A extensão universitária em saúde mental: por uma formação crítica

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the effects of internships in mental health extension programs on Psychology undergraduate students from the university PUC Minas (Campus Betim) facing the interface between the university and the Anti-Asylum Struggle. The research took place in the city of Betim, Minas Gerais/Brazil, and aims to assert the importance of university extension in mental health during undergraduate programs in Psychology. Regarding methodology, we carried out a qualitative study that followed the procedures of exploratory research (GIL, 2011), bibliographic research, documentary research and field research. In the bibliographical research, we conducted a historical contextualization of the Psychiatric Reform in Brazil focusing on the city of Betim. The National Mental Health Conferences gained a specific topic in this chapter because they contain reflections that corroborate our purpose. Then we discussed the university starting from the point of view of Santos (1999; 2005) and Santos and Filho (2008). We presented the historical trajectory of higher education in Brazil up to the Psychology Program at PUC Betim according to the Laws of Basic Guidelines of Education, always focusing on internships. In the last theoretical chapter, Paulo Freire (1996) and the idea of education for freedom served as the reference; we conducted a documentary research on the concepts of education by the university PUC Minas in general and specifically its Betim campus, by the Minas Gerais School of Public Health (ESPMG), by the Forum for Education in Mental Health (FOFO) and by the National Meeting of Anti-Asylum Students (ENEAMA). The field research consisted of semistructured interviews (MINAYO, 2010; GIL, 1999) with the coordinator of the Extension Program in Mental Health at PUC Minas Betim, with the fieldwork supervisor and with seven students whose internship in the network lasted at least six months in mental health substitute services. After the content analysis (BARDIN, 1979; DEUSDARÁ; ROCHA, 2006; MINAYO, 2010), we concluded that, immersed in the experience of this multiplicity of knowledge, the extension program intern has the opportunity to experience unusual situations that generate autonomy and leadership, besides crucially qualifying him/her to work as a psychologist in mental health. Subjective components of each intern also affect their learning in the extension program, because we saw that all aspects of mental health are covered by critical views of interns, but not every intern in the same program reached a critical view about everything. Although we have focused on the effects of extension programs internship on the intern, we saw that services, staff, professionals and university are also benefited in specific ways. Therefore it behooves us to lay claim to government instances so that they can ensure financial and structural conditions to drive university extension to a critical formation.