Psychology Roots
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Acting Out
- the behavioral expression of emotions that serves to relieve tension associated with these emotions or
to communicate them in a disguised, or indirect, way to others. Such behaviors may include arguing, fighting, stealing, threatening, or throwing tantrums. - in psychoanalytic theory, the reenactment of past events as an expression of unconscious emotional conflicts, feelings, or desires—often sexual or aggressive—with no conscious awareness of the origin or meaning of these behaviors.
