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[Type 4] Oh my god I'm a self pres four

B

brainheart

Guest
the confusion is understandable. Social 7s are weird as hell (they look more superego than 1s and 2s lol)

Yeah. He has a lot of one and two qualities as well. But he's also always down for a good time and he's very self referential and knows what he likes to do. You can see the internal pull: "I want to be considered the good/nice guy but I also want to have my needs met and get sulky about it. Which means I'm a bad person..." :D

[MENTION=8074]Seymour[/MENTION], I didn't seem to get from it what you did. She talked about self pres fours being humanitarian and empathetic. They oscillate between impulsivity and containment. Being happy and not. She says that some of them have sevenish qualities. The example she gives for the self pres four talks about how she can be reckless and will blow money on things she wants because you only live once.

As I said before, my sx and sp are close, but I can see how the sp wins out. What preserves the self is going to depend on the enneatype. Fours withdraw to protect their feelings so it makes sense to me that a self pres four would really withdraw to protect those feelings, because they are more focused on preserving the self than the other types.

I don't relate to standard/universal self pres stuff all that much. It seems so SJ + boring to me. But the need to endure and do everything myself... yes.
 

Animal

So carnal it's spiritual
Joined
Mar 9, 2013
Messages
650
MBTI Type
SeFi
Enneagram
4
Sexual Four:

Inner motivation envy, manifests as competition. Don't feel consciously envious so much as competitive as a way of muting the pain associated with envy. If they can compete against someone they perceive as having more and win, then they feel better about themselves.

Believe it's good to be the best. Don't care much about image management or being liked. It's better to be superior. Actively strive to show they are the best.


Have an 'all or nothing' attitude when it comes to success. If success is not theirs, they are left with nothing. Generates feelings of hate.

Usually arrogant despite having underlying sense of inferiority. If painfully feel misunderstood will adopt an arrogant attitude as overcompensation. Can be very elitist. May refuse to feel indebted to anyone. Any criticism or reproach is seen as an affront or disqualification.

Refuse to suffer the pain brought about by envy. Reduce suffering by projecting the responsibility for meeting their needs onto others and minimizing others accomplishments in comparison with their own.

Make others suffer because they have been made to suffer, so they want compensation. May seek to hurt or punish others to repudiate or minimize own pain.

"Hurt people hurt people." Externalizing pain helps them ease their inner sense of inferiority. Refuse to suffer. Active insistence on their needs being validated and met. More shameless than shameful. Vocal about expressing needs. Rebel against shame connected to their desires.

Get mad when others don't meet their needs, but their demanding nature causes others to avoid or reject them, then get angry about being rejected.

More assertive and angrier than the other subtypes. Mad four vs sad social four. Expression of anger is their way of defending against painful feelings. When they unconsciously turn their pain into anger they don't have to feel their pain anymore.

Feel justified in blaming others as the source for their deprivation and frustration, which serves as a distraction from their own role in their suffering and a plea for help and understanding.

Can be the angriest personality among the enneagram types. May express envious anger as a way to establish or assert power when they feel inferior at a deeper level, which can be a way to manipulate situations to their advantage. Can be very impulsive. Want things immediately and have little tolerance for frustration.

The competition and hate expressed by this four represents a deeper need to project their sense of suffering and inadequacy outward. "I've got to get what I need to convince myself that my needs aren't shameful and to feel better about myself with respect to others." It's a compensation for and a defense against the hurt they feel underneath.

Like and need emotional intensity. Without intensity, everything can seem unbearably dull and boring. Can be very direct when want somebody's love, or can become "extraordinary"- make themselves seem special and attractive and superior in an effort to attract it. Tend to be more present and available in relationships because they don't deny or avoid many of the factors that can inhibit others relationally. However, at times it may prove difficult for them to maintain a loving attitude because they confuse sweetness and benevolence with being false or insincere.
I am NOT direct when I want someone's love… I really wish I were. But that's BECAUSE I want to be extraordinary… I want him to be on his knees for me; that is more important than having him RIGHT NOW. I want him to see me as something extraordinary, I want to win the "who cares about who less" competition, I want to have power..

... this is making me sick so I am going to stop now =)


Some I didn't relate to, the stuff not in bold- in varying degrees. For one I am not trying to make other people suffer. At least not consciously.


Most likely to be confused with eight or sexual two. Have easier access to anger like eights, but differ from eights in the wider range of emotions they regularly feel. Fours will show anger more often because they feel misunderstood and envious while an eight often doesn't 'need' to get angry. Can also look like Sexual Twos because can be seductive and aggressive in relationships. Twos, however, are more oriented toward pleasing others.

Well sometimes, like an 8, I don't "need" to get angry, but I definitely see this. I had to do anger management as a kid. This is a all why I mistyped at 8. The strong DESIRE , I thought was lust… the ANGER I thought was 8… :(
 

Octavarium

New member
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Jan 27, 2014
Messages
71
It does seem to be a problem with the instinctual subtypes is that they have resonances with particular enneagram types. This seems particularly problematic with Sx & Sp and 5 & 4, given that 4 Sp and 5 Sx are both "counter types" (in Chestnut's view) and have qualities that make them more similar to their neighboring enneagram type. ...

I've been thinking about this problem recently, and you've made some very good points. I don't really have an answer though, except that maybe the Enneagram is a bit of a mes. I agree that the subtypes don't always make much sense in terms of what you might expect if you combine the type with the dominant instinct, and I'm not sure how it's supposed to be combined with wings. So, I have questions for anyone who has information on either of these:
1. Have any correlations been found between core Enneagram type and dominant instinct/subtype? How about between wing and subtype?
2. How did Naranjo/Chestnut come up with the subtype descriptions? Were they describing what they observed/expected the effects of combining type and instinct to be (this is what a 4 is like, this is what an Sp-dom is like, and this is what someone who is both 4 and Sp will probably be like, based on the effects of those two influences, in much the same way that you'd expect an MBTI INFP description, for example, to be based on the combined influences of the I, N, F and P preferences and/or Fi Ne Si Te functions)? Or are they more like three variations on each type, taking the instincts only as loose themes?
 

mintleaf

Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2013
Messages
505
MBTI Type
infp
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp
Do the 4 Sp folks relate to the above description?

Doesn't strike me, but it's accurate, and I relate a lot to what I've read about sx 5s. more than sx 4s, really, though I'm definitely not a 5.

Given all that, I still find myself a little dissatisfied with the 4 Sp description, because while I relate to a fair amount of it (although less than 5 Sx), it isn't clear to me how it arises inevitably from the combination of 4 and Sp (especially without a 5 wing being involved). It seems like the self-care/comfort/warm side of Sp is generally missing, leaving only the 5-ish parts (self-denial/storing up). I can see it being arguable that 4s don't feel like they deserve comfort and self-care, but why should the Sp instinct only distort in one direction for 4 Sp? Isn't it equally arguable that a 4 Sp should over focus on comfort and aesthetics? Or tend towards comfort eating? Or reflect an Sp fixation is other ways?

I'm still trying to figure out how to articulate my understanding of how sp and 4 intersect, but the term that always comes to my mind and fits best with my own experience is annihilation anxiety. I haven't read up a lot on it and can't find what I'd read before, so this'll have to be good enough:

Along the developmental line of anxiety, annihilation anxiety is the most primitive. It is fundamentally fear of one’s existence ending through death, disappearance, fragmentation, going “crazy”, complete loss of self, etc. Most AD children carry a heavy loading of this anxiety. This is what makes their survival and emotional experience the overarching issues they are. In attempting to avoid or soothe their anxiety, AD children typically become hypervigilant [...]

(This is from a site on attachment disorder so the rest doesn't apply.) Of course all 4s are drawn to what reaffirms their identity, but I feel like with sp 4s the fear of this loss is more conscious. I love what [MENTION=6275]the state i am in[/MENTION] and [MENTION=5871]Southern Kross[/MENTION] wrote about the self-preservation instinct in general:

the state i am in said:
i think we often mistake “content” for the underlying contexts of the instincts...third person [self-preservation] is detached from human perspectives in the first place...third person experiences the infrastructures of life with less characterization, with less desire and belonging. it is more alienated, but prompts one to connect with something deeper.
and being aware of this alienation/detachment can be scary, and so we cling to material things, intense situations, rituals, ideas, words, art, etc. in the hopes of triggering something that makes us feel alive and reconnected -- but "a taste for the sublime is a greed like any other" (Annie Dillard -- wow I'm doing way too much quoting sorry) and we overdo it; we are afraid to try to establish new, stable patterns of behavior that will connect us, and we overindulge. like [MENTION=7140]brainheart[/MENTION] said in another thread, we are afraid of incompetence: of congruence between our ideals and real selves/lives being unattainable. it hurts and, ironically, we numb ourselves with masochism.

Southern Kross said:
Sp-doms are highly threatened by elements they believe that may destabilise their ability to flourish, and by forces that may erode their ‘separateness’ by slowly consuming them. Their sense of body and identity feels so indefinite and they feel a need to draw strong boundaries in which to protect them.

I also relate to this quote from William James, a sp/so 6w5:
I went one evening into a dressing room in the twilight to procure some article that was there; when suddenly there fell upon me without any warning, just as it came out of the darkness, a horrible fear of my own existence…It was as though something hitherto solid within my breast gave way entirely, and I became a mass of quivering fear. After this the universe was changed for me altogether. I woke morning after morning with a horrible dread at the pit of my stomach, and with a sense of the insecurity of life that I never knew before and that I have never felt since. It was like a revelation…for months I was unable to go out into the dark alone. In general I dreaded to be left alone. I remember wondering how other people could live, how I myself had lived, so unconscious of that pit of insecurity beneath the surface of life.
I don't think sp 4s are as different from other SPs as it might seem. It's just that 4s are compelled to dig grotesquely deep into what drives them in a way the others may not be, but I've seen blatantly sp 4-ish issues in sp 5s, 9s, 6s, and 2s. and, I mean, it's there for everyone, just manifests in different ways and strengths.

do other sp 4s relate or is this really out there? :unsure:
 

Evo

Unapologetic being
Joined
Jul 1, 2011
Messages
3,160
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XNTJ
Enneagram
1w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
it's really long but I'll do my best. I think different things will resonate for different self pres fours. In other words, it's not all going to necessarily fit. But the things that fit... well, it ugh...


Self pres fours communicate their envy and suffering to others less than the other subtypes. They are more stoic and don't talk about their suffering much.

They strive to get what they long for. But whatever they get never feels like enough.

Less likely to communicate sensitivity, suffering, shame or envy even though they feel them just as deeply as the other fours. They swallow a lot without complaining. Endurance is a virtue.

Suffer in silence. This is how they think they will be redeemed and earn love. Make a virtue of toughing out difficulties without talking about them in the hopes that others will see this and admire them for it, thereby helping them to meet their needs. Bear a lot of suffering and frustration through internalization.

Very self-demanding. Develop an ability to do without. Test and challenge themselves. They don't allow themselves the experience of living in or from their fragility.

A humanitarian with an empathetic and nurturing disposition, self pres fours are sensitive to the needy. This is how they project their pain outward, addressing it through others' suffering instead of talking about their own. They try to take care of others' pain so they don't have to fully deal with their own suffering.

More masochistic than melodramatic. Masochism is the ego strategy for getting love. Devalue themselves in important ways. Want to be seen as strong and resilient. This stems from their childhood desire for their parents to see them as a person who doesn't complain, and is a good child because they don't ask for much.

They may make efforts to get what they need and want while simultaneously unconsciously working against themselves. (One form of masochism.) And so:

Impulsive/not impulsive; desire to be happy but then make themselves unhappy; focus on improving and dealing with problems/postpone actions that would make this happen; Wear self out by seeking and striving in areas they know they will fail, which will ensure the perpetuation of a cycle of effort and devaluation. Ambitious, but deny and work against ambitions.

May resemble a one or three in focus on self-sufficiency, autonomy, working hard, but will be more emotional, even if they don't express it externally. Also, they will thwart their own efforts vs actually achieving like the three would.

Can also look like a type seven because they express a need to be light. May display the high energy characteristics of sevens, and may have a need for fun/playfulness as an escape from having to do tough things all the time. May appear less melancholy for this reason than other fours, a little more sunny and lighthearted.

[MENTION=18664]Stansmith[/MENTION] ... I thought of you when I read this. Do you relate?

I could be way off though.
 

autumnandtherain

New member
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Messages
185
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Social four:

Appears more emotionally sensitive, feels things deeply, suffers more than most people. Want others to see their suffering. The hope is if others see it they might be forgiven for their failures and deficiencies and loved unconditionally.

Lament too much and often put themselves in the victim role. Too attached to the causes of their suffering.

Envy fuels a focus on shame and suffering by providing a constant source of pain- the fact that others have what they want. However, their suffering also makes them unique and special- kind of seduce others through suffering.

The way to happiness is through tears. They attract the help of others by expressing their dissatisfaction. Will rationalize their attachment to suffering instead of doing something about it. Depend too much on their needs being fulfilled by others. If you convey the intensity of your need in painful enough terms, someone will finally come to your aid and fulfill that need.

Envy motivates social fours to focus on their emotional dissatisfaction and internal lack. There is a sense of comfort and familiarity in suffering, and the hope that their suffering will redeem them.

Central issue: suffering and inferiority. Need to self abase and self recriminate, to turn against oneself, to self weaken. Compare self to others and come up in the lowest position.

Others may think of them, "what's wrong with you is that you think there's something wrong with you." May actually be competent, attractive, and intelligent, but focus on and identify strongly with suffering and sense of deficiency.

Feel a sense of shame about their wants and needs. Desire makes them feel guilty. Feel guilty for any wish. Too shy to express desires except through the display of suffering. Don't feel entitled to have their needs met but at the same time feel the world is against them or that no one gives them what they want or need.

Don't compete with others. Instead compare self to others and focus on their lack. Underneath, however, they experience a fierce competitiveness that may be unconscious- a competitiveness for recognition, being unique and special, wanting to be in first place. More hidden and subtle than in the sexual four.

Explore the pain of the past repeatedly as a way of attracting someone who will take care of them and satisfy their wants. Criminalize their wants. Suffer more keenly for turning against themselves.

Think with their emotions, get entangled in them to the extent that they can't take action. Tend to be generous and do for others, but don't take responsibility for their own lives.

In public repress anger or hatred and appear sweet, friendly, and soft. In private may become aggressive. Prefer to swallow their own poison than externalize it to the people around them. Typically have difficulty finding their place in a group and in society. May experience selves as misfits. Tend to generate social situations of rejection to confirm their shame. See themselves as victims and others as perpetrators. Don't always take responsibility for their own actions and aggressiveness.

Less likely to be mistaken for other enneagram types than the other subtypes of four, but can look like sixes in their focus on what's missing or wrong in their lives. Unlike sixes, however, they desire to be special and spend less time in fear and more time feeling sadness, pain, and shame.

Well dang. I relate to so much of this as well. This is why I'm indecisive as to what my instinctual stacking is...
 

Chad of the OttomanEmpire

Give me a fourth dot.
Joined
Jun 9, 2013
Messages
1,053
MBTI Type
NeTi
Enneagram
478
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Now hang on, ya'll.

I've read Chestnut's work as well. To me, it seemed like she just copied the works of Naranjo while adding a few quotes from Helen Palmer and Maitri. I personally wasn't over-enthused with the work (though to her credit, she did a lot to take away the stereotype that 4s are insufferable wimps).

Moreover, there would be ABSOLUTELY NOTHING other than type 4 that I could POSSIBLY be based on her work. Every word of it burned. I think anyone who's dealt with rejection and bad self-esteem would see themselves in her description, however....yet, examining my actual mindset, where my attention goes, and what my ego ideals and super-ego all tell me I SHOULD be, I am clearly not a core 4.

Anyway, not trying to put her work down here, but [MENTION=7140]brainheart[/MENTION] and others--keep in mind she's just got one perspective. I'd probably be a social/self-pres 4 according to her...my sister is clearly soc/sx, yet I'd cast her as sp, too, based on Chestnut. Not trying to tell you you're NOT an sp4, because if this really helps you discover something about yourself, I say go for it. But just to say I have my reservations both about her descriptions as well as the instinctual descriptions actually correlating to the instincts themselves.

I've been thinking about this problem recently, and you've made some very good points. I don't really have an answer though, except that maybe the Enneagram is a bit of a mes. I agree that the subtypes don't always make much sense in terms of what you might expect if you combine the type with the dominant instinct, and I'm not sure how it's supposed to be combined with wings. So, I have questions for anyone who has information on either of these:
1. Have any correlations been found between core Enneagram type and dominant instinct/subtype? How about between wing and subtype?
This is a fair question. As I referenced before, there are those who support the notion of each instinct fitting its own description, and those who claim you may not fit the description of your subtype, and that the only way to know is to follow the motivations. I am, obviously, more in the latter camp right now.

One reason for this is that, according to Naranjo (and Chestnut), sexual 6s are all counterphobic, and self-pres are all phobic. And the boundary is drawn there. Yet I've met phobic 6s who claim to be sexual, and self-pres 6s who claim to be counterphobic, etc. Most 6s are in agreement that Naranjo's definitions aren't that clear cut IRL. So my reasoning is that, consequently, other types' instinctual preferences probably do not align with the descriptions as neatly as claimed, either.

I see subtype patterns as being a phenomenon worth noting, but not the final criterion by which we should decide our subtype, just as reading descriptions of the enneatypes themselves should not be the final criterion for deciding core type. I advocate motivations first.

2. How did Naranjo/Chestnut come up with the subtype descriptions? Were they describing what they observed/expected the effects of combining type and instinct to be (this is what a 4 is like, this is what an Sp-dom is like, and this is what someone who is both 4 and Sp will probably be like, based on the effects of those two influences, in much the same way that you'd expect an MBTI INFP description, for example, to be based on the combined influences of the I, N, F and P preferences and/or Fi Ne Si Te functions)? Or are they more like three variations on each type, taking the instincts only as loose themes?
I believe early authors noticed that each type had 3 distinct variations. Presumably, further interviews were conducted to suss out likely reasons for these variations. It was not part of Ichazo's original teachings, however--he used the concept of trifix to note differences between types rather than instincts. As far as I'm concerned, the field is fairly new and it's all still open to debate.
 

Evo

Unapologetic being
Joined
Jul 1, 2011
Messages
3,160
MBTI Type
XNTJ
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1w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Now hang on, ya'll.

To me, it seemed like she just copied the works of Naranjo while adding a few quotes from Helen Palmer and Maitri.

From the little I read on amazon, I kinda got that impression too...

I like the description, either way though.
 

Animal

So carnal it's spiritual
Joined
Mar 9, 2013
Messages
650
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SeFi
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4
[MENTION=18576]Sanjuro[/MENTION]

There are parts I don't agree with. I only highlighted the parts I do relate to… but with both Chestnut and Naranjo there are some issues….




Sigh, [Animal tries to highlight the reasons she DOESNT relate to SX-4 and only ends up sounding more like an SX 4….]


But really, in summary, I'm not competitive unless I want something. I don't "compete" - I stand out. I'm loyal and don't compete with friends, and I'm not jealous of my friends either. I'm not sadistic outside a period of trauma-reaction. I'm not demanding about my needs being met in an outright way; I'd rather have less needs and meet them myself. I am somewhat expressive about DESIRES, but mostly in private - I want the person to fulfill it because they want to, because they love me; not because they feel obligated. Being too expressive about my desires would leave me powerless.

All in all, I think the description is overstated, but still accurate about what my core issues are. I'll have to go through and highlight the quotes that aren't quite right, and I had similar reactions to Naranjo. But there will never be a day when I read a good SX-4 description and don't cringe.
 
B

brainheart

Guest
[MENTION=18576]Sanjuro[/MENTION],

You're right. I'm putting this out of context. I read the whole chapter on fours and identified with all of it, not just the self pres four description. Besides, I already was sure I was a four anyway. I wouldn't recommend people determine their type merely on these descriptions. Thanks for pointing this out because I meant to say something about it but forgot. For example, I would never mistype myself as a one or a three. And I think it's rare for sexual fours not to see themselves as fours as well. I actually think the most frequent mistypes would be self pres fours thinking they're fives (guilty of this), social fours thinking they're sixes (I think this happens a lot), and sexual fours thinking they're... well, fours- possibly other reactive types. Other mistypes happen, but I think in general this is how it works.

To play devil's advocate, though, I've always seen a lot of so/sp four in you. Back in the distant perC past when you typed yourself as six, I thought.. so/sp four. You are extremely self-referential and you talk about the damages incurred on you in the past a lot. That's got social four written all over it. But I'm not going to say you're wrong because obviously you know yourself better than I ever could.

Yes, she regurgitates a lot of Naranjo. I would call this book a more palatable version of Naranjo, minus all the outdated Freud stuff. But she does also add onto what he said, go into subtypes in greater detail, and give quite a bit of info on ways to improve. I like how she connects the types to Dante's Inferno (one of my absolute favorite books) and the Odyssey. I always like me some metaphors :)

...because if this really helps you discover something about yourself, I say go for it.

Yeah, exactly. That's the point. I honestly don't give a rat's ass whether I'm sp/sx or sx/sp, but I know that the self pres description points out a lot of things I unconsciously do, real hurdles and frustrations in my life, and it's made me aware of them. It's been really cathartic.
 

HongDou

navigating
Joined
Nov 23, 2012
Messages
5,191
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
the confusion is understandable. Social 7s are weird as hell (they look more superego than 1s and 2s lol)

DONT MAKE ME QUESTION MY TYPE AGAIN
 
B

brainheart

Guest
[MENTION=18576]Sanjuro[/MENTION]

There are parts I don't agree with. I only highlighted the parts I do relate to… but with both Chestnut and Naranjo there are some issues….



Sigh, [Animal tries to highlight the reasons she DOESNT relate to SX-4 and only ends up sounding more like an SX 4….]


But really, in summary, I'm not competitive unless I want something. I don't "compete" - I stand out. I'm loyal and don't compete with friends, and I'm not jealous of my friends either. I'm not sadistic outside a period of trauma-reaction. I'm not demanding about my needs being met in an outright way; I'd rather have less needs and meet them myself. I am somewhat expressive about DESIRES, but mostly in private - I want the person to fulfill it because they want to, because they love me; not because they feel obligated. Being too expressive about my desires would leave me powerless.

All in all, I think the description is overstated, but still accurate about what my core issues are. I'll have to go through and highlight the quotes that aren't quite right, and I had similar reactions to Naranjo. But there will never be a day when I read a good SX-4 description and don't cringe.

I think what becomes problematic is when people get too detail oriented and don't go for the gist. It's easy to get caught up in descriptions versus looking at what's the heart of it.

What I notice with the sexual instinct in myself is primarily internalized. Most people don't see it. (My guess is this is because it's my second instinct and gets subverted by the self pres desire to contain.) Internally, honestly, I do a lot of self talk of how I am better than others, how I deserve what they have, probably more than they do. That's how I'm competitive. It's because deep down I know I'm worse, but it's definitely a defense mechanism I switch to. Meanwhile, my self pres instinct is focused on what I should be doing to improve, to get myself out there, to create a body of work to show others, to leave a legacy... while at the same time I'll do all sorts of things unconsciously to make sure that doesn't happen, because it can't, I'm too flawed. And then when I get to my lowest, I'll get the slam of the social instinct where I am painfully, painfully aware that I am so much beneath others that I don't even deserve to live. I can be a little critical of social fours (sorry social fours, just being honest) because they seem kind of incompetent and whiny to me at times when they should just suck it up and deal with it but I know I could learn something from them, that it helps me to share these sort of emotions with others, scary as it is. That's why I feel compelled to share things on here. It's a way of working up to doing it with people in my life.

I think it's easy to say 'I'm not' a certain way. I've done this for years. And that's why the good descriptions, the ones get to the marrow, make a person cringe or, in my case, cry (which is supposed to be really good for self pres fours, by the way). There is a lot of denial a person does about how they are.

Self pres fours are long suffering because they deny themselves the right to let their feelings out for others to see. They see virtue in dealing with their problems themselves. Sharing/complaining to others makes them feel overly vulnerable and they must protect their feelings at all costs. But what would actually help would be to honestly display their feelings, it would ease their suffering and allow them to move on.

Sexual fours feel angry envy because they feel like others have had it better than them, had access to things they never had. They feel the need to compete with others (even if it's just internally) because they need to prove to themselves that they are better than others, that these other people are only successful because of what life has given them. This anger can't help but come out. It can hurt other people. Other people perceive this as arrogance but the sexual four, deep down, knows that they act this way because they hurt deeply.

Social fours are certain they are more flawed than others. They see the lives that other people have and they know they will never have that because they aren't good enough. And so they take on the role of the poor, flawed person as a way of getting attention and sympathy.
 
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Starry

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Messages
6,103
brainheart...I swear...with how much I've seen you change type lately...I'm starting to wonder if you aren't a socially introverted ENFP.
 

Alea_iacta_est

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Messages
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Self pres fours are long suffering because they deny themselves the right to let their feelings out for others to see. They see virtue in dealing with their problems themselves. Sharing/complaining to others makes them feel overly vulnerable and they must protect their feelings at all costs. But what would actually help would be to honestly display their feelings, it would ease their suffering and allow them to move on.

This is highly accurate. Whenever I wish to display my "suffering" (in quotations due to the lack of physical suffering and the fact that suffering is a heavily connotative word), I find myself telling myself not to, often leading me to actually repeat the phrase "Endure"* in my mind over and over. This magnifies tenfold when I have fallen in love with someone, I emotionally detach like a 5 so that the person I like cannot "read" me and possibly humiliate my intense emotions, leaving me to wallow in melodramatic suffering alone without reciprocation and the courage to open up. I've actually had a person I've liked remark on how stoic and unemotional I am, which of course only fueled the hidden fire.
 

Animal

So carnal it's spiritual
Joined
Mar 9, 2013
Messages
650
MBTI Type
SeFi
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4
I think what becomes problematic is when people get too detail oriented and don't go for the gist. It's easy to get caught up in descriptions versus looking at what's the heart of it.
I agree with this. That's why looking at the heart of it makes me cringe even if I can go through the details and say "I'm not this or that." Also, you hit the nail on the head at least for me, with THIS:

What I notice with the sexual instinct in myself is primarily internalized. Most people don't see it. (My guess is this is because it's my second instinct and gets subverted by the self pres desire to contain.) Internally, honestly, I do a lot of self talk of how I am better than others, how I deserve what they have, probably more than they do. That's how I'm competitive. It's because deep down I know I'm worse, but it's definitely a defense mechanism I switch to. Meanwhile, my self pres instinct is focused on what I should be doing to improve, to get myself out there, to create a body of work to show others, to leave a legacy... while at the same time I'll do all sorts of things unconsciously to make sure that doesn't happen, because it can't, I'm too flawed. And then when I get to my lowest, I'll get the slam of the social instinct where I am painfully, painfully aware that I am so much beneath others that I don't even deserve to live. I tend to scoff at social fours on a regular basis (sorry social fours, just being honest) because they seem kind of pathetic and whiny to me when they should just suck it up and deal with it but I know I could learn something from them, that it helps me to share these sort of emotions with others, scary as it is. That's why I feel compelled to share things on here. It's a way of working up to doing it with people in my life.
That's a huge part of it. So much of this stays inside. It's all expressed in my work, diaries, or sometimes to VERY VERY close friends, SO or family.. but even the closest people to me, are not my diary. They don't see what I see. I know this description IS me, but so much of that is internal, and expressed ONLY in music and art and writing, or diaries that no one will ever see. That doesn't mean I don't know its there, sometimes lingering in the background, sometimes more calm, but sometimes burning me up.

I think it's easy to say 'I'm not' a certain way. I've done this for years. And that's why the good descriptions, the ones get to the marrow, make a person cringe or, in my case, cry (which is supposed to be really good for self pres fours, by the way). There is a lot of denial a person does about how they are.
Yeah. I read all of Naranjo - and at the time I had mistyped at 8 and denied some things, but reading the 4 segment made me cry and also felt uncomfortably familiar.

Self pres fours are long suffering because they deny themselves the right to let their feelings out for others to see. They see virtue in dealing with their problems themselves. Sharing/complaining to others makes them feel overly vulnerable and they must protect their feelings at all costs. But what would actually help would be to honestly display their feelings, it would ease their suffering and allow them to move on.
I have this issue too - which is why for a long time I thought Sx/Sp… but I see for many other reasons that Sp last is a real possibility, so I am not sure why I'm this way. It's like.. if I werent a 4 I might say Sx/So were more obvious, but as a 4 the associated SP instinct to 'swallow it' and deal with it myself is pretty strong, painfully so, to the point of causing problems in my relationships because THAT's not the place to put my feelings; MUSIC is the place for feelings to be expressed. (facepalm) .. I've gotten rejected or hurt EVERY TIME because I FAILED to express my feelings rather than, expressed too many feleings - a "problem" I've never had and which I wish I could have, if only once, to show myself that I finally allowed myself to lose control a little. I do express feelings but usually when I know the person is crazy for me and will accept it, etc. I am mostly a risk-taker and even reckless or dauntless but this is the one way in which I wish I could throw caution to the wind. I'd rather have a guy call me psycho for over-expressing, than what usually happens… they move on thinking I never cared in the first place, and I realize only too late that they DID love me all along and I pushed them away out of shame that I wasn't worthy of their love, and simply assumed they felt that way and never asked. :/

Sexual fours feel angry envy because they feel like others have had it better than them, had access to things they never had. They feel the need to compete with others (even if it's just internally) because they need to prove to themselves that they are better than others, that these other people are only successful because of what life has given them. This anger can't help but come out. It can hurt other people. Other people perceive this as arrogance but the sexual four, deep down, knows that they act this way because they hurt deeply.
On my typing thread years ago, I wrote that the thing I hate most in other people is wasted potential. This makes me infuriated, when people have tremendous potential and throw it all away. I feel like I had LESS potential and worked my ass off. For instance I perceive myself as being ugly when I was young, but working my ass off at music and theater. Then, after I was amazing at music and singing and doing well, I got a chronic illness that took my voice away and left me speaking in a whisper, robbing me of my chance to do my passion. I still , years later - produced , wrote, arranged my own record and fronted my band - and sang lead through my whisper. When I see great singers smoking for instance, do you know how pissed off I get? Things like this make me want to kill people. I am not sure how often I actually hurt them but I know I have said mean things about this to boyfriends who I felt were wasting their talent or potential (sometimes, coupled with them failing to appreciate my hard work despite my tremendous disadvantages)


Social fours are certain they are more flawed than others. They see the lives that other people have and they know they will never have that because they aren't good enough. And so they take on the role of the poor, flawed person as a way of getting attention and sympathy.
I don't really do this nearly as much as the other two. I can see shades of it maybes. Do you do it?
 

Animal

So carnal it's spiritual
Joined
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[MENTION=18576]Sanjuro[/MENTION],

You're right. I'm putting this out of context. I read the whole chapter on fours and identified with all of it, not just the self pres four description. Besides, I already was sure I was a four anyway. I wouldn't recommend people determine their type merely on these descriptions. Thanks for pointing this out because I meant to say something about it but forgot. For example, I would never mistype myself as a one or a three. And I think it's rare for sexual fours not to see themselves as fours as well. I actually think the most frequent mistypes would be self pres fours thinking they're fives (guilty of this), social fours thinking they're sixes (I think this happens a lot), and sexual fours thinking they're... well, fours- possibly other reactive types. Other mistypes happen, but I think in general this is how it works.
I mistyped at 5w4 during the midst of a very severe trauma-reaction. When I came back to enneagram I mistyped at 8w7 for a while. My 3 mistype doesn't really count because I was talked into it by a 3 who I had a major crush on and the mistype only lasted a few weeks until I changed to 8.

The main reason I saw 8 before 4 when I really got into studying enneagram is because of my anger and tangible desire/lust, and also some of my actions during my trauma-reaction period..which I saw as "cold-hearted conquering" but it wasn't really that… it was more like.. push/pull, desperate need for affection, competitiveness, desirous longing etc. Probably a lot of it is just PTSD stuff though enneagram 4SX does make too much (uncanny) sense with what happened, and what I read in my diary from that period, it is a SX4 inferno of lust, envy, sadness, frustration and rage. :/ Anyway.. it can look very 8ish - or at least lusty and angry - at surface.
 
B

brainheart

Guest
brainheart...I swear...with how much I've seen you change type lately...I'm starting to wonder if you aren't a socially introverted ENFP.

I see what you're getting at but sp/sx vs sx/sp when they are pretty much equal isn't that much of a difference. This description of self pres knocked me off my chair.

The tritype thing has to do with not getting tritype vs not getting myself.

Also, I don't buy the concept of socially introverted ENFPs. I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this but an introvert is an introvert and an extrovert is an extrovert.
 

Starry

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Also, I don't buy the concept of socially introverted ENFPs. I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this but an introvert is an introvert and an extrovert is an extrovert.


^I don't want to go off topic...or take away from your thread...but you've got to explain this one to me now so I can better understand myself.
 
B

brainheart

Guest
^I don't want to go off topic...or take away from your thread...but you've got to explain this one to me now so I can better understand myself.

Well, I'm INFP as all get out, so there's that. I very much feel my Fi strongly and always have. I was a total Fi kid, not a Ne kid. I feel like I have more in common with ISFPs than ENFPs. My ENXP friends in high school actually thought I was too boring, too normal because I didn't do the wacky Ne thing.

INFPs get caught up in possibilities like ENFPs. My very much also an INFP friend goes through the whole confusion with tritypes as well. But our focus priority is always turned inward at how we feel about it. So when I read something like that self pres description and my Fi tells me, through my emotions, that it's right, I believe it.

But onto what you said- Jung starts off his chapter on personality types by explaining the difference between introverts and extroverts. He says the differences are obvious and quite simple. I agree.
 
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