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==Origin of the Term==
The phrase "[[passage to the act]]" comes from [[French]] [[clinic]]al [[psychiatry]], which uses it to designate those impulsive [[acts]], of a violent or criminal [[nature]], which sometimes mark the onset of an acute [[psychotic]] episode. As the phrase itself indicates, these [[act]]s are supposed to mark the point when the [[subject]] proceeds from a violent [[idea]] or [[intention]] to the corresponding [[act]]. Because these acts are attributed to the [[action]] of the [[psychosis]], French law absolves the perpetrator of civil [[responsibility]] for [[them]].<ref>Chemama, Roland (ed.) (1993) ''Dictionnaire de la [[Psychanalyse]]. Dictionnaire actuel des signifiants, [[concepts]] et mathèmes de la psychanalyse'', [[Paris]]: Larousse. p.41</ref>
==Jacques Lacan==
===Passage to the Act and Acting Out===
As [[psychoanalytic theory|psychoanalytic ideas]] gained wider [[circulation]] in [[France]] in the first half of the twentieth century, it became common for [[French]] [[analyst]]s to use the term ''[[passage à l'acte]]'' to translate the term ''[[Passage to the act|Agieren]]'' used by [[Freud]]: i.e. as a synonym for [[acting out]]. However, in his [[seminar]] of 1962-3, [[Lacan]] establishes a [[distinction]] between these [[terms]]. While both are last resorts against [[anxiety]], the [[subject]] who [[acting out|acts something out]] still remains in the [[scene]], whereas a [[passage to the act]] involves an exit from the [[scene]] altogether.
===Exit from the Symbolic Order===
[[Acting out]] is a [[symbolic]] [[message]] addressed to the [[big Other]], whereas a [[passage to the act]] is a flight from the [[Other]] into the [[dimension]] of the [[real]]. The [[passage to the act]] is thus an exit from the [[symbolic order|symbolic nework]], a [[dissolution]] of the [[social]] bond. Although the [[passage to the act]] does not, according to [[Lacan]], necessarily imply an underlying [[psychosis]], it does entail a dissolution of the [[subject]]; for a [[moment]], the [[subject]] becomes a pure [[object]].
==Example==
In [[order]] to illustrate what he means, [[Lacan]] refers to the [[case]] of the young [[homosexual]] woman treated by [[Freud]].<ref>{{F}} (1920a) "The Psychogenesis of a Case of [[Female]] [[Homosexuality]]", [[SE]] XVIII, 147.</ref> [[Freud]] reports that the young [[women]] was [[walking]] in the street with the woman she loved when she was spotted by her father, who cast an angry glance at her. Immediately afterwards, she rushed off and threw herself over a wall down the side of a cutting onto a railway line. [[Lacan]] argues that this [[suicide]] attempt was a [[passage to the act]]; it was not a [[message]] addressed to anyone, since [[symbolic|symbolization]] had become [[impossible]] for the young [[woman]]. Confronted with her [[father]]'s [[desire]], she was consumed with an uncontrollable [[anxiety]] and reacted in an impulsive way by [[identification|identifying]] with the [[object]]. Thus she fell down ([[Ger]]. ''niederkommt'') like the ''[[objet petit a]]'', the leftover of [[signification]].<ref>{{L}} (1962-3) ''[[Seminar X|Le Séminaire. Livre X. L'angoisse, 1962-63]]'', unpublished. Seminar of 16 January 1963.</ref>
==See Also==
{{See}}
* [[Act]]
* [[Acting out]]
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* [[Anxiety]]
* [[Object]]
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* [[Other]]
* [[Psychosis]]
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* [[Subject]]
* [[Woman]]
{{Also}}
==References==
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[[Category:Practice]]
[[Category:Treatment]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Slavoj Žižek]]
[[Category:Dictionary]]
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