"Open" institutions: new users-staff-contexts relationships in community based mental health care

Abstract

The development of new projects, actions and centers for psychosocial care integrating community based mental health replacement networks into the scenario of the ongoing nationwide psychiatric care reform brings to focus the complexity of replacing the asylum model. This article addresses the "open door" proposal, presented in the study that, based on the Italian deinstitutionalization authors and collective health studies, evaluated the "Núcleo de Atenção Psicossocial da Zona Noroeste", a mental health practice developed in the municipality of Santos in the period between 1989 and 1996. The different meanings of "open door" in daily practice are discussed, underlining that this proposal becomes central to the development of new users-staff-contexts relationships.