Across the depth-psychology corpus, ‘action’ occupies a contested and multi-layered position that refuses reduction to mere overt behavior. The term is pulled simultaneously toward existential, somatic, phenomenological, and ethical registers. Yalom and Wheelis insist that genuine personality change is impossible without action that extends the self beyond itself into the interpersonal and physical world — thought alone, however energetically consumed, does not suffice. Janet’s hierarchical theory of action tendencies, elaborated extensively by Van der Hart and colleagues, situates action within a developmental spectrum from primitive reflex to progressive, integrative mental acts, making the capacity for higher-order action a direct index of psychological health and the measure of traumatic fixation. In ACT-informed frameworks, Harris redefines action as ‘committed action’ — values-guided, flexible behavior that encompasses both overt and covert dimensions. Simondon approaches action through ontogenesis, arguing that action is contemporaneous with individuation itself, dissolving the boundary between perceiving and acting subjects. Hillman, by contrast, warns against the soul’s flight into hyperactivity as avoidance of reflection, insisting that psychologizing is itself an action. The Stoic tradition, via Inwood, grounds action in rational assent and impulse, making human action coextensive with moral responsibility. Together, these voices frame action as the meeting point of will, value, embodiment, and self-constitution.
Therapy can bring about personality change only in so far as it leads a patient to adopt a new mode of behavior. A real change occurring in the absence of action is a practical and theoretical impossibility.
Yalom, citing Wheelis, argues that action — defined as behavior that extends the self into the external world — is the irreducible condition of any genuine therapeutic transformation.
, Existential Psychotherapy, 1980thesis
Committed action means taking effective action, guided and motivated by values. This includes physical action (overt behavior) and psychological action (covert behavior). Committed action implies flexible action: readily adapting to the challenges of the situation.
Harris defines committed action as the values-guided, flexible engagement with both overt and covert behavior that constitutes the action pillar of ACT.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009thesis
Sometimes we act in order not to see. I may well be actively doing and taking part in order to avoid knowing what my soul is doing and what interior person has a stake in the action.
Hillman argues that hyperactivity can serve as a defense against psychological reflection, but insists that action and idea are not inherently opposed — psychologizing itself is an action of the soul.
, Re-Visioning Psychology, 1975thesis
The perceiving being is the same as the acting being: action begins with a resolution of the problems of perception; action is the solution to the problems of the mutual coherence of perceptive universes.
Simondon dissolves the subject/world boundary by grounding action in the process of individuation itself, making action contemporaneous with the resolution of perceptual incompatibilities.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
The hierarchy begins with the most simple and automatic actions that commonly emerge from one action system. It ends with the most difficult and creative ones that integrate many action systems.
Van der Hart presents Janet’s hierarchy of action tendencies as the structural framework for assessing traumatic fixation and the path toward psychological integration.
, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentthesis
Rational action, assented action, human action, and responsible action emerge as coextensive terms… In general, anything caused by an impulse will be an action. Thus refraining will sometimes count as an action.
Inwood reconstructs the Stoic theory in which action is defined by rational assent to impulse, making moral responsibility and the scope of action coextensive.
, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, 1985thesis
A complete lack of mental efficiency results in disorganized movement rather than an effort to achieve a goal through purposeful action… epileptic patients expend energy in undirected agitations when they have a seizure.
Van der Hart distinguishes purposeful action from disorganized movement, framing the failure of action as a collapse of mental efficiency that characterizes traumatic states.
, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
Physical and mental actions range from the most primitive, reflexive, and elementary to the complex and sophisticated actions that require a large degree of integrative capacity.
Ogden, drawing on Janet, articulates action as a developmental spectrum in which increasingly complex actions depend on growing integrative capacity, with trauma interrupting this progression.
, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, 2006supporting
Specific perception–motor action cycles — what we perceive, think, feel, and do — are organized and limited by the constraints of the action system(s) of which they are a part.
Van der Hart frames action within perception-motor cycles organized by action systems, arguing that dissociative parts engage in cycles that are inappropriate to current reality.
, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
Action, therefore, begins at the level of thinking, and the purpose of meditation is to control action at the source. Vikarma is wrong action. Any action which is born of anger, fear, or greed is vikarma.
Easwaran draws on the Gita to locate the origin of action in thought and intention, classifying action by its motivational source as either dharmic or vikarma.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting
The psychology of action, whether it be rational or irrational action, centres on the concept of impulse… The action of rational, morally responsible agents is not only more complex and philosophically interesting; it is also the sort of action which matters most in ethics.
Inwood identifies impulse as the psychological center of Stoic action theory, noting that the ethical priority given to rational action shaped the Stoics’ own psychological investigations.
, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, 1985supporting
In presymbolic sociopersonal action tendencies, a complication is added. Now the action of one individual must be completed by a complementary action from another individual.
Van der Hart describes sociopersonal action tendencies as fundamentally relational, requiring reciprocal completion from another person and marking the beginning of mentalization.
, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
Whether we actually initiate one or more specific actions, and if so, how soon, often depends on the appearance and our perception of one or more additional stimuli that operate as ‘go’ signals.
Van der Hart explains how action tendencies pass from latency through readiness to initiation, contingent on the arrival of enabling perceptual stimuli in the environment.
, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
This forward comparator model is consistent with evidence for an anticipatory, pre-action aspect of motor action. Pre-action neuronal processes… anticipate the actual motor performance and provide an online sense of agency.
Gallagher locates the sense of agency in a premotor forward comparator that precedes sensory feedback, grounding action and self-attribution in anticipatory neural mechanisms.
, How the Body Shapes the Mind, 2005supporting
Vehement emotions can emerge when our action systems are tested beyond our limits of functioning… they are thus different from intense emotions that may accompany and guide adaptive action.
Van der Hart distinguishes vehement, disorganizing emotions from those that accompany and guide adaptive action, framing the difference in terms of mental efficiency and action-system capacity.
, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
There is an intimate and reciprocal relationship between mental efficiency and level of action tendencies… mental efficiency as the ability to efficiently focus and use whatever mental energy is available.
Van der Hart articulates the reciprocal dependency of mental efficiency and action tendency level, making psychic energy management the foundation of adaptive action.
, The Haunted Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatmentsupporting
In order to determine what counts as an action (the question ‘what?’), one sought in the explanation for the action (the question ‘why?’) the very criterion for what deserves to be described as an action.
Ricoeur diagnoses an epistemological capture in action theory whereby the ‘why’ of explanation becomes the criterion for the ‘what’ of description, deflecting agency toward an ontology of impersonal events.
, Oneself as Another, 1992supporting
It outlines three practicable levels of action: personal, professional, and social… Social action involves people acting in groups to change the social structures that spread dislocation.
Alexander categorizes action against addiction-generating social conditions into personal, professional, and collective levels, framing social action as the most structurally transformative.
, The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit, 2008aside
In order to resolve his traumatic reaction, Sammy had to feel that he was in control of his actions rather than driven to act by his emotions.
Levine distinguishes voluntary action from emotion-driven compulsion in the context of childhood trauma resolution, identifying the felt sense of agency as therapeutically pivotal.
, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010aside
If to thy mind the path of wisdom is superior to the path of action, then why art thou engaging me in this terrible action? By these seemingly conflicting words thou art bewildering my understanding.
Edinger uses Arjuna’s confusion in the Bhagavad Gita to illustrate the ego’s confrontation with the Greater Personality’s demand to act beyond the opposites of wisdom and action.
, Science of the Soul: A Jungian Perspective, 2002aside