4w5 grows into healthy to average 1

[Sunny Ghost]

I found this description of the Enneagram to be the most accurate to me: The Enneagram Blogspot: Type 4: Identity-Seeker

I've even finally grown to be somewhere between a healthy or average One. My concern is, how to I get over outbursts with people I'm frustrated with. I've become quite the assertive bitch around the house with my roommates. I've gotten over the need to constantly keep myself busy and have had desires to do some volunteer work.

Also, does this make me an enneagram One now and not a 4w5?

 

[Ginkgo]

According to the enneagram theory, you do not change your enneatype, wing, or variant. You are imprinted with your type for life. This does not mean you are pigeon holed, as every person is an individual with individualized culture and experience. Rather, it is a general characterization of how your perception of the world is shaped/distorted/magnified.

I'm just going to guess here, but 4s are always trying to reform their identities. If the 4 is healthy, less self-consumed and more in touch with the environment, then this reformation can manifest itself in a more projected and less subjective way, thus giving the appearance of a 1. This 4 is still, by all means, a 4, just healthier and more eminent.

 

[Sunny Ghost]

According to the enneagram theory, you do not change your enneatype, wing, or variant. You are imprinted with your type for life. This does not mean you are pigeon holed, as every person is an individual with individualized culture and experience. Rather, it is a general characterization of how your perception of the world is shaped/distorted/magnified.

I'm just going to guess here, but 4s are always trying to reform their identities. If the 4 is healthy, less self-consumed and more in touch with the environment, then this reformation can manifest itself in a more projected and less subjective way, thus giving the appearance of a 1. This 4 is still, by all means, a 4, just healthier and more eminent.

mmk. thank you. i'm still learning about the enneagram, and wasn't sure if part of progress and maturity is moving through the numbers or what. haha.

 

[Random Ness]

I find a lot of somewhat mature adults test or say they are type 1. You're probably still a type 4, just more confident in your beliefs.

 

[VagrantFarce]

Healthy 4s are said to be a lot like healthy 1s ( see: Directions of Integration (Growth) and Disintegration (Stress) and http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/enneagram/29022-soul-child-type-four-point-one.html), so you seem par for the course.

 

[KDude]

I feel like I move towards it for sure.. kind of lose faith/resolve at times though. "Kind of" is an understatement.

 

[BettieW]

4s can change! I used to be a depressed, suicidal 4 who felt different from everyone else always. I was kinda dark and Gothic (before that was popular) and wrote a lot of sad poetry. Now I'm almost 50 and the opposite of everything I used to be. I realized that negativity isn't deep or unique: it's just a convenient cop-out because life is tough. The funny thing is that I have a 22 yr old friend who's a flaming 4: she's an on-and-off heroin addict who believes that she's "destined to die of an overdose". Maybe 4s grow up after a while and seem 1ish as they mature.

 

[KDude]

I don't think my 4-ness is necessarily negative though. I'm a vampire killer, not a vampire.

Or rather, I think all types have a positive or negative angle to them. The 1 could be unhealthy in it's perfectionism, the 3 in it's ambition, the 7 in it's flightyness, the 8 in aggression, the 9 in it's agreeability.

 

[CuriousFeeling]

I have moments where I test as either type 1, or type 4, so it isn't totally uncommon for a type 4 to have traits that are similar to the type 1. I think when a type 4 doesn't allow their emotions to consume them, they may emulate type 1. I go through periods like this, where I can be emotional and ultra-sensitive, to just getting the job done. I can be perfectionistic like a 1, and idealistic about how people should set an example for themselves, live out their full potential. When I was younger, I was very sensitive to what people would say to me, and reacted quite emotionally. I didn't feel like people understood me. I was quite emotionally turbulent as a child. As I have grown up, I have mellowed out.

 

[Aleksei]

According to the enneagram theory

Here's your problem.

 

[Ginkgo]

Here's your problem.

Please explain instead of just insulting and dismissing concepts preemptively like you frequently do.

 

[Aleksei]

The problem with type theories in general (and Enneagram in particular) is that they are rooted in mysticism and tend to be rather strongly unscientific. Which is fine, so long as they have explanatory power (indeed as OrangeAppled mentioned earlier in the Enneagram wings thread, their mystical quality might be a bonus), but portions of them that place arbitrary limits on personality development (such as inability to change type, lower functions developing after a certain age only, etc.) are wholly discardable. There's no proof that a person's type cannot change.