SEI/ISFp and Enneagram Type 4

[silke]

The reason I used to identify with 4 descriptions was the accent on emotional sensitivity, natural capacity for experiencing deep/profound feelings and the inevitable need to express them. Also, things like feeling constant emotional longing and exploring ways to fill the inner dissatisfaction/void through sensory indulgence, art, and stuff like that. But then, some enneagram publications take fours into some kind of abstract realm of confusion and complete irrationality, which isn't something I relate to that much.

9s sound steady and laid-back, but boring/shallow. My self-perception is probably closer to the reserved, intellectual 5.

I'm inclined to think your type is e1 based on the threads you made on value of integrity and unconditional love. It sounds like frustration triad (1-4-7) idealism, but not the melancholy, escapist idealism of e4, rather the perfectionist moral idealism of e1.

[Park]

Hmmm...the things you mention aren't really so much integral parts of the 4 fixation as they are "typical symptoms;" being a 4 has a lot more to do with the formation and integration of a personal identity than any of those things. You don't really seem to recognize the typical image triad "crisis" either so I can't really say there's a good chance of you being a 4.

Well I did have my identity crisis period a few years ago. I was a lot more self-oriented back then.

The thing is, things change. You can say I was a 4, then a 5, and now I'm approaching 9s. Take that, dynamic enneagram.

No, but who cares to fit in a dumb system like the enneagram. I'd probably hate the people who masturbated (mentally) all day long to come up with it.

[Park]

Oh by the way the strategy you describe is pretty much exactly how 9w8s deal with anger: they take it all until they can bear no more, and then they explode. Stereotypical cashier who takes shit day in day out only to come to work with a gun to deal out justice is probably usually a 9w1.

You mean like this guy?




I loved that movie.

[Park]

I'm inclined to think your type is e1 based on the threads you made on value of integrity and unconditional love. It sounds like frustration triad (1-4-7) idealism, but not the melancholy, escapist idealism of e4, rather the perfectionist moral idealism of e1.

That is an interesting observation, thank you. However, the quantity of information upon which you're guesstimating my enneagram type is ridiculously small. But then, the enneagram is probably just as ridiculously small in terms of the things it tries to encompass, and its precision.

[Park]

I think a lot of people look at 9 as the "bitch" type of the enneagram, and a lot of 9s do wind up feeling like bitches if they take too long to integrate and will probably implode/self-destruct/go insane. But more self-aware 9s deal with their anger pretty similarly to how you describe and the 8 wings especially are harder to trample or pull a fast one on.

I kind of think of 9s as the main characters of life...they are just going through it, they are the center of the gut triad: experiencing life instinctively, taking it all in, and acting as they see fit.

Now that you mention it, I think I've been focused on my quest for justice lately. People in my close family have protested against my inclination to "seek and administer justice" saying bullshit like no one gives me the right to judge/control their behavior or be the one who straightens things out. People I work with have said they sometimes feel like walking on eggshells around me.

None of this gets to me, and I couldn't give less shit until people I trust and have faith in turn their backs or let me down. Constantly being guilt-tripped (without an objective, logical foundation) by someone you love for doing things wrong (instead of being encouraged and appreciated) isn't very pleasant either.

[Park]

The puppet master analogy. I think most people who are image triad don't really realize it at first very often because the whole fixation involves kind of pulling a double bluff on oneself, and when the bluff is exposed its usually kind of traumatic. For example I read E3 descriptions many times before the words on the page translated into recognition of my own actions and mentality, and when it clicked I felt this kind of inescapable embarrassment, like, "Oh my God...can other people tell this about me? Am I only fooling myself?" etc. The main methodology of the heart triad is deception, and the main motive is shame, so when the curtain is removed there is kind of a shock of shame.

I'm in such a strangely intense mood tonight that I actually shed a watery tear down my face. The shame I carry with me is unbearable sometimes. And it's the tiny little mistakes I make that create it.

[Park]

I need to start a blog or something. But then, I don't think anyone will read it. Do I want people to read it? I don't know. I'm such a mess inside.

[Gilly]

I'm in such a strangely intense mood tonight that I actually shed a watery tear down my face. The shame I carry with me is unbearable sometimes. And it's the tiny little mistakes I make that create it.

What kind of mistakes?

[Gilly]

I need to start a blog or something. But then, I don't think anyone will read it. Do I want people to read it? I don't know. I'm such a mess inside.

I'll read it. You have me curious now.

[Park]

Why are you acting "nice" now Gill? Are you trying to get on good terms with me? Is there an ulterior motive I should know about, or you're just fucked up unstable like that?

Let's say I buy your fake Fi bullshit for a second. What kind of satisfaction are you going to derive when I give you the opportunity to turn into an aggressive asshole (towards me) again?

[Codie]

I need to start a blog or something. But then, I don't think anyone will read it. Do I want people to read it? I don't know. I'm such a mess inside.

Yh I tried to start a blog but I just felt really stupid, like I was talking to myself...

[Aquagraph]

Rosa Maria Consuela Lopez (see Unofficial Member Picture Thread) might be e4.

[theMime.]

Si supposedly is immersed in present physical states and enjoyment and finds the developing of an inner world a chore as it would take away from these immediate pleasures

Yeah Si is fantastic to have after falling down a flight of stairs or accidentally burning your hand on the stove or dropping a knife on your foot. The outer world is just so damn pleasurable I don't know how I keep myself away from it. But you know, La La Land has it's positives too.

Seriously though, making absolute determinations either about Socionics or the Enneagram is not something that makes sense for me to do in my head--I don't believe that we come in a distinct number of kinds of people and therefore it's unlikely in my mind for there to be any Socionics/Enneagram combination that is "impossible" rather than differing degrees of unlikely.

QFT.

[Ben Teskey]

Ezra was nice enough to let me quote him.

"Because Four = Ni. The very core of the Four relates to the essence of Ni. The only way - to my mind - a Four could look like an SEI is in very superficial ways: such as being artistic, and aesthetic (for sp-first Four). The Victim mentality of the IEI corresponds perfectly to the Four, Caregiver... very little. On the contrary, the Four is looking for someone to rescue them, not someone to care for. I don't really know of any SEIs in my life that I could plausibly look at and think they were a Four. Almost all of them are Nines, a few maybe Sevens. On the other hand, every Four I know is an IEI. I even thought that Sixes could be IEIs for a while, until my friend told me he'd reconsidered and realised he was a Four." - Ezra

"Fours are moody, brooding, introspective, dark and Alphas are happy, cutesy and fun... it's SO different (just like how Nines can't be Beta)!" -Ezra

Do discuss.

I'm very curious about what you guys have to say in response. Not just about the argument for why SEIs can't be 4s and IEIs can only be 4s but about romance styles (victim, agressor, caregiver, infantile) and Alphas and Betas in general.

I know exactly what I think. But I think I'm going to sit back and watch because some of you guys are likely going to say exactly what I'm thinking in far better wording than I'd be able to come up with.

That's not the very essence of the 4.

This:

Holy Idea: Origin
Vice: Envy
Virtue: Equanimity (calmness and composure)
Enneagram Triad: Image (Associated Emotion: Shame)
Hornevian Triad: Withdrawn
Harmonic Triad:Reactive
Basic Drive: Isolation vs. Connection
Basic Fear: Loss of Identity
Basic Desire: Uniqueness
Freudian Association: Ego


Not to say that 4s don't exist, but you should probably also understand that people in the 369 archetype make up just over half of the population.

[FoxOnStilts]

There is no contradiction between SEI and 4. Fours suffer from envy because they feel "lesser", and yearn for what other people have that they think they are missing. As a result, they're very negative and pessimistic, and can seem a bit...blow-hard, I guess is the word, because they try to emulate traits that they like in other people in hopes that it will let them have that missing bit (especially so first 4s). I don't see anything contradictory to Si in that.

I think the main post about IEIs only being fours and SEI not being fours is dumb, and bringing relationship styles and quadra values into the discussion is completely irrelevant to enneagram, but I can't help but think of dichotomies and how negativists first notice what is missing (a very 4 thing) and positivists first notice what is there. IEIs are positivists and SEIs are negativists. Fours don't come off as very caregiving, but they also don't come off as very positivist. Trying to merge the theories like that is dumb. Enneagram is about motivations and defense mechanisms. The rest is just bullshit that sprang up around it so people could read nice things about themselves, and the enneagram is not a very nice system.

(I did just get a new enneagram book the other day that is very nice for showing people though )

[Absurd]

Off topic but I thought that positivists focus on similarities looking for a single solution to a problem whilst negativists focus and notice differences opting for several solutions to a problem.

[FoxOnStilts]

Off topic but I thought that positivists focus on similarities looking for a single solution to a problem whilst negativists focus and notice differences opting for several solutions to a problem.

Yeah, I was just focusing on a single facet of a dichotomy to show why trying to use these socionics terms to say why a certain sociotype can or cannot be an enneagram type is dumb.

[lemontrees]

Another thing I'd like to add to the SEI/type 4 debate:

I've been thinking quite a bit on the relationship between Si and the 4's inability to "stay in the present." I know that I posted on that in a previous thread (yay PistolShrimp!) already, but might have a little more to add.

Anecdotal:

Often I feel that I am quite slipping into other physical places I've been rather than enjoying the place where I am now, and I wonder if this is true for other SEI E4's.

For instance, this summer I've at various times felt like I was in Missouri (I could image the width of the streets and the quality of the light and the air and the apartment I had there), Japan (the density of people on the street and that feeling of moving through the space and also the feeling of...how when the foreignness manifested physically in the form of the adrenaline rush that comes with being totally lost, I would suddenly feel strangely at ease again, b/c that was a physical state that I had come to be so acquainted with and it grounded me in myself), Boston (apartment I housesat, cat, the strange heaviness of that summer plus weird bursts of beauty), China, Belgium, etc etc, and feeling a strong longing to relive those experiences.

Recently I noticed that I would switch very quickly from those nostalgic fantasies to thinking "but the trees are lovely here, and the air is so clean, and there's this amazing structural beauty to the mountains and landscape that has almost a cold clarity to it, and I need to take it all in and store it b/c soon I'll be elsewhere and it'll all be gone!!

What's what's really funny about this is that I always notice enough physical details about a location that I can replicate it perfectly, even though when I'm actually inhabiting or traveling through a place, most of the time I'm just having imaginary conversations in my head.

Logical:

Si and fantasizing are not mutually exclusive. It's very nice to fantasize (even negatively) while inhabiting a comfortable, aesthetic space or engaging in a calming physical activity. My body and my mind are very rarely in the same place, actually.