Banca de DEFESA: LYZETE BRUNA PEREIRA FREITAS

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : LYZETE BRUNA PEREIRA FREITAS
DATE: 29/01/2026
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: plataforma meet
TITLE:

THE OPEN VEINS OF MENTAL HEALTH IN BRAZIL: a critical analysis of ideopolitical tendencies

KEY WORDS:

Mental health; Neoliberalism; Conservatism; Political projects

PAGES: 140
BIG AREA: Ciências Sociais Aplicadas
AREA: Serviço Social
SUBÁREA: Fundamentos do Serviço Social
SUMMARY:

This dissertation is grounded in a context marked by the intensification of neoliberalism and the commodification of life, intertwined with the advance of conservatism and its repercussions in the political polarization of the country during the 2018 and 2022 elections and the struggle for power. It is upon this historical terrain that the study aims to analyze the ideopolitical tendencies of the Federal Executive and Legislative branches between 2019 and 2025, seeking to identify the direction of ongoing actions concerning mental health care in Brazil. Historically, mental health care in the country has been permeated by profound contradictions, and the advances achieved tend to occur slowly and are almost always followed by setbacks. The open veins of mental health in Brazil are expressed in the limited attempts to break with the asylum-based, manicomial logic—attempts that, although they advance in legal texts and policy proposals, fail to materialize in concrete reality. This process has intensified in recent years through the dialectical relationship between the Psychiatric Reform and the Psychiatric Counter-Reform. Within this context, an expanding shadow can be observed in the obscurantism of conservative and religious foundations, made evident by the proliferation of Therapeutic Communities and their growing role in disputes over public funding and policy strengthening. These communities increasingly configure themselves as new manicomial institutions reproducing old practices.In order to establish feasible conditions for the development of this research, the study adopts the method of critical-dialectical materialism, grounded in the Marxist theoretical assumption that analysis must begin from concrete reality in order to apprehend social phenomena. The theoretical-methodological trajectory of the dissertation follows a mixed design, integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches. Accordingly, the research involved a literature review and documentary analysis of governmental instruments from the administrations of Jair Messias Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, specifically through their respective Multi-Year Plans (Plano Plurianual – PPA) for the 2020–2023 and 2024–2027 periods. In addition, the study included the mapping and analysis of Bills under consideration in the National Congress between 2019 and 2025 that address mental health care. Based on the articulation between the theoretical framework and the analyzed data, the findings indicate that the fragility of mental health care in Brazil reflects the competing political projects within the broader terrain of class struggle. Despite political and partisan variations within institutions of power, the manicomial logic remains operative. Even in periods more favorable to progressive agendas, the manicomial capitalist order persists, disputing legitimacy, state recognition, and funding for asylum-based practices directed at people experiencing psychological distress. Nevertheless, the challenges posed by reality suggest that only through the organized collective struggle of the working class can a new horizon for mental health become possible, insofar as its current configuration is endogenous to the prevailing mode of production.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1958916 - EDLA HOFFMANN
Interna - 2363499 - ELIANA ANDRADE DA SILVA
Externa ao Programa - 2859570 - LARISSE DE OLIVEIRA RODRIGUES - UFRNExterna ao Programa - 3148895 - SABRINA SILVA ZACARON - UFRNExterno à Instituição - PEDRO HENRIQUE ANTUNES DA COSTA - UnB