Mental health care as a happiness project: old and new and challenges beyond the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The Unified Health System (SUS) has not remained immune to the advance of neoliberal logic, dismantling public services, and precarious work, especially since the 1990s. Despite the tensions and contradictions, mental health workers continue to bet on the anti-asylum struggle and the construction of a health project based on the common good. This case study aimed to understand the relationship between work and health care from the perspective of professionals at a Psychosocial Care Center III. Field diary, semi-structured interviews, and a Meeting about Work were the methodological tools adopted, and the analysis was based on the contributions of ergology, work psychodynamics, and hermeneutics. The scenario of precariousness and the fragility of employment contracts that already existed before the pandemic reinforced insecurity about the future and remain challenges to be overcome. In order to face the intensification of self-use, exhaustion, and dealing with suffering, intensified by the covid-19 pandemic, the existence of democratic management spaces, affective interaction, mutual anchoring of the health team, and the bond with users were fundamental, enabling the creation of care as a project of happiness amidst the adversities of everyday life.