Paths for the Brazilian psychiatric reform between the commitment to ensure rights and the neoliberal agenda

Abstract

This article analyzes, by a literature review, the political path of the Psychiatric Reform in Brazil, with an emphasis on its advancements and drawbacks. The analysis focuses on contradictions ensued from its condition as a policy to secure the rights of an universal health system, whose development coincides with the advancement of neoliberalism. Considering 2015 as the year that marks a new perspective towards mental health policies, we intent to demonstrate how the obstacles for the Reform reflect demands of a neoliberal agenda, pressured - until present times - by the commitment to social policies. The analysis encompasses four dimensions: the closure of psychiatric asylums and the construction of an alternate mental health system, the relationship between the private-public domains and its impact on the financing of the Unified Public Health System, the effect of social inequality and the frailty of intersectional policies, and the importance of popular participation for the advancement of the psychiatric reform. This literature review acknowledges the drawbacks imposed by the following era, such as the increased neoliberal policy, highlighting that the Psychiatric Reform has always been disputed, and, at present times, the increase of policies that contradict the consolidated guidelines from a democratic period reflects the heightening of this dispute. As a consequence, it adds perspective to the anti-asylum movement, gearing towards a broader social transformation process.