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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, views psychic formations as the outcome of a cumulation of causes whose combination is the necessary condition of their coming into [[being]].

[[Freud ]] introduced the [[concept ]] of overdetermination very early on: it is sketched out in the Studies on [[Hysteria ]] (1895d), though more in the etiopathogenic [[sense ]] of a [[constitution ]] of the [[subject ]] rendering him vulnerable to a [[traumatic ]] accumulation of factors than in the sense of chains of association. The latter sense emerged more clearly, indeed in its definitive [[form]], in The [[Interpretation ]] of [[Dreams ]] (1900a), where the elements of the [[dream]]-content, viewed as nodes, are described as over-determined in that they are represented many [[times ]] over in the dream-thoughts, which crystallize at these points. Overdetermination thus came to be seen as the basis of dream-formation, and Freud focused the [[remainder ]] of his study on the mechanisms that facilitated it. Thus in analyzing the dream of "[[Irma]]'s injection," he isolated the [[mechanism ]] of condensation, and in [[particular ]] developed the idea of "collective [[figures]]." And since overdetermination suggested a procedure for selecting the components of the dream-content, he proposed the notion of the displacement of [[psychical ]] intensity along associative chains and ramifications. Displacement and condensation, he argued, were the foundation of dream-formation.

Overdetermination was seen by Freud as affecting the [[symptom ]] as well as the dream; in the wake of Jacques [[Lacan ]] it is applied more broadly to all formations of the [[unconscious]]. It should not be taken, however, as a [[principle ]] of very wide extension, but simply as the basis of that fluctuation of [[associations ]] which makes different [[interpretations ]] of the same psychic formation possible.

Freud wrote in ''[[The Interpretation of Dreams]]'' that many features of dreams were usually "overdetermined," in that they were caused by multiple factors in the [[life ]] of the dreamer, from the "residue of the day" (superficial [[memories ]] of [[recent ]] life) to deeply [[repressed ]] traumas and unconscious wishes, these being "potent thoughts". Freud favored interpretations which accounted for such features not only once, but many times, in the context of various levels and [[complexes ]] of the dreamer's [[psyche]].

The concept was later borrowed for a variety of [[other ]] realms of [[thought]].

# [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1900a). The [[interpretation of dreams]]. SE, 4-5.# Freud, Sigmund, and [[Breuer]], Josef. (1895d). Studies on hysteria. SE, 2: 48-106.