Change and will: on the place of a day hospital in the autobiographical tales of their users

Abstract

In this paper I investigate the means of production of subjectivity at a day hospital for severe psychiatric disorders accord to the stories that the users deployed around the story of their illness and treatment. This institution is considered as part of a new way of managing the mental health system in Chile, associated with a change in the management of subjectivities. I made four autobiographical interviews to graduate and still in treatment users. These texts were analysed according to the themes and logical orders of actions, as well as in terms of subject positions in them. I argue that the Day Hospital is located as a mediator in the improvement, enabling the production of speaker’s positions as a mature person who has overcome the disease from its own decision.