Mental health, psychosociology and “meeting of knowledges”

Abstract

The article discusses the mental suffering and general illness of the academic class in Brazil, proposing a new an approach to the theme of mental health in two pillars: on the one hand, the “Meeting of knowledges”, a project implemented at the University of Brasília in 2010 that promotes the inclusion of masters of traditional knowledge (indigenous peoples, terreiro peoples, quilombolas, and others) as teachers; on the other, a reconfiguration of the social sciences as a transdisciplinary and multi-systemic area capable of dialoguing with the healing systems developed by the traditional masters, which include relationships with all living beings (plants, animals, nature phenomena). The “Meeting of knowledges in healing” would make a dialogue between anthropocentric transdisciplinary social sciences and traditional cosmocentric sciences. The text was written in four voices: three from academics from UnB, UFF and UFRJ, and a religious leader from Candomblé Angola of Belo Horizonte (MG), Makota Kidoiale.