Abstract
The article presents the results of an investigation conducted with people with severe psychiatric condition in a psychotherapeutic group. Based on the methodology of the Humanities Laboratory (LabHum), 11 meetings were held to discuss the novel The Alienist. Of the 22 people who participated in the dynamic, 14 were users in mental distress. Subsequently, six interviews of Oral History of Life were conducted, analyzed by Immersion / Crystallization, technique inspired by Hermeneutic Phenomenology. The thematic axes found were madness, stigma, forms of treatment, science, power and the “LabHum”. LabHum's experience has shown that this is a space with therapeutic effect, promoting among participants a greater understanding of their life stories and their place in society through the experience of diffuse and undetermined, something that literature provides. The study pointed to the relevance of LabHum as a therapeutic possibility that is able to contribute and aggregate with existing forms of treatment, in line with values and guidelines of the Psychiatric Reform.
Keywords:
mental health; humanization in health; literature; psychiatric reform; madness