Knot of the Soul: Madness, Psychoanalysis, Islam

by Stefania Pandolfo

Through a dual engagement with the unconscious in psychoanalysis and Islamic theological-medical reasoning, Stefania Pandolfo’s unsettling and innovative book reflects on the maladies of the soul at a time of tremendous global upheaval. Drawing on in-depth historical research and testimonies of contemporary patients and therapists in Morocco, Knot of the Soul offers both an ethnographic journey through madness and contemporary formations of despair and a philosophical and theological exploration of the vicissitudes of the soul.
 
Knot of the Soul moves from the experience of psychosis in psychiatric hospitals, to the visionary torments of the soul in poor urban neighborhoods, to the melancholy and religious imaginary of undocumented migration, culminating in the liturgical stage of the Qur’anic cure. Demonstrating how contemporary Islamic cures for madness address some of the core preoccupations of the psychoanalytic approach, she reveals how a religious and ethical relation to the “ordeal” of madness might actually allow for spiritual transformation.
 
This sophisticated and evocative work illuminates new dimensions of psychoanalysis and the ethical imagination while also sensitively examining the collective psychic strife that so many communities endure today.

Genres: Islam, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

Published May 4, 2018

Reviews

[jackson, this is olive · Rating 4 out of 5]

A certain ex-professor of mine would have something to say about 'overwrought' prose for an academic text. I have many critiques and also many things that I appreciate about this text. It is INCREDIBLY dense and probably not an ideal introductory read for those unfamiliar with the fields of psychoanalysis and studies of Islam in general.

Some highlights:
The book is extremely comprehensive and I think it does a good job covering a lot of ground and maintaining interest with the mixture of anecdote and analysis. I also think that the overall perspective of the book is good. A classmate of mine critiques Pandolofo's lack of attention to the negative effects of Quranic healing and the negative manner in which Islam can/has effected mental health of some individuals. While I think that this is a more than valid point, I also think that this is an argument that could be laid out in a different book (and given how widely villainized Islam is, this argument has likely already been seen to multiple times).

Problems. At times it certainly feels as though Pandolfo is simply spouting names for the sake of it rather than as any real support of her analysis. I think that she missed some loose ends in her knot as well. Specifically, it seemed that Pandolfo was trying to make some argument around the colonial impacts of war on mental health that creates generational trauma (aside from the colonial impacts on the mental health systems and services that were largely put into the place by the French). In these sections specifically her use of imagery and flowery language completely occluded the nature of her exact argument.

[versarbre]

So it's not "indigenous psychology" but Quranic healing? I'm suspicious of calling Imam X as “the Imam” with never giving him a footing.

[selin]

tbh I didn’t read the entire book but the material was SO dense and I had multiple hours long seminars on it so I feel justified in saying I read the whole thing