This text aims at outlining the relationship between knowledge and policies in mental health. The “shift of responsibility from service to territory”, the “increase of responsibility taken by mental health professionals”, and the “possibility that the subject accounts for his/her own condition” are propositions that spring from different discourses and disciplines, namely psychoanalysis, public health, and institutional analysis. Such discourses refer to a very particular social and historical moment in Brazil. It is believed that decentralization – proposed by public health policies – unchains a process of “transference of responsibility to local health units but keeps the concentration of power in central level”.
Responsibility; mental health; professional training; mental health policies