Introduction
The concept of overdetermination was introduced by Freud (1900) in a psychological theory. Conscious experiences are seen as potentially influenced by an unlimited number of experiences a human being has had, including events that cannot be remembered. Overdetermination describes multiple, independent, and concurrent causes of a psychological experience and is detectable not only in conscious thoughts and experiences but also in formations of unconscious processes such as dreams or neurotic symptoms (Laplanche and Pontalis 1973).
Multiple determining factors are assumed to exist behind these phenomena which may lead to pathological symptoms or to specific dream content. Freud assumed that these different determining factors are connected to unconscious formations which are not passive reactions to stimuli from the outside world but actively created reactions based on inner dispositions, unconscious experiences as well as free choice between conscious memories. Thus,...
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Hau, S. (2018). Overdetermination. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_613-1
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