The Play Within the Play: The Enacted Dimension of Psychoanalytic Process

In The Play within the Play: The Enacted Dimension of Psychoanalytic Process Gil Katz presents and illustrates the "enacted dimension of psychoanalytic process." He clarifies that enactment is not simply an overt event but an unconscious, continuously evolving, dynamically meaningful process.Using clinical examples, including several extended case reports, Gil Katz demonstrates how in all treatments, a new version of the patient’s early conflicts, traumas, and formative object relationships is inevitably created, without awareness or intent, in the here-and-now of the analytic dyad. Within the enacted dimension, repressed or dissociated aspects of the patient’s past are not just remembered, they are re-lived. Katz shows how, when the enacted dimension becomes conscious, it forms the basis for genuine and transforming experiential insight.

About the Author

Gil Katz is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology, Faculty Member, and Supervising Analyst at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, where he also chairs the Faculty and Curriculum Committee of the Contemporary Freudian Track. He is a Faculty Member and Fellow (Training and Supervising Analyst) at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR), where he has also served as Dean of Training. Dr. Katz teaches courses on enacted processes in psychoanalytic treatment at both institutes.