The effects of health restrictions due to COVID-19 and the importance of using body approaches with people suffering from psychological distress and their families

Abstract

Objective: Results are presented on the importance of using corporal approaches with people with mental suffering and their families. Method: The qualitative research developed with an ethnographic approach focused on the corporal dimension supported the development of the collaborative performance-investigation process. The philosophical support of Agnes Heller's Theory on the Daily Life on the practice of Psychosocial Rehabilitation allowed us to analyze the body experiments that used eight meetings where four users and two relatives of the Psychosocial Rehabilitation Center of Valdivia, Chile participated. Results: The logic of progression of intensity and incorporation of learning allowed to identify four categories: Framing and beginning of the process; Knowing and becoming aware of one's own body; Between pain and pleasure; The importance of corporeality. The results allowed access to bodily perceptions that were silenced and even made invisible both due to the effects of the sanitary restrictions due to COVID-19, as well as the stigmatization associated with mental suffering. Agnes Heller's Theory of the Everyday allowed an approach to the understanding of the daily life of people with mental suffering with the positive assessment associated with group dynamics and bodily praxis, making it possible to visualize the interface between pleasant bodily activities with the perspective of rehabilitation effective psychosocial. Conclusion: Body practices managed to generate reflective spaces that were central to the effective incorporation of empowerment and autonomy. In this sense, it becomes essential to provide support for therapeutic experiences with a body perspective, in a (re)educational framework, which allows the restructuring of healthy mental habits.