ABSTRACT
Ever since Boesky revised the concept of "acting out" as that of actions reflecting an attempt at actualization and expressing the psychic reality of the transference, the term "enactment" freeing from the pejorative meaning associated with that earlier Freudian concept. While enactment involves the interactive, the imagistic, and is a continuous aspect of the analytic interchange, it is also a discrete event, having a definable impact on the analytic dialogue. Enactments may occur in sequence, where one member of the dyad follows the other with an enactment. Applied to the study of transformation cycles, it may well be that enactments play a special role in the transition from a state of desymbolization to that of symbolization. When enactments are apprehended by both participants, they offer an opportunity for a deepening engagement in the analytic process. In a counter-enactment the analyst, unable to contain the patient's challenge, also withdrew from her patient through a loss of her analytic stance.
