Abstract
The article seeks to understand the relationships established between mentally ill patients cared for in the open community service network and the city of Belo Horizonte, state capital of Minas Gerais. It is understood that the experience of mental illness is capable of generating narratives that seek to give meaning to suffering and help people to negotiate everyday decisions. The biographical method was used for the construction of narratives of life trajectories of the three participants of the study. The biographical narratives revealed diverse experiences associated with mental illness as well as different meanings attributed to this condition. However, interestingly, these stories have a common pattern, often associated with marginal convivialities with the conventions of order, family and work. There is a break with the striking invisibility in asylums, as open services provide the social movement and manipulation of social codes, creating new territorial delimitations and interpretations. However, the need for empirical studies that address themes such as family relations, housing conditions and income of this population is paramount in order to broaden the right to health discussions for the right to housing, work, the right and to a place in the city.
Key words
Mental health; Narrative; Territory