Personality Type Four

Fours are also known as the

Abandoned Lover, Artist, Auteur, Connoisseur, Creative Seeker, Creator, Designer, Drama Queen, Individualist, Original Person, Melancholic, Poet, "Revel without a cause", Romantic, Romantic Soulmate, Special One, Special Person, Symbol Maker, Tastemaker, Tragic Romantic, Tragic Victim, Unique One

Overview

Values

creativity, aesthetic beauty, being true to themselves, authenticity, self expression, personal freedom, having deep feelings

Main Motivation

To be find a special and unique identity consistent with their inner experience

Fours like to see themselves as intuitive and sensitive people. They want to discover their true identity and want others to validate that they are unique and special people. In order to get that validation, Fours withdraw and play hard to get and hope that others will be drawn in by their mysterious and different nature. Fours greatly appreciate the efforts of others to get close to them. Fours sometimes emphasize their suffering to engender sympathy (and hence, attention) from others.

Fours want to understand themselves. They feel that something is missing in themselves - others seem to have a strong sense of who they are - but Fours feel that they haven't found their sense of self yet. They know what they are not, but they don't know what they are. Fours seek a rescuer - someone who sees and appreciates the special qualities that the Four sees in herself. Fours often express themselves indirectly through creative means. For example, they may have an artistic talent (e.g., painting, singing, playing an instrument), or they may simply decorate their home in a unique style. In any case, Fours become very attached to their expressions and feel affirmed when others appreciate their creativity.

Fours use their imagination and emotions to find their identities. They are very emotionally sensitive and have a deep need to connect emotionally to people and things. Fours relate to things at a mostly emotional level: an emotional bond helps make things feel real. Fours use their imaginations to heighten and prolong their emotional states. They tend to daydream and fantasize about their lives. Fours run into trouble when they base their identify on their emotions.

Average Levels

Level 4: Imaginative Aesthete

Plays the role of the Special Person

Level 5:  Self-Absorbed Romantic

Manipulate others by staying temperamental and hypersensitive

Level 6: Self-Indulgent "Exception"

Undermines others by "proving" others are worthless and insignificant

Average Fours see themselves as unique and special people. They know that they are unlike others, who they see as superficial and "normal." Average Fours spend a great deal of their time fantasizing. Fours connect very strongly to the feelings that arise in their daydreams. They enjoy creating an environment that is unique to them. This niche is a sanctuary that generates and maintains deep personal feelings in which they soak for long periods. They often listen to certain types of music because they help put them in a certain mood. Unfortunately, average Fours often spend too much time daydreaming. Fours believe that the answer to their search for self and meaning will be found in their deep and passionate feelings.

Average Fours base their identity by being different from others. They tend to reject qualities they have in common with other ("normal") people in favour of maintaining their uniqueness. There is a longing quality to Fours. They are seeking someone who can see them as they really are (this theme is present in many of their fantasies). Unfortunately, others don't live up to these idealized expectations. Fours are keenly aware of what is missing in their relationships and partners. Fours often long for a partner when they are separated and push them away when the partner is near.

Average Fours are very sensitive, and interpret much of the interactions emotionally. They take others' comments personally and can be hypersensitive to criticism. They can be very moody and self-conscious, leading them to withdraw from others. After all, the fantasy world is much more pleasant. They become very introverted and stay withdrawn to protect their fragile self-image.

Average Fours feel they don't fit in and simultaneously feel proud of their uniqueness and ashamed by it. Fours tend to see others as superficial and ignorant, people who don't care about the importance of having depth of character. Fours wonder why others can be so happy in a superficial world, while Fours feel like a victim of it.

Average Fours believe that they have suffered a great deal. They want others to witness their suffering.(and hopefully, someone will save them from it). Fours feel that Life has dealt them a bad hand and that Life owes them one. They begin to feel exempt from living like others. They become disdainful and decadent and retreat even further into their fantasy world. Their escalating withdrawal makes them increasingly unproductive. They want to feel important, but find that their thoughts and moods are dark and sad, leading to feelings of depression. Their self-pity and envy fuels their depression and self-indulgence.

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: Alienated Depressive

Level 8: Emotionally Tormented Person

Level 9: Self-Destructive Person

Fours become unhealthy when they continue to isolate themselves. Their envy of others and what they see as their "wasted" life fuels their anger. They feel that they are hopeless and become prone to extreme depression.

What leads Fours down the wrong path when they base their identify on their feelings (especially the dark, negative ones). Their constantly changing feelings means that their identify changes, too.

Healthy Levels

Level 1: Inspired Creator

Level 2: Self-Aware Intuitive

Become attached to values of creativity, self-expression, introspection

Level 3:  Self-Revealing Individual

Feel good about themselves when they express who they are

Healthy Fours let go of their forced identity. Average Fours base their identify on how different they are from others. Healthy Fours realize they have more in common with others than difference. They are very personal and emotionally open to others. They are "true to themselves" and reveal that truth to others. They are still creative and enjoy sharing it with others. Healthy Fours are very sensitive and gentle with themselves and with others. They are very self-aware and open.

At their best, Fours let go of the false belief that they are inherently more flawed that others. They realize that they have a unique identify simply by living. They are profoundly creative, relating to personal and universal truths.

Similarities to other Types

Common Traits with other Types
Fours  seek Attention (like Twos and Threes)
Fours handle problems with an Reactive approach (like Sixes and Eights)
Fours prefer to Withdraw into their imagination (like Fives and Nines)
Fours are sometimes Frustrated by reality not living up to their ideals (like Ones and Sevens)

Conflict Scenarios
Reactive vs. Positive Outlook Twos in conflict with Twos, Sevens, Nines
Reactive vs. Reactive Twos in conflict with Fours, Sixes, Eights
Reactive vs. Competency  Twos in conflict with Ones, Threes, Fives

Multimedia

Watch a Four talk about her type
Dr. David Daniels describes Fours
Don Riso on Fours

Theme Songs

These "Theme Songs" express some of the most important issues of Type Fours.

• despair

• bittersweetness

O Fortuna

by Carl Orff
Complete despair in the clutches of evil Fate.

Lyrics (Latin)
O Fortuna,
velut Luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem;
egestatem,
potestatem,
dissolvit ut glaciem.

Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
vana salus
semper dissolubilis;
obumbrata
et velata
mihi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.

Sors salutis
et virtutis
mihi nunc contraria;
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
hac in hora
sine mora
cordae pulsum tangite!
quod per sortem
sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!

Translation

O Fortune, like the moon of ever changing state, you are always waxing or waning; hateful life now is brutal, now pampers our feelings with its game; poverty, power, it melts them like ice.

Fate, savage and empty, you are a turning wheel, your position is uncertain, your favour is idle and always likely to disappear; covered in shadows and veiled you bear upon me too; now my back is naked through the sport of your wickedness.

The chance of prosperity and of virtue is not now mine; whether willing or not, a man is always liable for Fortune's service. At this hour without delay touch the strings! Because through luck she lays low the brave, all join with me in lamentation!

Ice Cream

by Sarah McLachlan (a Four!)

This song describes some of the happy parts of a relationship, but it touches on the constant reminder that "it's a long way down." Many of Sarah's songs have a Fourish aspect.

Lyrics
Your love is better than ice cream
Better than anything else that I’ve tried
And your love is better than ice cream
Everyone here know how to fight

And it’s a long way down
It’s a long way down
It’s a long way down to the place
Where we started from

Your love is better than chocolate
Better than anything else that I’ve tried
Oh love is better than chocolate
Everyone here knows how to cry

It’s a long way down
It’s a long way down
It’s a long way down to the place
Where we started from...

Spot the Difference

by Spirit of the West

Lyrics

spot the difference here
i'm the only one not smiling
i'm the only one afraid of dying
i'm not the one who's up there dancing
or talking with stragers
small talk with strangers
normal. i'm so normal i'm depressed here
i'm the one who's better dressed here
i'm the one who has my health
order coffee for myself

they don't look so strange to me
except they're smiling all the time
can you spot the difference here
who has lost their piece of mind
or peace of any kind

they're not worried
not worried on teh eve of destruction blessed by a lack of
understanding
what they don't know can hurt them
with less upon their plate
they eat lunch while we wait

they don't look so strange to me
except they're smiling all the time
can you spot the difference here
who has lost their piece of mind
or peace of any kind

The Saddest Words

from the poem "Maud Muller" by John Greenleaf Whittier

The saddest words
...of all sad words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are these: "it might have been!"

To Thine Own Self Be True

William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.