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In the last few decades, the word enactment has dominated our analytic literature. However, as it has been used by more and more of us in our
study groups, case conferences, journals, and supervision, it is a word that has come to mean “just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”1 To some, it has the same meaning as acting out. To others, it means either the transference or the countertransference or both … or neither. Some consider it a problem in the analytic process; others consider it an asset in the analytic process; and some use it as a justification for lapses in analytic technique (ethical or otherwise).
Gil Katz has done us a service by explicating, elaborating on, and delimiting what he calls “the enacted dimension of psychoanalytic process.” As I find myself in agreement with Katz's ideas as expressed in this short, but highly readable and worthwhile book, it is best to use his own words to review some of the major ideas he articulates so well. He comes to the following conclusions:
An enacted process [is] the actualization of unconscious transference and countertransference fantasies. … [It] is inherently neither beneficial nor problematic. It is an inevitable part of analytic process, and as it is with the conscious verbal manifestations of transference and countertransference, the key factor is whether and how it is treated and used analytically once it becomes conscious. [p. 31]
Riffing on a line made popular in a John Lennon song, “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans,” he points out that “enactments are what happen to you while you are doing psychoanalysis” (p. 66). He emphasizes:
Simply put, enactments are not technical procedures. Technique is what we consciously, intentionally strive to do. An enactment is an unconscious transference-countertransference process. To put it another way, enactments are a descriptive part of analytic process, not a prescriptive component of analytic technique. [p.66, italics in or