But I know I have read it elsewhere in freud too.
Overdetermination was first used in a social scientific context by Freud. He rejected reductionist views of human behavior and consciousness. He saw human consciousness as complexly shaped by every experience, even those not remembered. He stated, in The Interpretation of Dreams (translated 1911), that "there are no limits to the determinants that may be present" in the consciousness of a human being. The human consciousness is, therefore, overdetermined. The French philosopher Althusser introduced the concept of overdetermination into the analysis of social formations. Resnick and Wolff have further transformed the concept and adopted it into a post-structuralist version of Marxian theory.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/sgabri ... nation.htm
