Enneatype 4 – Envy

Envy is the passion to control and calibrate one's own existence by comparing it to another's. The meaning of existence depends largely on the level of what is lacking and frustration regarding what is perceived as desirable in others.

The desire to have what the other has is not a desire whose goal is to obtain precisely what the other has, but rather the only possibility of being in relationship with him: "as long as I am lacking, I have the possibility of being with you and in the world." Being dependent on the other or on his qualities gives E4 the illusion that through lack he will be able to escape from the ineluctable separation. The false lack is its fixation.

He is very much in touch with his desire to be loved and recognized, and idealizes this realization in such a totalizing way that nothing can satisfy him. This paradoxical search for unhappiness is like a home always on, waiting for someone who has left to come back.

To be passionate envious means, in a way, to be eternal children with the demanding gaze directed towards the other. But since envy is a neurotic need, the goal is to always maintain the state of expectation and lack.

It is quite common that in the childhood life of an E4 there has been a real experience of frustration and loss: typical events could be the loss of one of the parents, the presence of a sibling perceived as privileged (or who occupied an important position due to the need for special cures), or a family situation in which the E4 has felt that he had to step aside and give up a paradise that he had already tasted.

In the relationship with others, he perceives himself as inadequate, guilty, and submits to relationships of abuse and prevarication in order to reconfirm his position as a victim.

He is very emotional and empathic with the suffering of others, empathy whose function is to underline his own suffering.

He is very dedicated to the relationship and is always ready to sacrifice. Dedication to the other is not intended to adapt to it, but tends to reconquer an omnipotent position of sacrificial victim.

Most of the time the seductive call (especially in the social subtype) is that of the fascinating whiny mermaid that stimulates in the other the need for protection and to be narcissistically powerful.

Unexpressed aggressiveness (except for the sexual subtype) produces retroflection at the body level, even reaching self-harm; the body itself is used as a channel to draw the attention of the other, expressing deep needs through suffering or disease.

In the sexual subtype, the expression of envy assumes different characteristics: crying is replaced by screaming and aggressive claiming. The demand to fill its deep lack is arrogant, reaching the point of destroying or hating the one it loves when it shows itself with its human limits and, therefore, not at the height of its great idealizations.