‘Jokers of care’: the exercise of interprofessionality in the context of mental health

Abstract

From the psychiatric reform movement in Brazil, the field of mental health has been marked by the importance of the theoretical-practical and political debate on interprofessionality, due to the complexity of psychosocial care. In this context, labor transformations highlight the individual and collective identities of professionals. This study discusses and analyzes the teamwork of a group of mental health workers as a territory for the constitution of collective identities that can support an interprofessional clinical practice in tune with the demands of psychiatric reform. Descriptive, exploratory and qualitative research conducted with workers of a Psychosocial Care Center located in Salvador-Bahia. A focus group and research with documents were carried out and, afterwards, their contents were analyzed. As results we identified three analytical categories that circumscribed the collective identity of the workers: the embarrassments of group cohesion, the jokers of care and the insufficiencies of the team for integral care. The praxis in this context is marked by the logic of interprofessionality, however, just as the psychiatric reform, the interprofessional mode is not ready and finished, it is built as an exercise in daily care.

Key words: Interprofessionality. Health care team. Mental health