Blum reviews the relationship between acting out and the psychoanalytic process, focusing on the goal of psychoanalytic interpretation in acting out. He restricts the terms "acting out" and "acting in" to the analytic situation. Acting out is always a compromise, just as symptoms are; it functions not only as a resistance but also as a communication. In a successful analysis, previous forms of acting out will be brought into the transference and will eventually be translated into verbal memories, thus leading to a strengthening of the ego. Acting out provides certain kinds of information which are not available in any other way. Blum differentiates