Restriction scenarios and forms of (r) existence in the field of mental health: an experience report

Abstract

This article aims to explore the limits and possibilities of performance of a public mental health service that has an assistant profile different from that established by Psychosocial Care Network regulations, and that was going through an intense political scenario of precariousness and scrapping of the health network at the time of the research — triggering the uprising of the Mental Health Workers Forum in the municipality, which forms an important element in the research. It is based on the construction and narrative of the scenario, on the relationships established between the actors that composed it, both in the service in question, and in its relationship with other devices, the management, and the workers' forum, so that they can express the existing and necessary psychosocial articulation, besides interpreting/telling about the service and the work done there, establishing bridges between the individual/singular, the group, and the institutional. A methodological bet was made based on psychoanalytical psychosociology. The main results are four emerging elements of analysis: group and intersubjective processes; alliance, and recognition; crisis, and suffering in institutions; creativity; and wholeness. Destructive forces have taken place with the mass replacement of workers, the choke of the network due to lack of inputs/resources in general, and by the difficulty on the part of workers to create a new place for themselves. It has been found that despite the scenario, the uniqueness of the service allowed the production of caregiving practices whose maintenance relevance in the network should have a better evaluation.