Acting out can be looked upon as one ofthe defense mechanisms by which the unconscious protects itself against beinguncovered by the ego. In therapy acting out can be viewed as one of theborderline defenses. Based on the Vaillant classification, this defensemechanism is part of the Immature Defenses category.
Acting Out Defense MechanismExplanation
There are manypossible definitions of "acting out". In brief, you may define that asparticular behavior, leading to the actions instead of experiencing thecorresponding feeling. In the broadest sense, we talk about acting out when a personunconsciously uses action or any non-verbal communication or psychosomaticsymptom instead of getting in touch with his true feelings, instead ofacknowledging to himself and putting into words what he really feels andexperiences inside himself.
Therefore, actingout is performing an extreme behavior in order to express thoughts or feelingsthe person feels incapable of otherwise expressing. Instead of saying, “I’mangry with you,” a person who acts out may instead throw a book at the person,or punch a hole through a wall. When a person acts out, it can act as apressure release, and often helps the individual feel calmer and peaceful onceagain. For instance, a child’s temper tantrum is a form of acting out when heor she does not get his or her way with a parent.
Acting out isa hidden manifestation of destructive anger. Perhaps the most dangerous form ofdestructive anger is one, that is not experienced as anger or any feeling atall, but is acted out instead. The repressed, unrecognized, destructive angercan turn also against the self and appear in many different guises. Self-injurymay also be a form of acting-out, expressing in physical pain what one cannotstand to feel emotionally. The person might suffer from psychosomatic symptoms,become accident-prone, attempt suicide, or commit unconscious acts ofself-sabotage or destruction in relationships, in his work, and so on.
In a way, “Actingout” literally means acting out the desires that are forbidden by the Super egoand yet desired by the Id. We thus cope with the pressure to do what we believeis wrong by giving in to the desire.
A person whois acting out desires may do it in spite of their conscience or may do it withrelatively little thought. Thus, the act may be being deliberately bad or maybe thoughtless wrongdoing.
Where theperson knows that they are doing wrong, they may seek to protect themselvesfrom society's eyes by hiding their action. They may also later fall into usingother coping mechanisms such as Denial to protect themselves from feelings ofshame.
More on Definition
Under Freudian/psychoanalytic terms "actingout" is seen as a dichotomy between the conscious and the unconsciouswanting to both send out a repressed message.
In psychoanalysis, the term "acting out" hasmisconceptions related to it. People have given the term the broader meaning ofsomeone throwing a tantrum, or verbally expressing pent up emotion. In reality,Freudian psychoanalysis specifies that acting out is much more subtle thanthat: the client who acts out clearly unconsciously expresses a repressed,unremembered something with actions rather than with inaccessible words, andsuch actions are intrinsically woven within the psychoanalytical situation. Inpsychoanalysis, acting out has a lot of communicative potential because itsends signs that will indicate to a therapist the client's repressed,unrecallable memories.
Freud first used the term in 1914 in "Remembering,Repeating, and Working-Through". As Freud defines it, acting out is whenpatients cannot access repressed memories that motivate unconscious behaviorsthat "symbolically dramatize the past in order not to rememberit". Acting out during therapy, as described by Freud, includes suchthings as behaving toward the therapist as they behaved toward parents, havingdisturbing dreams and associations, complaining of lack of success because of achildhood "deadlock" in the Oedipal stage, etc. Therapists mightalso, perhaps simplistically and erroneously, suggest acting out pertains toall the changes in affect and gesture that the patient goes through as he orshe talks about themselves.
These include:
* Intonation changes
* Facial expressions
* Eye movement
* Change in tone of voice(volume)
* Imitation (remembering amother's shrieking voice and repeating it)
* Body language-use ofhands and excited speech, or withdrawn
Acting out is different from "acting in," whichoccurs outside the bounds of therapy sessions, for example in work or lovedecisions. Acting out it consists of unconscious messages expressed throughbehavior in the therapy transference relationship.
Example
A good examplewould be an overworked and underpaid worker who slaved all night to finish aproject and when he placed it on his boss’s desk, the only thing his taskmasterhad to say was “Well, it’s about time!” On his way back to his desk, the workermutters under his breath “That SOB!.” He then enters the washroom and begins towash his hands. He washes, and washes…and washes. He washes until his handsturn red and blister, but he continues to wash. He is not aware of it, but heseems to engage in this compulsion whenever he feels bad inside for thinkingill about another. That is not right, after all. On the one hand, he wants totell his boss where to go. On the other hand, he’s grateful to have a job and hehas been taught well that bearing ill feelings toward another is the work ofthe Devil. He feels so unclean when he “slips” and says those hateful thingsunder his breath. His compulsion is an instance of displaying through an actionthe conflict that rages within him. It helps relieve the anxiety he feels tosome degree, but it does not really solve the problem. Yet it gives him enoughrelief that he does this over and over again in similar situations, with noinsight into the “dynamics” of the situation.
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