Dreams and acting out

Dreams can be used as containers that free patients from increased tension. This may be the principal function of certain types of dreams, called "evacuative dreams." They are dreams used for getting rid of unbearable affects and unconscious fantasies, or as a safety valve for partial discharge of instinctual drives. These dreams are observed primarily in borderline and psychotic patients, but can also be seen in the regressive states of neurotic patients during weekends and other periods of separation. Such dreams have to be differentiated from "elaborative dreams," which have a working-through function and stand in an inverse relationship to acting out: the greater the production of elaborative dreams, the less the tendency to act out, and vice versa.     

From acting out to verbalization

This paper examines acting out phenomena through different theoretical perspectives from the past to the present. Using case examples of child and adult patients, the author demonstrates how acting out can be viewed as an opportunity to observe what was pre-verbal and repressed in a patient's life history. Symbolism is seen as the bridge between action and language as well as between patient and therapist.     

Adolescent acting out when a parent has cancer

The psychological stresses which cancer exerts on a family system can be immense, both situationally and developmentally. These stresses can be unusually intense for the adolescent who has a parent ill with cancer. They can impact upon the adolescent in overt ways, such as increased household or child care duties, or in more covert ways such as in subtle role shifts in the relationship between the adolescent and both the ill and the well parent. The covert role shifts are especially thought to promote acting out and potential decompensation on the part of the adolescent. The acting out can have system-defecting and system-unifying properties, with the decompensation secondary to unbearable role shifts that reintensify the adolescent emotional contact with parents in the midst of a developmental process of separation. General clinical intervention points are suggested to reduce the crisis and ameliorate the negative developmental potential.1979, Fall     

Sex differences in acting out chronic undifferentiated schizophrenics

29 male and 21 female chronic undifferentiated schizophrenics were classified as aggressive or nonaggressive on items of a behaviorally anchored checklist completed by ward personnel plus adjunctive measures of behavior during institutionalization. Women were rated as significantly more aggressive than men. The women engaged in more hostile acts, destroyed more property, were more verbally abusive, and were more uncooperative with staff and other patients than men. The results are discussed in terms of possible sex differences in diagnosis, severity of symptoms, age of onset, and admission/discharge practices.     

Adolescent acting out when a parent has cancer

The psychological stresses which cancer exerts on a family system can be immense, both situationally and developmentally. These stresses can be unusually intense for the adolescent who has a parent ill with cancer. They can impact upon the adolescent in overt ways, such as increased household or child care duties, or in more covert ways such as in subtle role shifts in the relationship between the adolescent and both the ill and the well parent. The covert role shifts are especially thought to promote acting out and potential decompensation on the part of the adolescent. The acting out can have system-defecting and sytem-unifying properties, with the decompensation secondary to unbearable role shifts that reintensify the adolescent emotional contact with parents in the midst of a developmental process of separation. General clinical intervention points are suggested to reduce the crisis and ameliorate the negative developmental potential.