Mental health workers: Weaving identities and differences

Abstract

The article discusses the production of identities, differences and power relations in mental health institutions. The study focuses on the new constitution of public politics, which involve the activities that mental health workers in contact with people who look for this health services. The main purpose of these public politics is that assistants nurses in general become workers in mental health services. The work is based on the concepts of identities and difference derived from the field of Cultural Studies and from Foucaultian approach. The analysis is constructed upon interviews with assistants nurses, men and women who work in psychiatric hospital in the public service in the city of Porto Alegre. Also, the law 9716 of 1992 that deals with psychiatric reform in mental health work helps the discussion of the problem.