This paper presents a reflection on an experience learned from the primary health care provided by the staff of a public mental health service of a county with about 30 thousand people in São Paulo State. Starting with the analysis of data of the primary health care provided by that institution, the so-called "Pronto Atendimento" (PA), focusing on patients waiting in line for referral to psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatment, one suggests that PA may function as a support device since it is precisely in that primary health care service that patients make their complaints, ask for help and the institution, based on that service and its staff refers them lo a range of therapeutic treatment. The analysis of such data allowed us lo suggest that such primary health care service may include actions which reinforce the prevailing psychiatric paradigm or therapeutic actions which in turn may contribute to develop a psychosocial model taking into consideration changes effected in the very social representation of the institution, in the patient's psychic pain, and in the therapeutic resources available for cure.
mental health; primary health care; primary care staff
