Stefania Pandolfo's Counterpoint Summary

Testimony in Counterpoint by Stefania Pandolfo introduces Roqiya, a Moroccan patient who’s under hospitalized care. Roqiya was traumatized ever since her husband left her: she constantly thought not only about the breakup but also about the negative connotations from which others would view her: an example of such would be to call her a fasda. “The other day a man approached her by the side of the river in her village and insulted her, accusing her of being fasda, defiled” (Pandolfo 78). Nonetheless, the reading essentially caters a psychological analysis of the patient Roqiya and how a psychiatrist can be of the best help to her.
Pandolfo explains that having the lens of understanding where a patient is coming from is central in constructing a better relationship. “Cultivating a peripheral vision and a peripheral listening, might allow one to trace the ways in which, in the midst of these configurations … pointing to the possibility, and the tangible presence, of other trajectories” (Pandolfo 65). Culture and the society from which a patient originates are then essential to the subjectivity of that patient’s experiences. For example, “the physical space of urban
One of the main problems for medical discourse is that “it’s hard to have sites of cultural identification in the life of patients” (Pandolfo 76). Pandolfo then defines “counterpoint as an acknowledge of the subject’s struggle for its affirmation,” calling the need for understanding the various factors associated with how the subject feels. Thankfully for Roqiya, “Dr. N. is the leading psychiatrist who attends to her needs and is sensitive to her pain and is able to register the meaning of what Roqiya faces through in her life” (Pandolfo