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Romantic/Depth Seekers are characterized by an emotional intensity. Longing for special attention, they want to be perceived as unique, deep, and beautiful, whether female or male. They are looking for love and searching for meaning.

Type 4s are true individualists who do not give in easily to group identity or shallow images. 4s hope their unique qualities will captivate others, draw others to them, and cause others to seek them out. Accept the ordinary?

Never! The very idea is abhorrent to the 4’s romantic nature. If you long to be recognized, appreciated, and adored for your beauty (like Narcissus, in Greek mythology, a beautiful youth condemned by Nemesis to pine away for love of his own reflection), depth, creativity, and emotional intensity, welcome to your type. You are a 4!

As a 4, you’re attuned to aesthetic and artistic creation, ideally born from the depths of the soul’s suffering. Day-to-day reality is difficult, even boring, so you measure life by those special moments that transcend the mundane, where life soars to special heights or plummets to moments of deep despair. 4s are the emotional junkies and emotional roller coasters of the universe, seeking experiential, spiritual, and relationship thrills and spills to make life worth living.

You can give others special attention and teach the other types to feel deeply, to remember we come from spirit, not to give in to normalcy or what others expect of us but rather to live with personality, creativity, romance, drama, and depth.

You believe that sacrifice for these qualities is worth the cost. As a 4, you don’t hide or hold back from your own inner exploration of feelings, thoughts, longings, searching. “Let go of family, cultural, or relationship expectations and be your true self,” says the 4.

4s want sublime language, special moments, and no missed opportunities for depth, joy, or one of a kind experiences. How you express language—the tone, the nuance, the emphasis—is as important as what is said. You want to live out the most romantic, idealized movies or theater of the mind and heart and be pursued by the sexiest and most mysterious people alive. Who’s to say that much of this isn’t possible?

You see life in a deeply emotional way and inspire authentic emotional expression in yourself and others. You are the only type committed to feeling anything and everything, not shying away from pain, loss, despair, joy, or ecstasy. If it’s real, you want to feel it. Suffering is part of life as much as the positive and you don’t miss a moment. You show what you feel and it takes courage to do that. Most people hide, but you do not. You don’t mind being the individual who exposes what is real and can be a role model for others to be true individuals.

In a nutshell, positive traits of 4 include …

4s long for more depth and excitement than day-to-day reality provides. Spirituality is a natural fit for the 4. Typically 4s are more drawn to esoteric and unique forms of religion, such as Buddhism, nature worship, shamanism, mysticism, and goddess worship. If you’re a 4, you might listen to your inner spirit, consult with psychics, read the Tarot, use crystals, and believe that life forms exist beyond our Earth.

You can feel stuck in a reality that is limited to just what you hear and see. You long for more and want enlightenment experiences, special moments of beauty, or meaningful sunsets. You may believe in past lives and don’t think reality stops when the body dies. 4s teach others to be open to the extraordinary, yet also need to see that the ordinary may have special moments, as well.

If life experience doesn’t have a deeper meaning, it isn’t a life worth living. You are always searching for mystery, origins, the unseen, the seed buried in the ground with potential for life. You are fascinated by death and what happens after death. You are always exploring what is unspoken.

You are always seeking your version of God to transform everyday life into one that has more meaning. You value therapy and do your part to support that industry! You look for all manner of venues, classes, and growth experiences to heighten states of awareness and to create new options and special ways of being and deepening who you are.

As a 4, you depend on others to love, accept, and value you and are prone to translating lack of attention as feelings of rejection or abandonment. The romantic in you doesn’t realize that, no matter what you do, rejection may come, often for reasons unrelated to you. It’s difficult to imagine acceptance for simply being who you are, without showcasing or being extra-special. Your inner reality is one of strong imagination and intensification of feeling. Being hypersensitive to criticism, you easily project you aren’t good enough or unique enough to be acceptable.

4s could be called emotional perfectionists. While this has its positive side, it can also be a problem, as you can become so absorbed in understanding exactly what you’re feeling—and why—at any given moment, you lose sight of everything else. It can also lead to a judgment that if a feeling isn’t sufficiently intense, it isn’t “real” or at least it isn’t valuable. 4s may express this by dramatizing stories and feelings if life feels insufficiently intense. Generally 4s do this out of habit, but sometimes also out of fear—if you aren’t intense or special enough, you’ll be left. Ironically, it’s often your very quality of intensity and drama that can distance others from you. Too much drama can cause others to leave the theater!

Often, you don’t want to take responsibility for the consequences of your actions and may look to others to bail you out. You may also rely on others for validation. This reliance on deriving a sense of self-worth from others may create fear and anger, as you worry that others judge or devalue you or that you are replaceable. 4s can also easily feel envy and inferiority. Therefore it’s important for 4s to see and remember the positive that others are seeing. Downplay the tragedy, trust life’s flow more, and realize that many people are not as rejecting as you imagine. Matter of fact, it’s more likely you’ll be first to become bored and leave a relationship.

4s can justify leaving. Someone doesn’t love you enough or can’t give you enough quality attention. You can forget that you need to equally give to yourself, that you need to give to hold another’s attentions, and that a relationship can only work when both parties have their basic needs met. Many 4s have a strong connection to Type 2, the Giver/Cheerleader, but when the abandonment fear is heightened and your attention is anxiously self-focused on loss, it’s hard to pay attention to anything else.

4s tend to be wed to the inward process. You overindulge and swim in intense feelings, personal stories, and self-absorption, hoping others will be fascinated by your subjective experience. To balance, you need to see objectively, pay attention to others, and find a balance between your inner and outer worlds. 4s can think the inner world is the true reality and not see options that could lead to more optimism and real freedom from possible illusions and suffering. Too much inner dialogue and personal drama create removal from day-to-day reality.

Depression is not unusual for 4s. All the intensity and depth and self-exploration and analysis can be too much. Short term or long term, 4s can see suffering as a way of life. Allow depressed feelings to come and go, and more positive feelings will flow as a result! If you focus too much on what’s missing, you’ll just reinforce the down tendency. Pay attention to everything equally, including the good.

To be fair, we live in a culture that tends to negatively judge intense feelings and personal expression. Often the norm is to be stoic and rational, downplaying and holding in personal emotions. 4s can also be models of courage to express joy, sadness, pain, and whatever is authentic.

Worst traits of the type include …

4s in stress can keep doing 4 traits, such as being more intense, engaging in self-pity, and all manner of attention-getting behaviors. If that doesn’t work, 4s go to the worst traits of 2, the Giver/Cheerleader, and become either extremely needy—hoping that their person of interest will attend to them—or withdraw totally. 4s also become very giving, but from their anxious, deprived place and expect the other person to be satisfied and appreciative of these attempts to give. The other person will likely feel manipulated, guilty, and unappreciative, and want to leave!

4s must balance and give from a genuine place of caring, abundance, and appreciation—the good traits of 2. Some 4s do this, and you’ll feel happy and balanced if you do. Focusing less on what you are not getting and more on what is working helps immensely. Focusing on the positive increases the positive, and is always a good remedy for the 4.

Decision-making for 4s too often results from personal reaction and perceived or imagined needs. Learn to take the big picture into account and broaden your perspective. Consider how things can affect others. Think before acting! 4s can do worst-case scenarios and crisis orientation, rather than acting in a measured way.

Decisions are important and have consequences, so if your feelings are overwhelming you, wait. At least get feedback from important friends first. Make sure there are elements in your decisions that do fit your needs for aesthetics, depth, and a dash of drama. Of course, when decisions are simple or without serious consequence, no drama there, please! Deciding what to wear or what movie to watch should not bring you to tears.

4s’ intensity is not always easily detected. If you’re in a relationship with a 4, however, you won’t miss it! 4s’ exaggeration is often for play and could easily be mistaken for another type, such as 7.

If the eyes are truly the mirror of the soul, look deeply into the eyes of the 4 and you will see depth. Also, look for beautiful, fluid hand movements. 4s also express their individuality in unique ways of dressing—black, shades of red, and purple are not unusual, as are scarves and asymmetrical or unconventional patterns in dress. 4s dress for mood and often change clothes as moods change.

Other nonverbal cues to look for include …

If you’re a 4, you can go on and on talking about relationships, your feelings, your need for more engagement and expression from others, what is lacking in others, what is missing in you, what you long for, and what you dream about. If in the throes of love, you talk about how perfect your lover is or isn’t.

You use words that stir, themes that excite or cause others to feel intense. You love to talk about life, birth, death, abandonment, reconnection, loss, closeness, the agony, and the ecstasy. You place great importance on being understood and are delighted when you are. You can also magnify slight misunderstandings. One percent misunderstanding represents 100 percent for you. Other verbal cues include …

Developed 4s have passion, depth, empathy, creativity, appreciation for differences, and support for others’ growth and uniqueness. You have an amazing aliveness, with no fear of exploring the dark side of life. You don’t over dramatize, yet spice up life and are perfect entertainers, making fun of life’s quirks and complexities, while maintaining your center. You see the irony of your own life drama and suffering and even the humor within that in a way no other type does. You can appreciate simplicity and don’t use others to satisfy your needs. You are natural givers, your hearts are open, and you are deeply compassionate.

Most 4s struggle between desiring drama with its soaring heights of emotion and the pain of daily life, the pull toward boredom, and no one meeting your ideal mate fantasies. The tendency for crisis orientation can easily exhaust you, let alone the rest of us. Most 4s need more understanding than the rest of us can give!

Undeveloped 4s are all story and self-pity, wanting to pull others on stage to act out various parts of anger, sadness, and irresponsibility. You will blame others for causing your pain and could easily attend this play for endless reruns. If this is you, notice how you are creating your own unhappiness and write a better script. Model yourself after others, who can help you out of the mire.

The 4 child uses imagination and emotions as a way to cope with discomfort, trauma, abandonment, or even happiness. The 4 is a sensitive child, experiencing sadness, loss, despair, and hopelessness, often at an early age. Major ups and downs are common—one moment very happy and another moment very sad. Life is experienced very dramatically, creating intensity and turmoil, with not much in the middle. Relationship closeness peppered with conflicts is common. 4 children need special attention for their feelings and dramas, and often parents don’t know what to do. 4 children can feel sad when friends don’t respond well or don’t understand them. The hurt can feel unbearable, and yet can also quickly reverse!

4 children often are play actors and actresses, performing for the family or community. They need costumes and makeup and they’ll act out dramatic characters with flair and romance. Children’s theater is perfect for these performers! Some young 4s are much more introverted and act out their feelings internally, rather than on stage. It’s important to encourage these 4s to talk and reveal what is happening or else have a depressed kid with no means of expressing or creating from these inner conflicts. Otherwise, acting out with anger, tantrums, or withdrawals that demand special attention, is common.

Parents of 4s feel at a loss on how to create a happy child. They become frustrated and either blame the child or long for one with a more even keel. 4 children can be fun, if you can be on stage with them a bit, enjoy the playacting, strong expression of feeling, and have the ability to relate to their moods.

4 children just want to be understood, not overly coached, changed, or controlled. They are often happy with the ups and downs of life and feel okay with sadness. Allow that to be. 4 children don’t pressure themselves to be positive or happy, and parents can learn from this. These imaginative kids can teach their parents to have a fuller range of feeling, for sure!

As a 4 parent, you can be caught up in your own life dramas and struggles, making it difficult to give your kids the attention they need and deserve. 4 parents who are not well-developed can force their children to parent them or can become angry with their kids for demanding too much attention. If the parents want as much attention as their kids, this can create major competition.

At the same time, developed 4s can be great parents. You can empathize; you’re fun, dramatic, creative, and plenty lively for any child. You teach kids to respect their inner life of thoughts and feelings and desires, as well as their outer life’s joys and struggles. You really understand both internal and external strife and listen and talk to your kids. You encourage children to feel whatever is true—pain, sadness, anger, joy—the full range of feelings.

As a 4 parent, share your own process and how you deal with feelings, moods, and changes; tell them how you manage your emotions and deal with being misunderstood. Don’t expect your non-4 children to go in your direction. Learn to be more even-toned, direct, detached, whatever your child needs. Do your self-connecting experiences on a daily level, so you can manage your own feelings and not get them entangled with your kids.

4s think about ideals—ideal romance, sex, longing, transformation, love and wanting to be loved, Valentine’s Day, moods, pain, suffering, joy, and relationships. You think about how to understand others more, and about how you aren’t understood. You feel and analyze what is going on in relationships and what could be better. You focus on what needs to be changed in you, what’s wrong with you, and how you could have a richer life. You also think about how much you enjoy yourself, rich sensual textures and colors, subtle fragrances, and visual delights. Among the other things 4s think about are the following:

What 4 adults wish they could say:

Abandonment is death. Being in love is ecstasy. Being out of love or in a relationship that’s not working is agony. Attachment is so strong and it takes a lifetime to leave a relationship. When you are described with words such as complain, dramatize, dwell, exaggerate, and indulge, it can seem like judgment. Your emotions—empathy, sadness, pain, grief, fear—are perceived, in this culture, as feminine. This can seem like a sexist bias—rationality and stoicism versus overemotionality.

You are attractive often for the same reasons you are seen as unattractive! You speak up for what you feel or want, become openly upset, sulk, demand special attention, or say what others dare not. Your need for expression or to get attention may extend beyond what most people expect. 4s take the risk to be individual and the price sometimes is high, particularly in systems that don’t support expressing feelings.

You want authenticity from others, yet at the same time, can amplify your own feelings to such a degree that they can seem inauthentic to others, and your feelings and expressions can seem staged or exaggerated. On the bright side, 4s support authenticity in others. You have a flair that makes life intriguing and engaging. One will never be bored with a 4.

4s can be empathic, particularly if others are taking a risk, have intense emotions, are struggling with a major decision, or are being honest or vulnerable. Pain is totally welcome. Passages in life, complex relationship situations, or courageous acts—all are magnets for 4s.

Joy, ecstasy, and positive feelings are also welcome, but nothing in the boring middle interests the 4. The thought of doing the same old thing day after day is worse than death! “Don’t tell me today’s boring details. I want to hear how you feel, what you want, what you would live or die for, what upsets you (unless it’s about me), what makes you cry, what you really, really want to do.”

You grow when you let go of competing for special attention and trust that the love and attention you seek are natural. You will come to what you want more easily by simply being you, both your humdrum daily self, as well as your special self. You grow when you see that your intensified thoughts and feelings might be creating much of your unwanted reality.

Managing your inner life in a more grounded way has a great deal to do with positive outcomes. Too much adrenaline from drama will blow out your system. Daily practices of meditation, journaling, yoga, or centering, can help immensely in grounding yourself and living more in the middle.

When you see that your needs do not have to take priority, it’s a welcome relief. You sometimes miss others’ needs, if they are not strongly expressed or you’re too absorbed in your own process and upsets. When you allow feelings to come and go, it’s a sign of great growth and a more stable life.

Don’t make your experience more special than others’ experiences, and you’ll be accepted even more. You’re often scared of stability, mistaking it for boredom; yet 4s long for security, ease, and fulfillment. 4s tend to see life symbolically, talking in metaphor. Growth for the 4 comes in realizing that not everything has deep meaning or is personal. Focus on self-love, appreciating what is, and what you have, as much as what you don’t.

4s often tend to move toward Type 2, the Giver/Cheerleader, to give, both from generosity, as well as from desperation and neediness if abandonment fears get kicked in from not being attended to. 4s can also move to the Growth type 1, the Perfectionist/ Reformer, to be more objective, to see the truth of just what is, and not make everything a personal story. The focus here is more on ethics and right action.

Developed 1s adhere to what is right as objective truth beyond the personal spin. They accept time-honored principles and guidelines for living. In adding the higher side of 1, 4s see that everyone struggles. You are not alone, and you can join others to live, not only the tragic and the comic, but also the joy of everyday events.

4s create beauty. You like to be surrounded by beauty, dress uniquely, and talk about beauty. You’ll decorate your apartments or homes with art or special objects—unusual arrangements of dried or fresh flowers, or black roses! 4s love color and nuance and objects that elicit special memories.

4s need to be creative to survive. Transforming painful or exhilarating feelings into beautiful objects and productions is a major focus for growth and transformations for this type. 4s teach us to put our own individual mark on reality and make it more beautiful than it was. Don’t let special moments die.

Strongly attracted to and by beauty, you love the outpouring of soul, hard work, or risk-taking that creates it. As a 4, you admire people who devote themselves to creating art and only feel satisfied if you create as well, whether in the traditional realms of music, poetry, drama, film, dance, sculpture, acting, and theater, or in the realms of teaching, counseling, social movements, and creative science.

Typically 4s are in careers and work settings that satisfy needs for individuality, creativity, and aesthetics. Their work should match up with important personal values, have special meaning, and contribute to personal happiness. Because our culture is more focused on business and money, it’s not easy to make a living from individuality and personal expression. 4s are often waiters or waitresses, part-time musicians, computer programmers, and substitute teachers, hoping for an opportunity to get on stage or be recognized. Many 4s are entrepreneurs, hoping a unique boutique, documentary film, or one-person show will succeed and pay the rent. You can find 4s working as professors, psychotherapists, and art teachers. Factory jobs or meaningless office work is out, for sure. You need to feel your individuality in any setting and don’t do well if you can’t create it—decorate your office, do projects that have meaning, have flextime. Work values have to fit personal values.

4s often struggle to find work that is personally fulfilling and lucrative. There are fewer well-paid jobs in the arts, so competition is high and many introverted 4s, not liking competition, can withdraw from the fray. Some 4s can struggle to eke out an existence.

4s are natural leaders, transforming problems into creative, beautiful, and meaningful solutions. You love to challenge people to see their world in a new way. 4s see problems as symbols for bigger issues, and work to change not just the particular issue but transform its core, as well. In organizations, it’s not just changing rules and regulations. It’s about changing the way you think and the whole purpose of what you are doing. 4 leaders support others’ individuality. No homogeneous environment or expected conformity to rules and regulations! Do what is new or different or relates to your personal values.

4s can have radically different subcategories within the type. The 4 with a 3 wing is success-driven and is often mistyped for a 3. It’s easier to be a 3 in this culture than a 4—business people are more rewarded than artists! The 4 with a 5 wing is more introverted, analytical, and inwardly directed.

Wings for the 4 include the 4 with a 3 wing (4/3) and the 4 with a 5 wing (⅘):

There are three Instinctual subtypes for the 4:

The Least You Need to Know