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What is a Freudian Slip?
Lessons in Psychoanalysis, 01
Pop culture has a tendency to borrow concepts from academic pursuits and butcher it to oblivion. The parapraxis — i.e., the “Freudian slip” — is just one among many of these concepts.
Overdetermination
To understand the dynamics of parapraxes, we must understand one of Freud’s most significant contributions to the field of psychotherapy: that of overdetermination.
… There is nothing undetermined or arbitrary in psychic life. [1]
Overdetermination means that all of our actions, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs are determined from many different points. Freud, of course, considered early childhood as the primary source of what determines our personalities. He would include desires, wishes, denials, rejections, and all the other psychic mechanisms that we are not readily aware of in our day to day life. All of these determinisms converge on a single point every time we do or think or say anything. In other words, we are not the masters in our own homes.
The unconscious can be thought of as the structure par excellence of overdetermination. It dictates or informs much of our lives without our awareness of it. Even our speech is not free from overdetermination. Enter the Freudian slip.
