This remarkable book by one of the most creative people of the younger generation of Indian psychoanalysts and is an absolute triumph. With impeccable prose and breathtaking narratives, Shalini Masih transports readers to a world where psychoanalysis has rarely ventured, the world of spirit possession in which mental illness is expressed in most of the non-Western world.

Sudhir Kakar, author of The Analyst and the Mystic: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism

This is a beautiful book, and the beauty spans many dimensions in depth and breadth. Dr. Masih takes psychoanalysis into the realm of spirit possession and explores the positive and negative aspects of the latter. She shares conversations with the patients and their spirits when possession has gone wrong and becomes deformation. At the same time, she appreciates the healing transformations that are made possible by this engagement…. Dr. Masih reaches deep into her own life with breathtaking sensitivity, touching domains of the psyche that help the reader as well. At times grotesque, ghosts meet the aesthetic psychic touch where therapist, patient, and reader taste the possibilities of growth.

Michael Eigen, author of The Challenge of Being Human

Psychoanalytic Conversations with States of Spirit Possession is an inspiring, rigorous, and moving volume. Dr. Shalini Masih’s unique voice presents the interplay between cultural manifestations and psychoanalytic theory, as well as the tensions between love and loss, the broken and the beautiful. A powerful book on the many faces of healing.

Galit Atlas, author of Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients, and the Legacy of Trauma

Shalini Masih brings to the subject of spirit possession and the imagination that practitioners often lack because they are so focused on cure. Via a memorable cast of ghosts, exorcisms, priests, healers, and patients, Masih invites us to be a little less sure of what is real and healthy and a little more curious about what is useful. Drawing from anthropology, religion, and culture, she argues persuasively for a friendlier attitude towards the phenomenon of spirit possession. A sparkling and thoughtful work.

Amrita Narayanan, author of Women's Sexuality and Modern India: In a Rapture of Distress

Shalini Masih’s book on spirit possession is uniquely valuable. Dr. Masih, trained as she is in the psychoanalytic tradition, is highly skilled in the art of active listening. As a result, she draws out her interview subjects beautifully. They break new ground as they revisit their experiences of being inhabited by spirits, at once learning about themselves and teaching us.

Neil Altman, author of The Analyst in the Inner City: Race, Class and Culture through a Psychoanalytic Lens

In this fascinating and original book, Shalini Masih describes her personal and authentic immersion in two types of spiritual culture, bringing the tools of a psychoanalytic training into conversation with her own childhood environment of Indian priests and healers. She focuses on the nature and meaning of spirit possession in a sensitive and non-reductive way that brings out the beauty in the brokenness of these revenant parts of the self, which are characteristically experienced by women, seeking to identify their quest for ‘the glue of spiritual meaning’ as she puts it, and highlighting their rich potential for containment and expression.

Meg Harris Williams, author of The Art of Personality in Literature and Psychoanalysis