Please help - INFP and Type 4

[Charmain]

The two go together right? It's the first time I heard about Enneagram and I'm not yet sure if I have my type correctly. My highest scores was 4, 5, 1, 6 - in that order.

Thanks!

 

[BlackCat]

Yeah the most common enneagram for INFP is indeed type 4. From your scores you would be a 4w5.

Here's a description of the type 4 that I have, is this accurate?

The Romantic (the Four)

Romantics have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

* Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
* Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
* Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
* Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
* Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting!

What I Like About Being a Four

* my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
* my ability to establish warm connections with people
* admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
* my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
* being unique and being seen as unique by others
* having aesthetic sensibilities
* being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What's Hard About Being a Four

* experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
* feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
* feeling guilty when I disappoint people
* feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
* expecting too much from myself and life
* fearing being abandoned
* obsessing over resentments
* longing for what I don't have

Fours as Children Often

* have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original game s
* are very sensitive
* feel that they don't fit in
* believe they are missing something that other people have
* attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
* become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
* feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)

Fours as Parents

* help their children become who they really are
* support their children's creativity and originality
* are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
* are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
* are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Fours

Four With a 3 Wing
Fours with a 3 wing can sometimes seem like Sevens. May be outgoing, have a sense of humor and style. Prize being both creative and effective in the world. Both intuitive and ambitious; may have good imaginations, often talented. Some are colorful, fancy dressers, make a distinct impression. Self-knowledge combines well with social and organizational skills. When more entranced, often have a public/private split. Could conceal feelings in public then go home to loneliness. Or they could enjoy their work and be dissatisfied in love. Tendency towards melodrama and flamboyance; true feelings can often be hidden. Competitive, sneaky, aware of how they look. Some have bad taste. May be fickle in love, drawn to romantic images that they have projected onto others. Could have a dull spouse, then fantasize about glamorous strangers. Achievements can be tainted by jealousy, revenge, or a desire to prove the crowd wrong.

Real-Life Fours With a 3 Wing: John Barrymore, Kate Bush, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Judy Collins, Neil Diamond, Judy Garland, Martha Graham, Billie Holliday, Julio Iglesias, Janis Joplin, Naomi Judd, Jessica Lange, John Malkovich, Mary McCarthy, Rod McKuen, Anaïs Nin, Nick Nolte, Laurence Olivier, Edith Piaf, Anne Rice, Liv Ullmann, Robert James Waller, Tennessee Williams.

Movie Fours With a 3 Wing: F. Murray Abraham, Amadeus; Anne Bancroft, The Turning Point; John Barrymore, Dinner At Eight; Judy Davis, Impromptu; Jill Ireland, From Noon Til Three; Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire; Winona Ryder, Mermaids.

Four With a 5 Wing
Healthy side of this wing brings a withdrawn, complex creativity. May be somewhat intellectual but have exceptional depth of feeling and insight. Very much their own person; original and idiosyncratic. Have a spiritual and aesthetic openness. Will find multiple levels of meaning to most events. May have a strong need and ability to pour themselves into artistic creations. Loners; can seem enigmatic and hard to read. Externally reserved and internally resonant. When they open up it can be sudden and total. When entranced or defensive, Fours with a 5 wing can easily feel alienated and depressed. Many have a sense of not belonging, of being from another planet. Can get lost in their own process, drown in their own ocean. Whiny - tend to ruminate and relive past experience. Prone to the emotion of shame. Air of sullen, withdrawn disappointment. May live within a private mythology of pain and loss. Can get deeply morbid and fall in love with death.

Real-Life Fours With a 5 Wing: Diane Arbus, Marlon Brando, Richard Brautigan, Jackson Browne, Kurt Cobain, Leonard Cohen, Isak Dinesen, Pink Floyd, Harvey Keitel, Philip Larkin, Thomas Merton, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Rimbaud, Anne Sexton, James Taylor, Vincent van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Neil Young.

Movie Fours With a 5 Wing: David Andrews, Cherry 2000; Albert Finney, The Playboys; Claude Rains, The Phantom Of The Opera; Winona Ryder, Beetlejuice; Campbell Scott, Dying Young; Meryl Streep, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Out Of Africa, Plenty.

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World View: Something's missing. Others have it. I'm different from them because I don't.
Basic Desire: to understand self
Basic Fear: of being defective

Healthy loop controlled by Basic Desire:

Need for self-understanding -> examine self -> understand themselves -> Need for self-understanding

In the healthy state, the need for self-understanding induces Type Fours to allow their emotions to surface and examine these emotions in order to understand themselves. When Fours achieve self-understanding, their need is satisfied and a balance is reached.

In the average state, when Fours' do not examine closely their emotions, they start to not understand themselves. This increases the need for self-understanding, which helps Fours to again examine themselves. Thus the balancing loop can help Fours to recover.

Unhealthy loop controlled by Basic Fear:

Fear of being defective -> indulge in fantasy -> understand themselves -> Fear of being defective

In the unhealthy state, the basic fear of being defective can cause Type Fours to ignore their true selves, allow their emotions to overwhelm them, and indulge in wild fantasy about themselves. This means they will understand themselves even less, and further increases Fours' basic fear. The cycle continues to build up.

Insight:

We can see from the diagram that a way to help break the control of the basic fear is to weaken the unhealthy loop. Fours can refrain from indulging in fantasy and start examining themselves. This will help Fours to understand themselves, and reduce the fear of being defective.

 

[Charmain]

Thanks, that's accurate. I'm not THAT depressed though, I see some 4w3 in myself too.

Thanks for your help!

 

[OrangeAppled]

4w5 and 4w3 are very common enneagrams for INFPs. 4w5s are not all depressed - I think they are just more introverted. They're artsy/intellectual and 4w3s seem a bit more social, more people-oriented.

 

[Charmain]

4w5 and 4w3 are very common enneagrams for INFPs. 4w5s are not all depressed - I think they are just more introverted. They're artsy/intellectual and 4w3s seem a bit more social, more people-oriented.

Thanks! Sorry, I didn't mean to cast a negative light on 4w5's. I appreciate the explanation, now I understand it better and I think I am a bit of both. If possible.