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The [[terms ]] "act" and "action" are related, both referring to a [[form ]] of [[behavior ]] (motor, [[verbal]], etc.) intended to modify the [[environment]], either to avoid a [[danger ]] or [[unpleasure]], or to [[satisfy ]] a [[need ]] or [[desire]]. The term "act," however, refers primarily to this [[event ]] in its uniqueness and effectiveness, whereas "action" designates both a [[process]], which can be more or less [[complex ]] and durable, and the result of that process. These definitions are not [[psychoanalytic ]] in themselves, and there is no coherent [[body ]] of [[thought ]] in [[psychoanalysis ]] concerning [[them]], in spite of the rather fragmentary references found in [[Freud ]] and subsequent attempts to give these [[concepts ]] a [[theoretical ]] status.

The first psychoanalytic use of the term by Freud is probably his reference to "specific action," that is, the behavior that results in the [[satisfaction ]] of a need (Manuscript E, 1894, and "[[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology]]," 1895, in 1950a). This [[idea]], which he returned to only intermittently, may seem narrowly behaviorist. However, even in these early works, Freud gives the term an entirely different [[dimension]]. He writes that since the [[infant ]] is incapable of [[satisfying ]] its own [[needs]], "specific action" by [[another ]] person is needed, and he elaborates on what he considers essential to the process: "If the satisfaction of the need is not [[satisfied ]] in this way, it is manifested as desire through hallucina-tory satisfaction. But the [[impossibility ]] of maintaining this [[hallucinatory ]] satisfaction in the face of the persistence of the need gives rise to the [[representation]]; the [[object ]] is [[born]], within the movement of [[desire, ]] from its [[presence]]-[[absence]]." A preliminary version of these [[ideas ]] is found in the following comment by Freud that appears in the "Project": "The initial [[helplessness ]] of [[human ]] beings is the [[primal ]] source of all [[moral ]] motives."

Freud would [[return ]] to and develop these ideas in his "Formulations on the Two Principles of [[Mental ]] Functioning" (1911b), where he attempts to show that, whenever the [[reality ]] [[principle ]] gets the upper hand of the [[pleasure ]] principle, "motor [[discharge ]] was now employed in the appropriate alternation of reality; it was converted into action. Restraint upon motor discharge (upon action) which then became necessary, was provided by means of the process of [[thinking]], which was developed from the presentation of ideas"(1911b, p. 221).

This idea, whereby thought is a suspension of adaptive perceptual-motor [[activity]], a "trial activity" involving representations, was in fact familiar to a [[number ]] of authors at the beginning of the twentieth century, as has been shown by Henri Wallon (1942). It was discussed at greater length by Freud in the last part of [[Totem ]] and [[Taboo ]] (1912-13a), which he concludes with this quote from [[Goethe]]: "In the beginning was the deed."

Although the topic was not fully developed by Freud, the terms "act" and "action" appear frequently in his writings, whether he is discussing failed [[acts]], compulsive acts, [[symptoms]], [[repetitive ]] acts (1914g), the suspension of motor activity during [[dreams]], etc. The [[prohibition ]] against action within the [[analytic ]] [[situation ]] stimulated, both during Freud's lifetime and after, a number of reflections on the infractions constituted by actings.

Since Freud's day, there have been many attempts to [[understand ]] these issues. Heinz Kohut advanced the [[concept ]] of "action-thought," a [[concrete ]] thought process halfway between action and thought. Roy Schafer (1976) attempted to refine [[metapsychology ]] in terms of the actions that constituted thought acts. Daniel Widlöcher (1986) attempted to reformulate it in terms of "[[unconscious ]] presentations of actions" that generate thought actions.

Throughout these approaches the reference to impulse is vague or explicitly eliminated. However, there are no benefits to this. To understand the problem of action and its [[relationship ]] with mental activity, we must take account of representation and [[fantasy]]. If "in the beginning was the deed," (from Goethe's Faust, part I, [[scene ]] 3, quoted by Freud in 1912-13a, p. 161) this indeed involves [[understanding ]] the [[development ]] and functioning of [[psychic ]] activity within two closely related points of view: representations and [[symbolization ]] [[processes ]] that terminate in secondary thought, and the organization of fantasy, where [[fantasies ]] can be considered to be "representations of actions" (PerronBorelli, 1997; Perron-Borelli, and Perron, 1997).

See also: [[Acting out]]/acting in; Action-thought (H. Kohut); [[Reality principle]]; Specific action; [[Totem and Taboo]].[[Bibliography]]

Further [[Reading]]