MADNESS AND CITY: CARE FOR THE CRAZY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE
OF PROFESSIONALS
Psychiatric Reform. Madness. City. Mental health.
Throughout history, from the classification and pathologization of behaviors that did not
fit the parameters considered normal, knowledge about madness was developed by
medical discourse. That said, the insane were removed and isolated from the broader
social context, destined for life in the asylum – a place of violence, suffering and
alienation. With the Psychiatric Reform and the process of deinstitutionalization, people
considered crazy began to circulate around the city, but facing new ways of
incarceration, arising from the excluding eyes of others. However, it is also in the city
that social networks can offer economic, psychological and affective support, helping to
promote health. Health work, in turn, involves these networks. In this way, it needs to
cover ways of inhabiting the city together with the user, as this allows the construction
of welcoming spaces, contributing to the reduction of stigmas, prejudices and
discrimination. Therefore, this study aims to understand the ways of inhabiting the city
and the social networks activated to produce mental health care in a Psychosocial Care
Center (CAPS) II of the V Health Region of Rio Grande do Norte, from the perspective
of service workers. This is a qualitative intervention-research that uses Institutional
Analysis, that is, it refers to the possibility of approaching aspects of collectivities in
their qualitative diversity and, in contact with reality, can promote spaces to question
and rethink established discourses. It was carried out through the following steps:
conducting a conversation with the professionals of this service; participant-observation
on days of collective activities carried out by the service team; and the use of a research
diary to facilitate recording and reflections resulting from contact with the field. The
ethical aspects approved by the Research Ethics Committee (CEP) of the Faculty of Health Sciences of Trairí (FACISA/UFRN), opinion CAAE: 62774222.2.0000.5568 were complied with. From the presence of the researcher in the field, in the situation of investigation and construction of the data, 4 (four) analytical axes were identified as partial results: the order and the research relations; understandings about madness and illness; the functioning and chronological processes in the service; CAPS and care
processes. In view of this, it is expected to contribute to the construction of discussion
spaces that allow thinking about mental health work supported by the anti-asylum logic
and the establishment of care networks in contact with the needs of the users' concrete
reality.