A particular kind of action defined by its disruptive and even criminal character. Whether the aggression characterizing such an act is directed at the self or at others, it is generally considered psychopathological. In "passage to the act" it is the idea of "passage" that is important, for it refers to the relationship between the act and the supposed mental process that prepares for and facilitates it.

The French term passageà l'acte was borrowed by psychoanalysis from psychiatry and criminology. It is important that this notion not be confused with that of acting-out/acting-in, which should be limited to the framework of the treatment and the dynamics of the transference. More generally speaking, passage to the act, like inhibited action and procrastination, raises the issue of the connection between thought and action. Freud emphasized on several occasions how one could be substituted for the other. In obsessions, for...