the gift or fruit of the spirit of redeemed fours.
• At twenty-five, fours have lived through all emotional spaces and experiences from agony to ecstasy.
• They know all the nuances of feeling and understand the human soul better than anyone else.
• Healthy fours are capable of a depth of feeling that most of us have no access to.
• The color of fours is the bright violet of hollyhock.
• Their shading is not precisely determined, shimmering and extraordinary, melancholic and mystical, conflicting.

Personal Growth

• You must see that your attention remains in the present and doesn't continually stray into the past or future.
  
• You need to confront the real experience of loss in your lives and admit the rage you feel against the person in question, and you have to stop idolizing them in the wake of that loss.
• Do not pay so much attention to your feelings; they are not a true source of support for you, as you probably already know.
• Remember this advice: "From our present perspective, we can also see that one of the most serious mistakes Fours make is to equate themselves with their feelings.
• The fallacy is that to understand themselves, they must understand their feelings, particularly their negative ones, before acting.
• You do not see that the self is not the same as its feelings or that the presence of negative emotions does not preclude the company of good in themselves".
• Always remember that your feelings are telling you something about yourself as you are at this particular moment, not necessarily more than that.
• Avoid putting off things until you are "in the right mood."
• Commit yourself to productive, meaningful work that will contribute to your good and that of others, no matter how small the contribution may be.
• Working consistently in the real world will create a context where you can discover yourself and your talents.
• You are happiest when working—activating your potential and realizing yourself.
• You will not "find yourself" in a vacuum or while waiting for inspiration to strike, so connect—and stay connected—with the real world.
• Self-esteem and self-confidence will develop only from positive experiences, whether you believe you are ready to have them.
• Therefore, put yourself in the way of good.
• You may never feel ready to take on a challenge if you always need more time.
• Fours typically never feel sufficiently "together," but they must have the courage to stop putting off their lives.
• Even if you start small, commit yourself to do something that will bring out the best in you.
• A wholesome self-discipline takes many forms, from sleeping regular hours to regularly working to exercising regularly, and has a cumulative, strengthening effect.
• Since it comes from yourself, healthy self-discipline is not contrary to your freedom or individuality.
• On the other hand, sensuality, excessive sexual experiences, alcohol, drugs, sleep, or fantasizing have a debilitating effect on you, as you already know.
• Therefore, practice healthy self-discipline and stay with it.
• Avoid lengthy conversations in your imagination, particularly if they are negative, resentful, or excessively romantic.
• These conversations are essentially unreal and, at best only rehearsals for action—although, as you know, you rarely say or do what you imagine you will.
• Instead of spending time imagining your life and relationships, begin to live them.

Color

• Violet is the liturgical color of Passiontide, the time of fasting and penance, of transformation through pain and death.

Fours and Ones

Fours and Twos

Fours and Threes

Fours and Fives

• There are some clear similarities between Fours and Fives.
• Both types can be introverted and tend to withdraw from others.
• Fives regularly make boundaries and move away from interpersonal contact out of a need to conserve energy and internal resources and fear that interacting with others will drain them or invade their private space.
• Fours also tend to need distance from others periodically to engage more deeply with their own internal experience.
• Although Fours have much more regular contact with their emotions than Fives do, both Fours and Fives can intellectualize, meaning they can focus on thinking as a way of disconnecting from feelings.
• Both styles are self-referencing, meaning they focus more on their own internal experience than other people's experience.
• Related to this, Fours and Fives can be introspective, paying much attention to what is happening inside themselves.
• Significant differences also exist between Fours and Fives.
• Fours represent one of the most emotional types; they often have contact with their feelings on a deep level.
• Fives are among the least emotional, habitually detaching from their feelings.
• When relating to others, Fives avoid deep connections, as they feel more comfortable limiting their emotional entanglements. In contrast, Fours typically seek out deep emotional connections with others.
• Fives usually keep their feelings to themselves and value self-sufficiency, and Fours tend to share their feelings with others and value emotionally authentic relationships.
• When evaluating a situation or task, Fives communicate a detached, objective point of view.
• In contrast, Fours' particular strength is their emotional intuition; they tend to see things more in terms of the emotional or emotionally creative aspects.
• Fives enjoy being alone and having much private time. While Fours can also appreciate time alone, they are sensitive to abandonment and loss and appreciate maintaining strong emotional connections.
• Fives tend to be reserved and withholding, and they can be sensitive to intrusion when in a relationship.
• Fours are more dramatic, romantic, and passionate in their relationships.
• In addition, Fives can easily feel drained by the needs of others, while Fours are usually very sensitive and empathic in the face of others' needs.
• Finally, Fives tend to minimize their needs and desires, while Fours often dwell in an experience of desiring and longing for their needs to be met.
• Thus, when Fours lack what they need, they feel the pain acutely, while Fives detach from pain and focus on hoarding, economizing, and conserving to cope with not having enough of what they need.

Fours and Sixes

• Fours and Sixes can have very similar outward styles.
• Both Fours and Sixes are intuitive and skilled at reading others—Sixes because they protect themselves from threats by looking to see other people’s intentions, and Fours because they are emotionally intuitive and empathic—and these traits help them form supportive relationships.
• People of both types can be good troubleshooters, Fours because they naturally see what’s missing in a specific situation, and Sixes because they automatically think about what might go wrong so that they can prepare for it.
• Both Fours and Sixes can challenge authorities and the established way of doing tasks and projects.
• Fours can be nonconformist because they have original perspectives and are oriented to depth and the authentic expression of feelings.
• And Sixes can rebel because they think contrarily and feel unsafe with and suspicious of those who have power over them.
• Both Fours and Sixes tend to have negative feelings about themselves.
• Fours usually feel defective or missing something, and Sixes tend to doubt, question and blame themselves.
• Both Fours and Sixes can get stuck in life and have a hard time moving forward, Fours because they can be overly self-critical and overly attached to specific emotions, believing things are hopeless, and Sixes because they can overthink issues and events, experience “analysis paralysis,” doubt their abilities, and fear success.
• There are also clear distinctions between Fours and Sixes.
• Fours are sensitive to how others perceive them and want to be seen as unique and original.
• Sixes, on the other hand, do not focus on the image others have of them as much.
• Fours want to stand out and be viewed as unique in the eyes of others, and Sixes identify more with the underdog and the “everyman/everywoman” archetype.
• Fours live primarily from and in their emotions, while Sixes dwell more in their heads and are predominantly mental and analytical.
• Sixes’ most regular emotional experiences involve fear, doubt, and worry, while Fours more often feel emotions related to sadness and melancholy.
• Sixes search for certainty and inevitably don’t find it or adhere to something specific out of a need for certainty.
• Fours mainly focus on what they don’t have that others have—often an unattainable love relationship—thinking they can, at last, be happy if they can attain it.
• Finally, Fours’ chief aim is to feel loved and appreciated for who they are, while Sixes focus more on feeling safe in the world.

Fours and Sevens

• Fours and Sevens share traits that can make them look alike.
• Both types are very romantic, with Fours focusing on ideals of love and connection and Sevens focusing more on envisioning the ideal in a wider array of imaginative realms.
• Most notably, Fours and Sevens appreciate and seek out intense and stimulating experiences.
• Fours do this because they live from their feelings, appreciate the rich experience of deeply felt emotion and passionate connections with other people, and dislike the mundane experience.
• Sevens pursue intensity and stimulation because they want to keep their mood up and their experiences fun and cheerful as a way of moving away from less optimistic, less intense, potentially empty, dull, or unpleasant alternatives.
• In this, both types have an aversion to the day, the mundane, and the ordinary, finding this realm of experience potentially empty and thus dull or even anxiety-producing.
• Both Fours and Sevens value creativity and self-expression, Fours because they want to be seen and understood as special and unique and because they appreciate aesthetics and artistry, and Sevens because they are natural visionaries who imagine varied future possibilities, have many interests and ideas, and appreciate the vital and exciting aspects of creative expression.
• In relating to others, both Fours and Sevens are self-referencing; that is, they focus more on their own experience instead of focusing primarily on others.
• When Fours pay attention to their experience, they usually do so emotionally, focusing on their feelings and moods.
• When Sevens focus on themselves, however, they often focus on their thoughts, plans, and desires for amusement and pleasurable experiences. They look to the outside world for entertainment opportunities.
• Both Fours and Sevens can also be sensitive to criticism, with Fours feeling criticism as an extra blow to their already diminished sense of themselves as not good enough, and Sevens experiencing it as a hurtful interruption of their youthful desire to focus on what's positive.
• Fours and Sevens also differ in specific ways.
• Although both styles are romantic, Sevens tend to be relentlessly optimistic. Fours can be somewhat pessimistic, especially to the outside observer, as Fours tend to draw attention to what is missing.
• Also, Fours and Sevens have very different profiles regarding their experience of feelings.
• Sevens tend to focus on and dwell in positive feelings, naturally having very upbeat, happy temperaments.
• Connected to this, Sevens can have difficulty staying with more difficult emotions, such as sadness or discomfort.
• Fours are more comfortable with a wide range of emotions and tend to feel darker feelings like disappointment or melancholy more regularly and comfortably.
• Similarly, Sevens often reframe negatives into positives, while Fours can feel irritated when people tell them to "look on the bright side." Fours tend to focus on what is missing or unavailable that they would like to have or be, leading them to be more aware of the negative side of situations, issues, and relationships.
• Four's comfort with feelings makes them good supporters of others experiencing difficulties, while Sevens have a harder time being with and empathizing with others in pain.
• Sevens feel challenged by dealing with suffering, feeling much more comfort and ease focusing on positive feelings.
• Conversely, Fours can find richness in suffering and see it as a natural and valuable part of the human experience.
• Furthermore, Fours seeks deep connections with others based on sharing authentic feelings. In contrast, Sevens can feel hesitant about making commitments and exploring relationships on a deep emotional level because they dislike feeling limited and tend to move away from engaging too deeply with others sometimes.
• Lastly, Fours values authenticity and depth, while Sevens prioritize charm and a positive, fun-loving presentation (which Fours can find superficial or insincere).

Fours and Eights

• Fours and Eights can appear similar.
• People of both types are willing to engage in conflict and can confront people if necessary, though Eights tend to do this more regularly than Fours.
• Fours and Eights can both feel and express big emotions. However, Eights tend to express anger more frequently than other emotions. Fours can more readily feel a range of emotions, especially experiencing melancholy more regularly than people of different types.
• Both Eights and Fours are drawn to intensity, and both types also feel things passionately, though Fours are much more likely than Eights to feel their vulnerable feelings.
• Both Fours and Eights can be impulsive, and both can feel justified in breaking the rules—Eights because they are bigger than the rules, and Fours because they prioritize their internal experience and their needs and wants over the rules.
• In the work setting, both Fours and Eights can work hard and be deeply involved in their work, with Fours viewing work as an opportunity for self-expression and collaborative artistry and Eights wanting to make a significant impact, achieve and maintain power, and mentor and protect the people they work with.
• Significant differences also exist between Fours and Eights.
• Fours typically experience a more comprehensive range of emotions than Eights, with Eights feeling more anger and impatience than Fours and Fours feeling more melancholy and sadness than Eights.
• Importantly, Eights dislike being vulnerable and expressing any vulnerable feelings—and regularly deny the existence of such feelings.
• In contrast, Fours regularly feel vulnerable emotions and can even feel some comfort in an authentic and deep experience of their vulnerability.
• Eights have difficulty recognizing their physical limits, dependency needs, and softer emotions. At the same time (with the possible exception of some Sexual Fours), Fours are much more familiar with their limitations, sense of dependency, and softer emotions.
• In addition, Fours usually put much more effort than Eights into getting their own physical and emotional needs met.
• And when in relationships, Eights typically express love through protection and power, while Fours express love through an expression of feelings and their desire for connection.
• While people of both types may challenge established authorities, Eights are usually more regularly rebellious than Fours.
• Generally, Eights focuses on the big picture and strategizes how to move things forward. At the same time, Fours pay more attention to the creative process, attracting attention and being appreciated for their unique contributions.
• Fours and Eights can have significant energy when working with others.
• Eights tend to be very assertive, aggressive, and dominating. Fours are more oriented to achieving emotional connections with others (though Sexual Fours may also be assertive or aggressive).
• Related to this, Eights tend to misperceive their impact on others. At the same time, Fours are emotionally intuitive and can be highly sensitive to how they affect the people around them.
• In communicating, Eights tend to be direct, while Fours express themselves more descriptively in terms of how they are experiencing something emotionally.
• Eights do not pay much attention to their internal processes, while Fours can be very reflective.

Fours and Nines

• Fours and Nines have some characteristics in common.
• They can look alike in that they both place great importance on cultivating relationships and achieving connections with other people.
• In addition to this, both types can lose themselves by merging with loved ones, though Nines do this more regularly than Fours, who can more easily sense their independent needs and desires.
• Both Fours and Nines can relatively easily profoundly understand other people, Fours because they are emotionally intuitive and sensitive to the moods and feelings of others, and Nines because they can often see others’ perspectives more clearly than their own and they align with other people to create harmony.
• On the downside, Fours and Nines can both feel overlooked and unimportant to others, and they may both regularly have the feeling others misunderstand them.
• For Fours, however, they most often experience emotions related to being misunderstood or “not good enough.” For Nines, their experience is more of being overlooked and not heard, usually because Nines has difficulty taking a strong position or expressing a clear opinion.
• Another key similarity is that both types fear not belonging.
• Fours tend to feel like misfits, while Nines often have a deep underlying concern about whether or not they belong to the group.
• Fours and Nines also differ in significant ways.
• Fundamentally, Nines are other-referencing, and Fours are self-referencing, meaning that Nines primarily pay attention to other people’s opinions, agendas, and moods. At the same time, Fours prioritize their internal experience, focusing more on their needs, feelings, and desires.
• Fours also feel a wider range of emotions more deeply than Nines do; Nines tend to be more steady and even emotionally.
• Nines can easily draw their attention away from their priorities and toward less essential substitutes and others’ agendas. In contrast, Fours are more aware of and focused on satisfying their needs and wants.
• Nines are oriented to creating harmony among people. This is much less of a priority for the Four, who may even create or contribute to discord to push for authentic communication of feelings.
• Nines avoid conflict much of the time, while Fours can engage in battle if necessary or may even create conflict.
• Nines usually do not state their preferences, often because they don’t know what they want, but sometimes because they believe that others’ opinions are more important than their own or don’t want to create a conflict.
• In contrast, Fours tend to believe that their opinions are of value and that it is important to say what they think.
• And Fours do not always adapt to others, regularly feeling moved to express their disagreement or unique perspective. In contrast, Nines tend to over-adjust to others, often thinking their connection will be broken if they do not adapt.
• Because of this tendency to adapt to others, Nines also have difficulty saying “no,” making boundaries and asserting themselves.
• Fours, conversely, can more often and more easily make boundaries with others and assert their agendas.

Career Advice

• They can be excellent designers, decorators, writers, painters, musicians, " thespians," and "divas."
• They can bring distinction to themselves in any field requiring creativity and style.
• They can inspire, influence, and persuade through the arts (music, fine art, dancing) and the written or spoken word (poetry, novels, journalism, and teaching).
• Many like to help bring out the best in people as psychologists or counselors.
• Some take pride in the small businesses they own.
• Often, fours accept mundane jobs to support their creative pursuits.