Peter Dorman wrote: >Was Lacan responsible for the semantic reversal of "overdetermination"? Another entry from Laplance & Pontalis. Doug ---- [from Laplanche & Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis] Over-Determination, Multiple Determination D.: Uberdeterminierung or mehrfache Determinierung.-Es.: superdeterminacion. Fr.: surdetermination or determination multiple.-l.: sovradeterminazione. P.: superdeterminagao or determinagao multipla. The fact that formations of the unconscious (symptoms, dreams, etc.) can be attributed to a plurality of determining factors. This can be understood in two different ways: a. The formation in question is the result of several causes, since one alone is not sufflcient to account for it. b. The formation is related to a multiplicity of unconscious elements which may be organised in different meaningful sequences, each having its own specific coherence at a particular level of interpretation. This second reading is the most generally accepted one. However distinct these two senses of over-determination may be, it is not impossible to find bridges between them. In the Studies on Hysteria (1895d) they are to be found in juxtaposition. Sometimes (la) the hysterical symptom is said to be over-determined in that it is the outcome both of a constitutional predisposition and of a number of traumatic events: one of these factors on its own is not enough to produce or to sustain the symptom, and this is why the cathartic method* of treatment, although it does not attack the constitutional causes of the hysteria, is nonetheless able to get rid of the symptom through the recollection and abreaction of the trauma. Another passage of Freud's in the same work comes much closer to using the second sense of over-determination: the chain of associations which links the symptom to the 'pathogenic nucleus' is here said to constitute 'a ramifying system of lines and more particularly [...] a converging one' (lb). The study of dreams throws the clearest light on the phenomenon of overdetermination. In fact analysis reveals that 'each of the elements of the dream's content turns out to have been "over-determined"-to have been represented in the dream-thoughts many times over' (2a). Over-determination is a consequence of the work of condensation*. It is not expressed only on the level of isolated elements of the dream-the dream as a whole may be over-determined: 'The achievements of condensation can be quite extraordinary. It is sometimes possible by its help to combine two quite different latent trains of thought into one manifest dream, so that one can arrive at what appears to be a sufficient interpretation of a dream and yet in doing so can fail to notice a possible "overinterpretation" ' (3a) (see 'Over-Interpretation'). It should be emphasised that over-determination does not mean that the dream or symptom may be interpreted in an infinite number of ways. Freud compares dreams to certain languages of antiquity in which words and sentences appear to have various possible interpretations (3b): in such languages ambiguity is dispelled by the context, by intonation or by extra signs. In dreams, the lack of determination is more fundamental, yet the different interpretations may still be verified scientifically. Nor does over-determination imply the independence or the parallelism of oa~ the different meanings of a single phenomenon. The various chains of meanings intersect at more than one 'nodal point', as is borne out by the associations; the symptom bears the traces of the interaction of the diverse meanings out of which it produces a compromise. Taking the hysterical symptom as his model, Freud shows that this 'develops only where the fulfilments of two opposing wishes, arising each from a different psychical system, are able to converge in a single expression' (2b). What remains then of our first definition (a) of over-determination? The phenomenon with which we are concerned is a resulf; over-determination is a positive characteristic, not merely the absence of a unique, exhaustive meaning. Jacques Lacan has stressed that over-determination is a trait common to all unconscious formations: '. . . for a symptom to be admitted as such in psychoanalytical psychotherapy-whether a neurotic symptom or not-Freud insists on the minimum of overdetermination as constituted by a double meaning: it must symbolise a conflict long dead over and above its function in a no less symholic present conflict' (4). The reason for this is that the symptom (in the broad sense) is 'structured like a language', and thus naturally constituted by elision and layering of meaning; just as a word cannot be reduced to a signal, a symptom cannot be the unambiguous sign of a single unconscious content. (1) FREUD, S.: a) Cf. G.W., I, 261; S.E., II, 262-63. b) G.W., I, 293-94; S.E., II, 289. (2) FREUD, S. The Interpretation of Dreams (19OOa): a) G.W., II-III,289; S.E., IV, 283. b) G.W., IIIII,575; S.E., V,569. (3) FREUD, S. Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis (1916-17): a) G.W., XI, 176; S.E., XV,173. b) Cf. G.W., XI, 234 39; S.E., XV,228-33. (4) LACAN, J. 'Fonction et champ de la parole et du langage en psychanalyse', La Psychanalyse, 1956, I,114. Reprinted in Ecrits (Paris: Seuil, 1967). Translation: 'The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis', in WILDEN, A. The Language of the Se/(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1968), 32. =============================================================================== [from Freud, Interpretation of Dreams] This first investigation leads us to conclude that the elements 'botanical' and 'monograph' found their way into the content of the dream because they possessed copious contacts with the majority of the dream-thoughts, because, that is to say, they constituted 'nodal points' upon which a great number of the dream-thoughts converged, and because they had several meanings in connection with the interpretation of the dream. The explanation of this fundamental fact can also be put in another way: each of the elements of the dream's content turns out to have been 'overdetermined'-to have been represented in the dream-thoughts many times over. We discover still more when we come to examine the remaining constituents of the dream in relation to their appcarance in the dream-thoughts. The coloured plate which'I was unfolding led (see the analysis, p. 172 f.) to a new topic, my colleagues' criticisms of my activities, and to one which was already represented in the dream, my favourite hobbies; and it led, in addition, to the childhood memory in which I was pulling to pieces a book with coloured plates. The dried siccimen of the plant touched upon the episode of the herbarium at my secondary school and specially stressed that memory. The nature of the relation between dream-content and dreamthoughts thus becomes visible. Not only are the elements of a dream determined by the dream-thoughts many times over, but the individual dreamthoughts are represented in the dream by several elements. Associative paths lead from or e element of the dream to several dream-thoughts, and from one dreamthought to several elements of the dream. Thus a dream is not constructed by each individual dream-thought, or group of dream-thoughts, finding (in abbreviated form) separate representation in the content of the dream-in the kind of way in which an electorate chooses parliamentary representatives; a dream is constructed, rather, by the whole mass of dreamthoughts being submitted to a sort of manipulative process in which those elements which have the most numerous and strongest supports acquire the right of entry into the dreamcontent-in a manner analogous to election by scrutin de liste. In the case of every dream which I have submitted to an analysis of this kind I have invariably found these same fundamental principles confirmed: the elements of the dream are constructed out of the whole mass of dream-thoughts and each one of those elements is shown to have been determined many times over in relation to the dream-thoughts. In order to solve this difficulty we shall make use of another impression derived from our enquiry [in the previous section] into the overdetermination of the dream-content. Perhaps some of those who have read that enquiry may already have formed an independent conclusion that the overdetermination of the elements of dreams is no very important discovery, since it is a self-evident one. For in analysis we start out from the dreamelements and note down all the associations which lead off from them; so that there is nothing surprising in the fact that in the thought-material arrived at in this way we come across these same elements with peculiar frequency. I cannot accept this objection; but I will myself put into words something that sounds not unlike it. Among the thoughts that analysis brings to light are many which are relatively remote from the kernel of the dream and which look like artificial interpolations made for some particular purpose. That purpose is easy to divine. It is precisely they that constitute a connection, often a forced and far-fetched one, between the dream-content and the dreamthoughts; and if these elements were weeded out of the analysis the result would often be that the component parts of the dreamcontent would be left not only without overdetermination but' without any satisfactory determination at all. We shall be led to conclude that the multiple determination which decides what shall be included in a dream is not always a primary factor in dream-construction but is often the secondary product of a psychical fcrce which is still unknown to us. Nevertheless multiple determination must be of importance in choosing what particular elements shall enter a dream, since we can see that a considerable expenditure of effort is used to bring it about in cases where it does not arise from the dream-material unassisted. It thus seems plausible to suppose that in the dream-work a psychical force is operating which on the one hand strips the elements which have a high psychical value of their intensity, and on the other hand, hy means of overdetermination, creates from elements of low psychical value new values, which afterwards find their way into the dream-content. If that is so, a transference and displacement of psychical intensities occurs in the process of dream-formation, and it is as a result of these that the difference between the text of the dream-content and that of the dream thoughts comes about. The process which we are here presum ing is nothing less than the essential portion of the dream work; and it deserves to be described as 'dream-displacement'. Dream-displacement and dream-condensation are the two governing factors to whose activity we may in essence ascribe the form assumed by dreams. Nor do I think we shall have any difficulty in recognizing the psychical force which manifests itself in the facts of dreamdisplacement. The consequence of the displacement is that the dream-content no longer resembles the core of the dreamthoughts and that the dream gives no more than a distortion of the dreamwish which exists in the unconscious. But we are already familiar with dream-distortion. We traced it back to the censorship which is exercised by one psychical agency in the mind over another. [See p. 141 ff.] Dream-displacement is one of the chief methods by which that distortion is achieved. Is fecit cui profait. We may assume, then, that dream-displacement comes about through the influence of the same censorship-that is, the censorship of endopsychic defence. The question of the interplay of these factors-of displacement, condensation and overdetermination-in the construction of dreams, and the question which is a dominant factor and which a subordinate one-all of this we shall leave aside for later investigation. [See e.g. p. 405 ff.] But we can state provisionally a second condition which must be satisfied by those elements of the dream-thoughts which make their way into the dream: they must escape the censorship imposed by resistance. And henceforward in interpreting dreams we shall take dreamdisplacement into account as an undeniable fact.
