Mental Health Community Group

centrality of the human person in the professional education process

Abstract

The object of the present study was the Mental Health Community Group Program (MHCG), developed in the city of Ribeirão Preto, state of São Paulo, which works as a strategy for expanding and diversifying care modalities in mental health and as an educational space for health professionals. The objective was to understand the relevance and unfolding, in the course of the professional education, of the participation of students and health/mental health professionals in training in the MHCG Program. Exploratory qualitative research was conducted, using thematic content analysis as the method and open interviews as an instrument. The study participants were: five students from the areas of Nursing, Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy and ten professionals in training from the areas of Psychology, Medicine and Social Work, totaling 15 participants. The corpus analysis allowed the construction of three categories: 1) Contexts of professional education in health; 2) Formation and (trans)formation experiences in the MHCG space; 3) Beyond the boundaries of the MHCG: unfolding of the lived experience. The analysis of the interviews indicates an education process in health that remains predominantly focused on technical-instrumental aspects, with little space for the subjectivity and intersubjectivity present in care. In this context, the MHCG, by promoting a continuous exercise of attention to human experiences through the reflection and the encounter among people, contributes to the recovery of the human perspective of care in health/mental health education, helping students and professionals to understand the human condition and to develop affective and relational resources, which are indispensable both in the care of others and in the professional’s self-care. This study can contribute to the reflection and instrumentation of educational methods used in school services, seeking to broaden the understanding of the challenges involved in the production of humanistic education in the health field.