“We know that words do not restrain or

substitute for action; they are actions”

(Greenberg, 1996, p.201)

From Action .....

The concept of action has long been of interest to psychoanalysis and has always been a typical concern of psychoanalytic method and theory (Bohleber et al., 2013, pp.505-506). Essentially, psychoanalysis itself stems from the psychological aspect of the symptom and of resistance rather than their enacted dimension. The enacted dimension is considered to be an avoidance of the affective configurations on which psychoanalysis bases the genesis of psychopathology and of mental organization. Following this line of thought — and in continuity with the position on hypnosis — abreaction could be seen as the counter-enacted solution of the symptom of hysteria. The tendency of early psychoanalysis was to interpret the compromise of the symptom as an interlacing of drives and repression: for example in the "slips of the tongue" present in dreams, in neurotic symptoms and in everyday life.

   So far, however, action is in the nature of a symptom and can therefore be interpreted while, in the Postscript to Dora’s case (Freud, 1905), action is no longer a symptom, but is connected to transference and therefore to resistance. It can no longer be interpreted by itself, but becomes a signal of "impediment" to the analytic process (Freud, 1914). Therefore it should not be interpreted (as in the case of a symptom), but overcome. With Dora, we come to the concept of "acting-out" seen as being symmetrical to Freud's theses on "thought"¹. Therefore Dora «(...) acted out an essential part of her recollections and phantasies instead of reproducing it in the treatment» (Freud, 1905, p.119, italics in original). Thus, acting-out is a resistance that blocks the sufficient frustration due to the integration of new experiences, and is based on the compulsion to repeat what we call the symptom. In these cases Freud uses the word ‘Agieren’, wanting to underline the theatricality of the act and the transitive dimension, though in German  ‘Agieren’ is not in common use. In general, when referring to action or acting, the words ‘die Tat’, ‘tun’, ‘die Wirkung’ are used. In Freud ‘Agieren’ is usually associated with ‘erinnern’, ‘to remember’ (Laplanche, Pontalis, 1967). In the same period, Freud (1901) spoke of ‘handeln’ (to act) to describe mistakes or slips that could be understood by attributing an unconscious meaning to them.

   From this moment on, there arises the problem of the distinction between ‘acting-out’ and ‘acting-in’, which, in psychodynamic and also psychoanalytic terms, seeks to distinguish between acts performed inside or outside the analysis room. In reality there are numerous reasons to consider this difference inaccurate or in any case pointless (Laplanche, Pontalis, 1967). What would be the sense of carrying out an action, inside or outside the analysis room, if the relationship between analyst and patient as well as the concept of analytical field cannot be confined to the concrete situation of the analysis room? In actual fact, the concept of ‘acting-in’ was proposed in 1957 by Zeligs to describe the unconscious conflicts expressed through the body posture of a patient on the couch (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1967; Skelton, 2006).

   Moreover, it is indicative that  the concept of enactment is generally related «to all manner of interaction between patient and analyst, and specifically to the nonverbal gestural and postural components of the patient's communications» (McLaughlin 1991, p.596, italics added). An intermediate position, I think, is the one suggested by Sandler, Holder and Dare (1973) who speak of "acting-in" as enactment in the transference and no longer within the setting.

   However, as far as I am concerned, the important distinction is not whether an action happens inside or outside the analysis room, but that something is presented in action — as acted-out or even acted-in — rather than remembered or verbalized. I would also like to point out that  in Freud’s opinion, at the beginning, an action was not only to be understood as resistance but, repeated in the transference, regarded as a particular type of unconscious communication (for example Dora’s "symptomatic actions" in repeatedly touching her handbag during sessions ...). What is more, the symptomatic action has meaning only in the hic et nunc of the session: «Though on the other hand the existence of such an origin and the meaning attributed to the act cannot be conclusively established. We must content ourselves with recording the fact that such a meaning fits in quite extraordinarily well with the situation as a whole and with the order of the day as laid down by the unconscious» (Freud, 1905, p.77, see also Freud, 1925, p.47). Dora’s case, I think, is a watershed in Freud’s consideration of the communicative function of action. In fact, in some ways Freud perceives the unconscious communicative function of the action (for example symptomatic action, as also occurs in the same period in  The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 1901), while he fails to interpret in time other actions such as the "revenge" enacted by Dora by identifying him, in the transference, with Herr K: «(…) the transference took me unawares, and (…) she took her revenge on me as she wanted to take her revenge on him, and deserted me as she believed herself to have been deceived and deserted by him» (Freud, 1905, p.119). At a certain point Freud stops interpreting the action  when it becomes clear that the transference reference is the analyst himself. He stops interpreting the communication enacted through the act, but he perceives it as resistance (obstacle) to be overcome. For Freud (1914) the transference itself was an acting-out: the patient repeats rather than remembering. In view of the importance that we attribute today to countertransference and enactment, it is rather like recuperating the relational meaning that, at a certain point, Freud himself suspected in the acting-out. Freud came to consider acting-out only as resistance and transference of the patient towards the analyst: «(…) it need make no difference to him whether he has to overcome any particular impulse of the patient's in connection with himself or with some one else» (Freud, 1905, p.117). However, he recognizes and describes the analyst's symmetrical, subjective enacted participation, but fails to bring it back into the analytic communication. Some examples from the Postscript indicate that Freud showed surprise, disappointment, pride, resentment, curiosity: «the transference took me unawares» (Freud, 1905, p.119); «not until fifteen months after … I had news of my patient's condition»  (Freud, 1905, p.120); «One glance at her face, however, was enough to tell me that she was not in earnest over her request» (Freud, 1905,  p.121); «(…) I promised to forgive her for having deprived me of the satisfaction of affording her a far more radical cure for her troubles» (Freud, 1905,  p.122). I view all these considerations by Freud as counteractions that  fail to be used as "action-dialogue" (Beebe and Lachmann, 2013), remaining in the dimension of simple acting on the part of the analyst.

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