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This article intends to discuss the transformative effects of militant and artistic contexts on the daily lives of mental health users. This is an ethnographic research which methodology was based on participant observation and interviews. Data analysis was based on critical and reflexive hermeneutics and phenomenological perspective. We have been able to verify that the engagement in artistic and militant groups resonates strongly in the life-worlds of these people, as well as in the elaboration of their daily life. In these places empathic relationships and alterity are built, and this development is accentuated when the group is gathered, but also has repercussions that exceed this space-time interval. The performative and symbolic elements contribute to the re-elaboration of a being-in-the-world of these subjects and require them to construct a collective scene in which roles, functions, expectations and affections are negotiated; and this process allows them to access from new positions a whole variety of social dramas. So, it is possible to consider these spaces under the therapeutic bias, but we have seen that it is precisely from the denial of this statute that its efficacy comes. Thus, we reinforce the importance of spaces open to the protagonism of the subjects for a psychiatric reform thought as a complex social process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to approach the ruptures and transformations caused in the life of young people who have undergone the experience of psychic suffering accompanied in an Adult Psychosocial Care Center (CAPS) in the city of São Paulo. This research was carried out through an ethnography in the accompaniment of a group of young people from the service. Participant observation techniques, records in a field book and individual interviews were used. We observed compromise of sociability, withdrawal from friendships, limitations with the use of medication and difficulty in obtaining a formal job. The consumption of alcohol and other drugs emerged as a matter for care, since it permeates important aspects of socialization. The conception of psychic suffering based on the idea of illness is a reflection of how CAPS and other health services approach the theme. The CAPS has shown itself to be a welcoming and trusting space, especially in times of crisis, but it raises the discussion about what strategies it uses to compose such care to this specific population and how aligned they are with mental health policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The injecting drug use refers mainly to the use of cocaine, and its members are characterized by high frequency of injection, the high number of sexual partners, sexual risk behavior and the exchange of sex for drugs. There are a significant number of women who use injection drugs, requiring continuous research with respect to gender relations that permeate this practice and risk behaviors, and to their specific demands. We attempted to elucidate these women's vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), drug use by partnering with drug users, and unprotected sex as a result of addiction. This was a qualitative study, in which were used participant observation and focus groups as strategies for knowledge of the population. Data were divided into the following themes: drug use, emotional relationships, violence, legal status, sexual behavior, and access to information and health measures. Investment and development of the concept of inequities in gender relations should be recommended for health measures in order to clarify and strengthen the group of women in decision making in their sexual practices and drug use that impute greater vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]