Processos de fortalecimento em um Movimento Comunitário de Saúde Mental no Nordeste do Brasil: novos espaços para a loucura.

Abstract

This article focuses on the construction of new spaces for the madness in the process of empowering people who changing their role in mental health services from the position of patients to citizens. For this it has been conducted a case studying in a Community Mental Health Movement in Bom Jardim, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. Interviews were conducted mediated by the auto and focus groups. The results indicate that pa rticipation in the activities of the Movement favors strengthening, resulting in the rescue of personal identity and personal power, and changing beliefs about themselves and about the world. Thus this theoretical category cam be an important tool for the evaluation of mental health services. Participants reported having developed the courage to overlap obstacles trying to reinvent practices in their daily existence. The ecologic experience is also recognized as a dimension of empowerment aspect of leading in connection with the others and with the nature.