Pathways of popular participation in mental health: a narrative review

Abstract

The presence of mechanisms for popular participation in mental health is fundamental for the democratization. Although it has been provided for by law as a guideline of the Brazilian National Health System (SUS) for some decades, the implementation of such mechanisms is an unfinished and complex process, whose advances have been systematically dismantled due to neoliberal policies. This article provides a brief historical analysis of this process, considering the construction of the Brazilian psychiatric reform, and then presents the results of a narrative review, based on articles published in the last 10 years about popular participation in mental health. First, the common meanings of “participation” and the existing types of participatory spaces are discussed. Further on, some potentialities of participation in those spaces, such as producing autonomy and its formative character in the political life of users, in addition to some difficulties that are imposed on its functioning, such as the bureaucratization of services and the growing traces of an asylum model, are analyzed. Finally, possible ways out of these problems, such as promoting cultural changes and articulating movements and social actors, aiming at strengthening spaces for popular participation, are indicated.