Problematizando o conceito de saúde mental a partir dos documentos oficiais do ministério da saúde do Brasil

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to discuss the concept of mental health, from the institutional documents published by the Ministry of Health, between 2001 and 2019, from the perspective of critical discourse analysis, identifying which paradigms supported the discourses on mental health and analyzing how these discourses articulated with social practices. The research was qualitative, methodologically structured by Critical Discourse Analysis, and took place in three stages. The first stage was the categorization of publications into three categories: a) documents related to mental health policy and legislation; b) texts intended for professionals, such as guides and manuals; and c) artistic or media productions, such as exhibitions, catalogs and collections. In the second stage, there was a critical reading of the material oriented by the main thematic axis which are the conceptual, theoretical and epistemological aspects in mental health. In the third stage, the discursive analysis was performed, in which the textual elements and non-discursive aspects involved in the problem were analyzed: ideologies, conjunctures, power relations, among others. For the textual analysis a theoretical-methodological dialogue was established between the text and the analytical categories: discourse, gender and style. The final search found in 15 papers that were selected for discursive analysis. Five belonged to the first category; nine belonged to the second and one to the third. The concept of mental health was discussed by its positivity as a health field and its negativity as mental illness. It is concluded that psychic suffering, mental disorders and disabilities are three possible strategies to approach a definition of mental health.