Cidade e saúde mental: análise dos discursos em redes científicas brasileiras

Abstract

The objective of the research was to analyze the productions about city in Brazilian’s research networks and scientific literature addressing the issue of mental health care. In the Middle Ages the subjects considered "crazy" were free to move around the city's public spaces and relate to the dynamics of cities events. Since the creation of asylums, these "crazy" became confined and excluded from the coexistence in the public space. Since the midtwentieth century, various movements in favor of Psychiatric Reform contributed to the construction of models of care to mental health that occur outdoors without enclosures. From this perspective, the works of some researchers of this field have guided problematizations about the potential of the city to mental health care. Thus arises the question whether the mental health care exercised in the city has a therapeutic potential, and this potential can be streamlined and developed. Some theoretical approaches were used for this discussion, among the main, the notion of Biopolitics in Foucault and the notions of Modern City and Contemporary City referenced by urbanism and geography; and, to a lesser relevance, Deleuze's notion of Society Control and discussions on mental health for academic productions of public health. Therefore, were analyzed records present in the following scientific networks: CNPq’s Group Directory; Data Bank SciELO; Lattes Curriculum. The analysis of the traced path followed some suggested criteria by Foucault for Archaeology of Sciences. As a result, it can be seen that there are three main speeches about the city in the scientific networks: the city as Geographic Location; the city as Sociodemographic Conjunct; the city as a Clinical-Political Device. These speeches were problematized with the theoretical approaches adopted in this research. It provided critical considerations about notions of city from the perspectives of academic productions in the filed of mental health. Thus, this research aims to contribute to the development of mental health care in Brazil.