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Definition. The term acting out, noun form of the verb «to act out», is a translation of the German verb agieren (to act). Freud uses this term, which is not the most common form in German, to describe a type of resistance that occurs in analytic treatment when, instead of recalling a significant past event and putting it into words, the patient expresses it in his/her behaviour, acting it out. Freud uses agieren as both verb and noun, and often also in its transitive form - similarly to the way in which he uses abreagieren, which shares the same root and means «to discharge»
Semantically, the term acting out also refers to both a theatrical representation (to act a part) and the externalization of an act, and its rapid accomplishment, as indicated by the preposition out.
The origins of the term acting out may therefore be found within the psychoanalytic domain - and, more precisely, in clinical psychoanalysis. Over time, the term has left this particular niche and spread to all psychiatric language to describe uncontrolled behaviour or an impulsive action. What characterises acted out behaviour is a lack of consideration in the subject, and a degree of indifference to the consequences that these actions may entail - consequences which at times prove dangerous for both others and the subject. When acting out, the subject acts before thinking, or without thinking: in his/her actions, acting out replaces thought and its articulation into words.
The propensity to act impulsively, due to an inability to make use of the mediating power of thought and words, is a typical trait in certain personality disorders; however an «acted out» expression of emotional states through behaviour, rather than verbalization, may occur episodically to anyone, particularly during adolescence, in which modes of expression through gestures and actions are almost physiological.
It is important to note that the expression acting out does not so much carry a spatial indication - an external «out» in