This study sought to unravel the working process of community health agents based on Espinosa's emotions theory. Meetings were taken to be the analysis unit, and the aim was to understand them with regard to the dynamics of care production, with analysis on emotions that were expressed through joy and sorrow, and on their effects on the agents' work. This was an exploratory and descriptive qualitative study, undertaken at the Jardim Catarina Unit, São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with ten community health agents, and ethnographic observation. The study revealed that the agents had multiple facets, with exposure to the emotions of the relationships that they maintained, and variation between recognition of and submission to the logic imposed, thus resulting in joy and sorrow, and respectively increasing or decreasing their power to act.
Family health; Community health workers; Subjectivity