Memory and resistance of a mental health collective
Memory, Human Rights, Mental Health, Psychiatric Reform, Resistance Production.
The affirmation of the memory of groups disqualified by the great narratives is a key element in the process of confront with human rights violations that occur daily in Brazil, especially in the mental health's field. To revisit the history of groups through other lenses, enhances new debates to understand the processes of resistance to the manicomial capture's of life, especially in the current scenario of a psychiatric "counter-reform" and a "remanicomialization" in this field. In face this scenario emerges the present research work with the Potiguar Plural Association (PLURAL), a mental health collective in Natal/RN. In this cartographic research with the collective, we seek to map resistance processes to the manicomial life forms, through the production of narratives of PLURAL participants' memories, in an attempt to tell their story, mapping points of tension, knowledge production and resistance in the potiguar mental health's. As a result, a narrative about PLURAL was produced collectively, from its foundation until the present moment, as well as the mapping of three lines of analysis about the production of resistances within the collective: from the testimony of the asylum memories; the production of care networks among the members of the collective; and the formation of future professionals, who are internshiping or experiencing the groupality of the PLURAL during their academic formation. These lines pointed out how the memory of violations can, through collective agency, become raw material for actions in the field of mental health, both in the production of care networks, and in the formation of future professionals, sensitive and involved in care in freedom. We conclude that memory, testimony and collectivity are pillars in the development of resistance practices in the field of mental health, demonstrating the transformative potential of reality, starting from the protagonism and solidarity relations, in the affirmation and production of life.