O trabalho dos(as) Assistentes Sociais na saúde mental no município de Natal/RN: uma análise das competências e atribuições profissionais no contexto da nova morfologia do trabalho

Abstract

The professional work carried out by Social Workers involved in mental health policy, as an object of study, has increasingly become an essential and urgent need for problematization in the academic sphere and in everyday professional life. The understanding of the particularities that involve this professional insertion becomes relevant in several aspects, because from this reflection it is possible to understand the limits, challenges and possibilities experienced in the socio-occupational spaces in which these professionals are inserted. Connected to this problematization, the importance of reflecting on the professional skills and duties that are performed by this professional category is highlighted, which make it essential for the process of production and reproduction of social relations in the sociability of capital, considering the consequences in the context of the new morphology of work. From this perspective, the study aimed to analyze the skills and duties of Social Workers carried out at work within the scope of mental health policy in the city of Natal/RN in order to understand the challenges posed by the new morphology of work. The locus of study was the devices of the Psychosocial Care Network (RAPS) in the city of Natal/RN, which has Social Workers among its professional staff. The research relied on a quantitative-qualitative methodological approach, was based on the dialectical-critical method and was developed in three specific stages: literature review, documentary and field research. With this production, the main results were the need for theoretical-conceptual deepening of professionals regarding the proposed problematizations, including the clarity in the distinction between professional skills and private duties; particularities in mental health; elements of convergence between the ideas of the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform and the foundations of the Ethical-Political Project of Social Service and the new morphology of work. Through this research, reflection was also raised regarding the importance of producing knowledge related to suffering and/or psychosocial illness within the scope of the sociability of capital, given that this process of illness presents complex and multifaceted determinations, which reflect on the materiality and in people's subjectivity and result in physical and/or psychosocial illnesses.