Existence and resistance of mad bodies: The body under process and the Brazilian psychiatric reform

Abstract

The practice of care offered to users in crisis at the mental health wards in general hospitals is an essential variable considering the psychiatric reform in Brazil, largely anchored in the biomedical model in how suffering is understood and treated. Based on the experiences of education in health service in the Multiprofessional Residency in mental health, developed in the Psichyatric nursery of a general hospital of a major city, this paper discusses the body as potency in the practice of care. The methodology consists of the narration of experiences accounted in a field journal, which allowed to reflect on the topic departing from the clinical path of the two patients’ crises. With these psychological and psichoanalytical theoretical frameworks, we discuss the practice of care in and of the body, without reducing it to the locus of the disease, suggesting clinical constructions adaptable to psychosocial care. This paper thus contributes to the qualification of care in these services, strengthening a singular and amplified practice of care based on a different theoretical referential regarding the body.