Acting out [3]

In The Language of Psychoanalysis, Laplanche and Pontalis devote two entries to acting out, attempting to indicate the great theoretical problems posed by this concept and the ambiguities noticeable in all writing that dealt with it, not excluding Freud's. English and English, in their Dictionary, consider that transference and acting out are the same thing. The metapsychological model of acting out for Lagache is the parade, that is, a representation of unconscious fantasies or memories through acts that allow what they hide to be revealed. In opposition to the parade of acting out, Lagache proposes the true action, which realizes the objective and rational intentions that mark the relation between the agent and his action. The metapsychological specificity of acting out should be sought in the intentions with which that action is carried out—and therefore the objectives that are being pursued.