O Serviço Social e o cuidado com famílias no âmbito da saúde mental

Abstract

This study focuses on the theme of caring for families in the context of public mental health, from the perspective of Social Work in Brazil, whose analysis is guided by the critical dialectical method, with theoretical aspirations in Marx (1973; 1974) and Gramsci (1978), based on bibliographic research. The core of this study is the families in situation of social vulnerabilities, which are configured as users of the public mental health care system, as well as central subjects in the development of the whole approach taken. The objectives achieved were configured in the discussion about Social Work and dealing with families in the public mental health network, developing from the exploration of the historicity of psychiatric reform and its impacts on family life; to learn about the insertion of the vulnerable family in public policies of social protection; and research on social work in public mental health, focusing on families. The present study makes evident the difficulty in realizing the social rights of users and their families in the context of neoliberalism that, under the ideology of the minimal state and conservatism, practically extinguishes investments, reduces expenses with the mental health policy, interfering with the evolution. Psychiatric Reform, thus removing the concreteness of social rights. It is noticeable the adversities faced by the Social Worker, a professional also inserted in the sociotechnical division of labor, facing the struggle to mitigate social rights and counterreforms in the scenario of exacerbation of neoliberal policies in the country.