ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter will be on action and enactment in therapy sessions in the context of previous trauma. Firstly, trauma will be outlined, before considering the potentially confusing use of different terms to do with enactment. My interest is in moments when we might act out aspects of the countertransference rather than stay with a re¯ective attitude. This could be thought about in terms of projective identi®cation or the acting out or actualisation of intra-psychic and inter-psychic dynamics, inner ®gures, parts of the patient's and therapist's inner worlds. The notion of action ± making a move ± could encompass `moments of meeting': what they have in common with enactments is that the therapist comes out of their usual professional role for a moment. How may these apparently different therapeutic phenomena be aligned or connected?
