Enactments: An Evolving Dyadic Concept of Acting Out

Acting out seeks to communicate unconscious urges and important childhood experiences, yet can present as a resistance to insight. Mutual and interacting regressive transferences stimulate acting-out behaviors that have led to the concepts of actualization and enactment. An enactment is an unconscious but interpersonal communication, in which gestures and body language play a unique role. Initially an enactment may include a component of the therapist’s reciprocal behavior as a precursor to fuller dynamic understanding and eventual definitive interpretation.