ACTING OUT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Acting out

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/ˈæktɪŋ aʊt/ Listen

Acting out

noun

A (usually irritating) impulsive and uncontrollable outburst by a problem child or a neurotic adult.

(psychiatry) the display of previously inhibited emotions (often in actions rather than words); considered to be healthy and therapeutic.

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Etymology of 'Acting out'

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"Acting out" Quotes from Famous Books

... before entering the building. He declined to hold weekly receptions, as had been the custom when Washington and Adams were Presidents, but instead he opened his house to all on the Fourth of July, and on New Year's Day. In these ways he was acting out his belief that the President should be ...

— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... attention to literature, making up endless stories with which he terrified himself, telling them to himself in a low voice for hours after he had got into bed. Sometimes he would write out these stories and read them to his father after supper, standing up between the folding doors of the library, acting out the whole narrative with furious gestures. Once he even wrote a little poem which seriously disturbed the Old Gentleman, filling him with formless ideas and vague hopes ...

— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

Words linked to "Acting out" : ebullition, psychopathology, effusion, outburst, psychiatry, gush, display, psychological medicine, blowup