Stuart Feder, one of the editors, proposes three basic principles for applied psychoanalysis in the arts and illustrates them through examples from the life and work of Schubert: overdeterminism and multiple function of psychoanalysis (which means, for example, that the creative act of composition is a multifaceted psychic compromise and includes unconscious as well as conscious elements); infinite
displaceability of mental representations; infinite representation (relating to musical symbols which retain their potential for various meanings).