This is a case study of a psycho-social rehabilitation process taking place at Santa Tereza, a psychiatric hospital in Ribeirão Preto, whose objective is to understand possibilities and limitations implied in the rehabilitation process within Pensões Protegidas (Protected Homes) project. The basic strategies for the present study involved participative observation and interviews with individuals living in such homes as well as with the multi-professional staff working in the process. The results reveal a kind of orientation quite distant from the hospital-centered trend, since they reveal remarkable tendency towards deinstitutionalization. Finally, the author emphasizes the contribution of Pensões Protegidas Project at Santa Tereza for the better understanding of the so-called mentally ill.
history of psychiatry in Brazil; deinstitutionalization; psycho-social rehabilitation; protected homes