Social Representations, Knowledge and Practices of Deinstitutionalizing Insanity. Argentina, Brazil and France

Noemi Graciela Murekian; Vicente de Paula Faleiros; Emmanuelle Jouet

Noemi Graciela Murekian Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina)
Vicente de Paula Faleiros Emeritus Professor at Universidade de Brasília (Brazil)
Emmanuelle Jouet Research Laboratory, EPS Maison Blanche; Education, Ethics and Health, Université François Rabelais, Tours (France)

Keywords: mental health, social representations, insanity, knowledge and practices

Abstract

This paper proposes a dialogue among specialists from Argentina, Brazil and France, in order to address the different ways of generating knowledge regarding the deinstitutionalization of the mental health care system. Each author’s theme specificity responds to the temporariness of local reforms as a fight for a social representation of the insanity as suffering, different of the biomedical mental sickness. From that point on, the knowledge interplay materializes into heterogeneous modalities in light of the psychosocial representation paradigm: (a) implications of research on the transformation of the mental health field: experiences and representations in Argentina; (b) social representation of insanity and the deinstitutionalization practices in Brazil; (c) recognition of the ‘patients’ expertise: changes in the social representation of insanity, in France.

Author Biographies

Noemi Graciela Murekian, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina)

NOEMÍ GRACIELA MUREKIAN has a Doctorate from Universidad de Buenos Aires, School of Psychology and University degree in Sociology from Universidad del Salvador. She is a Professor for the Master’s in Psychosocial Intervention and Research (MIIPS), School of Psychology (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba) and a consultant for the project “Care-Related Issues. Socio-Cultural Metamorphoses and Subjectivity Production in Contemporary Social Spaces” (Universidad Nacional de Quilmes).

Vicente de Paula Faleiros, Emeritus Professor at Universidade de Brasília (Brazil)

VICENTE DE PAULA FALEIROS is social worker and PhD in sociology at the Montréal University, with post-doctoral studies at the EHESS in France. He has been professor in Brazil, Chile and Canada (Québec ) in the domains of social policy, social work, social psychology and gerontology. He is Emeritus Professor of the University of Brasília. Alter 2003 he teaches at the Brasilia Catholic University with investigations on social representations and violence.

Emmanuelle Jouet, Research Laboratory, EPS Maison Blanche; Education, Ethics and Health, Université François Rabelais, Tours (France)

EMMANUELLE JOUET, PhD in Educational Science, is a researcher at the Maison Blanche Research Laboratory (Paris) where she has been working on destigmatising mental health, mental health promotion, developing new training methods involving people living with mental health illnesses as both trainers and trainees, and evaluating continuous learning training programs for mental health professionals.