This article intends to develop a conceptual investigation of the different approaches that appear in Foucault’s work for the study of clinical practices. Foucault is continuously worried about distinguishing the analysis of domination vectors and liberation vectors in their distinct conceptual forms. He shows himself skeptical in relation to the releasing potential of clinical practices, even though he admits that they can keep "some level of autonomy". The amplitude of the concept of arts of existence exceeds the field of clinical practices, in a strict sense, and can involve a whole set of current psychosocial practices in Brazil.
Foucault; psychoanalysis; clinical psychology; psychosocial intervention; subjectivation processes