Care production in Mental Health: the challenges beyond institutional walls

The paper puts forward a problematization on the challenges of deinstitutionalization of mental health care from a Psychosocial Care Center (CAPS) in João Pessoa, Brazil. The methodological approach was built in the day-by-day of the service, in which researchers participated in team meetings and accompanied the production of care within and outside the CAPS. In this continuing education process with the CAPS team it has been possible to visualize three movements: The invisibility of the “living territory” in the production on the care networks; the need for matrix support as an articulator of actions of CAPS and primary care, and the deadlocks for deinstitutionalization of life. Finally, we trust that along the movement of opening to the living world of the city, the mental health care could produce care beyond the psychological distress, engaging with the production of life.

Deinstitutionalization; Mental health; Psychiatric reform