FROM CONCRETIZING THROUGH ACTING-OUT TO D IFFERENTIATION

This essay discusses and illustrates the phenomenon of concretizing th rough acting out. It describes how acting out may express, in a concre te manner, traumatic experiences from the past - experiences from the lives of others who have denied these experiences, which are therefore not represented on the phantasy level. The concept is developed on th e basis of the treatment of a young man who acted out in analysis viol ent destructive affects both against himself and the analyst. In this acting out, his identification with various roles of his persecuted fa mily, which had been denied, found its expression. His psychotic episo des were shaped through his unconscious ambivalence with his inner fat her-objects whom he wanted at the same time to cure and to kill.