Professional identity of mental health nurses: a phenomenological study in Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

Objective: To understand the professional identity of Mental Health Nurses. Method: Qualitative research, based on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, conducted between October 2019 and April 2020, with sixteen Nurses working in the field of Mental Health, located in two municipalities of the State of Bahia, Brazil. The Phenomenological Interview was used to produce the data, which, after transcription, was submitted to analysis using the Analytics of Ambiguity. Results: We outlined the categories: From Classical Psychiatry to Psychosocial Care; Identity leap mediated by the experience of the body itself. We understand that the know-how of Mental Health Nursing is being built in the intersubjectivity with users and the multiprofessional team. Final considerations: Although the Nursing performance reveals ambiguities that show the transition between Classical Psychiatry and Psychosocial Care, it proved to be powerful to make the “identity leap”, a transcendence that shows how much this experience enables acting in Mental Health.