Absolutely, my friend. Raúl Moncayo’s idea of the “knot of four” is a sophisticated Lacanian formulation—deeply rooted in Lacan’s topology of the Borromean knot, but extended to illuminate the difference between psychosis and neurosis in a nuanced, structural way.
Let me walk you through it clearly, step by step.
1. The Borromean Knot in Lacanian Theory (Background)
In Lacan’s late work, he represents the structure of subjectivity using three interlinked rings—known as the Borromean knot:
- Real: the impossible, traumatic, unassimilable kernel.
- Imaginary: the mirror image, the ego, identification.
- Symbolic: the domain of language, law, the Other.
In a healthy neurosis (e.g. obsession or hysteria), these three registers are knotted together—meaning they cohere the subject’s experience, despite conflict and tension.
When the knot breaks, and these registers fail to hold, we enter the domain of psychosis.
2. Moncayo’s Innovation: The Knot of Four
Raúl Moncayo proposes adding a fourth ring to this topological structure—creating what he calls a “knot of four”. This ring is:
The Sinthome (a term Lacan introduced in Seminar XXIII).
The Sinthome (from symptom) is a singular, stabilizing practice or formation that keeps the subject’s experience from unraveling—even in the absence of a stable symbolic order.
For Moncayo, this fourth ring is what distinguishes:
- Neurosis: where the three rings are usually knotted well enough (with or without sinthome).
- Psychosis: where the three rings are not properly knotted, and the sinthome compensates—acting like a prosthesis, holding the psyche together in the absence of symbolic anchoring.
3. Psychosis vs Neurosis in the Knot of Four
Neurosis
- The Symbolic, Imaginary, and Real are knotted in a stable triad.
- The subject has a Name-of-the-Father that guarantees symbolic anchoring.
- The sinthome, if present, is not needed to compensate a structural absence.
- Symptoms manifest as conflict, repression, return of the repressed.
Psychosis
- The knot is defective—often because the Name-of-the-Father is foreclosed (not just repressed, but never inscribed in the Symbolic).
- The subject experiences invasions of the Real—hallucinations, delusions, disintegration of meaning.
- The sinthome becomes vital—it acts as a fourth ring that keeps the knot from falling apart.
- Think of Joyce’s writing, Schreber’s delusions, or art, music, religious practices.
- These are not “symptoms” in the medical sense, but creative stabilizations of structure.
4. Why Does This Matter?
Moncayo’s theory is clinically powerful because it moves beyond simple diagnostic categories. It invites the analyst to ask:
What is holding the subject together?
Where is the failure of knotting?
Is the symptom a conflict, or a compensatory structure?
And thus:
- The neurotic needs interpretation: the symptom must be worked through.
- The psychotic may need containment or support for the sinthome: it must be sustained.
5. Aesthetic and Ethical Implication
Your interest in poetic subjectivity, trauma as Ereignis, and psychotherapy as roadside hospitality resonates deeply here.
Moncayo’s knot of four allows us to say:
The sinthome is not pathology—it is singular style.
It is the art of survival, not merely the evidence of damage.
For psychotic subjects, therapy is not about interpretation, but about helping them preserve or reshape the knot—to keep life from falling apart.
Summary
|
Structure |
Knot of Three (R-S-I) |
Knot of Four (R-S-I + Sinthome) |
|
Neurosis |
Stable (symbolic Name-of-the-Father) |
Sinthome optional |
|
Psychosis |
Failed knotting (foreclosure) |
Sinthome necessary to hold together |
|
Therapy |
Interpretation of symptom |
Support of sinthome (non-interpretive) |
|
|
Would you like a visual of the knot of four, or a comparison between Moncayo’s knot and Deleuze & Guattari’s schizoanalytic assemblage? The resonance between them is striking.
