Overdetermination

The idea of overdetermination refers to the organization of multiple determinants combining to define a psychic formation. The notion may be represented metaphorically as multiple nodes anchoring a web whose linking strands are lines of associated thoughts. The content of psychic formations understood in this way is determined by the points of intersection of the lines of association, along which psychic energy flows as part of a process of displacement. Another Freudian conceptualization of overdetermination, lateral and etiopathogenic,...