Therapeutic relationship in nurses’ work process at Psychosocial Care Centers

Abstract

Objective: to understand how nurses perceive the therapeutic relationship in their work process at Psychosocial Care Centers. Methodology: a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory study, based on the historical-dialectical materialism approach. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, based on content analysis in conjunction with thematic analysis, and discussed through the dialectic between dead work and living work in action. Results: the participants were ten nurses. The therapeutic relationship emerged from the dialectical tension between dead work, considered as previous and alienated work, and living work in action, which is where the therapeutic relationship takes place. Conclusion: dead work was evidenced by reproduction of the care model in which bureaucratic work is assumed by nurses and delegitimizes the patients’ role. Living work in action was identified by the establishment of the therapeutic relationship, developed through coexistence, in exchanges of trust, through workshops, in the role of reference and through the relationship as a defining experience of the professional career. The dialectic tension becomes a process rich in consumption of light technologies, which helps nurses recognize their role in the new mental health care model, where praxis becomes a possible path in the context of their work.