This study aims to analyze the health education concepts among the professionals on the Family Health team and to think critically about the relationship between health education practices and these workers' discourses. It is a qualitative study that uses discourse analysis as its theoretical framework and observation techniques and interviews to produce its data. The models of healing and conveying knowledge are strongly rooted in the concept and practice of health education, in which a vertical, taxing, superior relationship prevails and under which the professional is the keeper of knowledge. The workers consider themselves as educators, and there is a posture among them that envisions the process of educational work aimed at mutual learning and respect for the population's prior knowledge; however, this perception is only in their discourse and should be incorporated into their practice in order for there to be a change in health services. There is a need for a greater appreciation not only of the role played by the worker as a subject who is a driver of change in the educational practice and in the health care model in force, but also of the importance of acknowledging the users as subjects acting in their own health and capable of intervening in their own reality.
health education; family health; human resources in health