Entre a clínica ampliada e a clínica especializada: um estudo etnográfico sobre os cuidados a autistas na atenção psicossocial.

Abstract

Divergences around autism care and policies in Brazil put forward new challenges. On the one hand, the growing demand for specialized services, training of human resources and the political activism of autistic parentes demanding public policies that respond to the specific care needs of this population. On the other hand, the mental health professionals, committed to the ideals of the Psychiatric Reform that promove care methods inspired by the so called anti- asylum fight (luta antimanicomial). Given this scenario, it becomes necessary to map the processes already underway in public mental health care in order to have a proper understanding of both barriers and improvements faced by the implementation of the mental health care network for that population. Through ethnographic immersion in CAPSI Maurício de Sousa, this Ph D thesis aims to map the insertion of autism in the mental health system. In this sense, it examines how the principles of universal access, integral care and intersectoriality are mobilized by mental health professionals in favor of the expanded clinic model of care. We have also examined what kind of challenges and strengths these professionals are identifying in the current autistic healthcare model and how they are reacting to them.