This is a qualitative intervention-research carried out in two teams of Primary Health Care which aimed to analyze the practices of care developed by mental health groups, as well as their correlation with the process of deinstitutionalization of madness embedded in the Brazilian psychiatric reform. The research used the following as investigation methods: interventions in the mental health groups, semi-structured interviews, workshops with professionals from the mental health groups and daily field reports. The results led to the understanding of the mental health groups as deinstitutionalizing devices, when they provide psychosocial care, use the health network and the territorial resources, foster the expansion of social ties and allow participants to be recognized as protagonists of their own lives. The outcomes also indicated the coexistence of the forms of sheltering and psychosocial care in professionals’ practices. Continuing education and multidisciplinary exchanges were pointed out as strategies to strengthen psychosocial care.
Primary Health Care; Mental Health; Groups; Deinstitutionalization; Intervention-research