Abstract:
This paper aims to analyze the understandings and exercise of citizenship of subjects involved in the implementation of the GAM strategy in the macro-region of the 4th Regional Healthcare Coordination of Rio Grande do Sul. Its specific objectives are to describe the relations of knowledge and power around the psychiatric medications which the group of GAM activists is built upon, as well as to reflect on how abnormalities were introduced in the discourses of normality in the political exercise. Through a support participant observation, this study gathered managers, professionals, scholars and users in conversation circles to exchange experiences on GAM strategy. Both the meetings and the content of GAM user guide and moderator guide were analyzed based on the archeogenealogical perspective of Michel Foucault. The force field established by researchers considering the individuals’ freedom to constitute a critical subject of mental health was discussed in this study, as well as the awareness practices of listening and speaking in building user activism. It can be concluded that the exercise of citizenship in mental health involves stating the psychiatric vulnerability of the subject and problematizing the principles of normality by introducing the abnormality in this discursive field.
Keywords:
GAM; Citizenship; Mental Health; Psychiatric Medications