Qualitative and descriptive study held in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil, aiming at analyzing the approaching of health needs from users in the assistance practice of the family health. It was adopted a socio-historical reading about health practice and needs that values interface with intersubjectivity. The present study was performed in one unit through participative observation, semistructured interviews with 8 workers and 17 users, and the analysis of the empirical theme content. Amid the clash of different logics governing the family health, the needs approaching is characterized by a selective process, through the application of various retainers, accompanied by countless tensions and conflicts involving the staff and/or users, and strategies to maintain the control or expand the access for needs answer. This study points out the importance of the subjects in assertion, confrontation and/or relaxation of what it was established, shaping possibilities of a comprehensive or reduced approach about health needs.
Family health program; Health services needs and demands; Work