Social inclusion practices: professionals' social representations about the mental health assistance model

Abstract

Psychosocial Attention Centers (CAPS) are considered strategic devices for changing the assistance model concerning mental health and present proposals that involve concepts of Psychosocial Rehabilitation. This research study aimed to understand how social inclusion practices for people who have experienced psychological suffering occur, and also to contribute to the evaluation of this service, as it is considered an important advance in the process of Brazilian Psychiatric Reform. The objects of the study are the professionals' social representations on social inclusion practices that are performed by the substitutive mental health services. The guiding concepts of this study are Psychosocial Rehabilitation and the Italian de-institutionalization. The data, collected by means of semi-structured interviews, were submitted to discourse analysis, from which it was possible to recognize empirical categories. One of them is the mental health assistance model, which is studied in this article. The analysis of the categories was carried out according to the view of Social Representation. Among the results, it was possible to observe that the discourses revealed concepts that represent the traditional psychiatric assistance model. These representations can be overcome through a higher clarity of CAPS' institutional project and discussions within the interdisciplinary teams.