The production of the common as a guiding framework for child and adolescent mental health policies.

Abstract

Public policies on children’s mental health within Brazil’s Unified Health System are a recent phenomenon in the country’s history. In parallel, the concept of the production of the common has emerged as a political principle critical of neoliberal forms of organizing life, fostering debates in the field of collective health. Through a documentary analysis methodology, this article aims to identify possible dialogues between the production of the common and the main documents that establish child and adolescent mental health policies in Brazil between 1990-2024. Data were collected and qualitatively analyzed in light of Bardin’s Content Analysis. The results were organized into two axes: (1) discourses potentially fostering the common, highlighting themes such as network-based work, territory, horizontality, and autonomy; and (2) discourses potentially suppressing the common, such as the pathologization of childhoods and segmented care. It is concluded that the analyzed documents express tensions between emancipatory and normative models of care, with the production of the common emerging as a critical category capable of guiding collectivized practices committed to freedom and the singularity of subjects. Furthermore, it is possible to trace theoretical and practical connections between the common and the field of Occupational Therapy as the Production of Life.