The anti-asylum fight and the mental health policy in the voice of the militants of the Movement for Psychiatric Reform
Name: SÍLVIA LOUZADA DUARTE
Publication date: 24/05/2016
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| MARIA LUCIA TEIXEIRA GARCIA | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ANA TARGINA RODRIGUES FERRAZ | Internal Examiner * |
| MARIA LUCIA TEIXEIRA GARCIA | Advisor * |
Summary: The goal of this study is to analyze the direction of mental health politic (MHP) (2001 2015) on the perspective of the militants from the psychiatric reform`s movement (PRM) by the light of the movement`s struggle flags. That thinking is built considering a scenario marked by the resistance from some segments to the closure of psychiatric beds, to the most recent expansion of religious therapeutic communities, to the neoinstitutionalization`s process of individuals in psychological distress and yet, to the changings in the management of the mental health`s national coordination from the health ministry. There is a hypothesis that in a context of competing projects, the psychiatric reform is losing some of the advances made since the 1990. Therefore, it was used the oral history as a method, with semi structured interview, done with nine PRM`s militants. For the study, we used this content analysis. The results show that the initial movement flag, of the reform of hospitals, was replaced by the flag of a society without mental hospitals, marking a trajectory of deinstitutionalization. The flag of the anti-mental hospitals keeps on the movements agenda, considering that the psychiatric hospitals still put themselves as part of the treatment after the approval of the law 10.216 in 2001. This fact shows that the mental health field is strongly tensioned by different agents that from their interest, they stand against as much as in favor of the psychiatric reform. It also marks the tension that these groups have on the state apparatus. The movement takes a critical position in relation to the implantation of MHP. Facing the conditions of mental health services, the militants claim for the strengthening of not only these kind of services, but public services in general. Although there is no consent among the militants, over the directions of the MHP, they condemn the neoinstitutionalization`s process, with new ways of institutionalization, by increasing and creating beds in therapeutics` communities. Therefore, between advances, setbacks and challenges, they emphasize that the struggle on the mental health field can not be detached from a larger social struggle field, being necessary, therefore, the strengthening of anti-mental hospitals` struggle in time of crisis.
