From Person to Life: An Anthropological Examination of Primary Health Care Approach to Depression in Rio de Janeiro

Identifier:  imarina:9230397

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/imarina9230397

Authors:  Wenceslau, Leandro David; Ortega, Francisco

Abstract:
Mental illness approaches in public health have resulted in controversies around the adequacy of interpretative and therapeutic models. These controversies engage polarized debates amid understandings of mental illnesses either as brain disorders or as socioculturally determined entities. Aiming to investigate how mental health care is implemented in a Latin American metropolis, we conducted an ethnographic study of the approach to depression in a primary care unit in Rio de Janeiro between 2016 and 2017. “Life” emerged from our fieldwork as the main local category for understanding the experiences of patients with depressive symptoms and the work of reengagement performed by family physicians. With this investigation, we seek to provide insights into an approach to mental illness in primary health care that moves away from polarized interpretive frameworks and remains open to the singularities of patients’ experiences of suffering.