The Reflexive Stage: an analysis of the final moment of the Mental Health Community Group

Author(s)

Marília Hormanez

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC)
• Defense date: 2021-06-21

Examining board members

Carmen Lucia Cardoso; Luciana Nogueira Fioroni; Rita Martins Godoy Rocha

• Advisor: Carmen Lucia Cardoso

Abstract

Brazil has been living an expansion in the use of group working technics, especially in mental health, as it is an effective technique and consistent with the biopsychosocial paradigm. This, plus the need to achieve the principles arising from the Psychiatric Reform, render studies about new methods of working with groups, based on biopsychosocial attention, even more important. Thus, the Mental Health Community Group (GCSM) presents a group working method that focuses on promoting mental health and proved to be a good strategy for different contexts and different publics. The GCSM\'s meetings have three different stages: the \"Sarau\", the Experience Sharing, and the Reflexive Stage (ER). This study aimed to describe the last stage and to comprehend its specificities and developments for the participants and the group dynamic. Therefore, 24 audio recordings were selected, in random, of meetings of GCSM hold at a Day Hospital during 2015, 2016, and 2017. The recordings were transcribed and a quantitative-qualitative method was used for the data analysis (descriptive statistical analysis and Thematic Analysis). Two major analytic categories were created. The first one was \"Reflexive stage description\" comprised of two sub-categories: 1.\"The Reflexive Stage presentation by the coordinator\", which describes and analyses the invitation for the ER, proposed by the coordinator, with an emphasis on the \"attentive presence\", on the reception of the working group, and on the achievement of experiences made possible by the meetings; \"The involvement in the Reflexive Stage\", which reveals more verbal participation when compared to the other stages (\"Sarau\" and Experience Sharing), it also describes the moments before the meeting that are shared by the participants during the ER and also presents specific narratives designated \"testimonies\" and \"comments\". The second major category \"The Reflexive Stage singularities and developments\" was composed of four themes: 1. \"Reaffirmation of the proposal for attention to reality\", which addresses the consolidation of this technique proposed by GCSM, made possible by the incentive to the attention and the reflection about what was experienced during the group session; 2. \"Meeting developments with the others\", which shows the power of self-acceptance, the identification of their own potentials, the knowledge of similarities and differences found in others, the possibility of change, and the opportunity to better understand meanings and values; 3. \"Strengthening bonds between group members\", which reveals the admiration, appreciation, and caring between the participants; 4. \"Community Group meaning construction\", which shows the ER as a place that makes possible the rise of new meanings and the achievement of the method proposed by the GCSM. These analyses amplify the comprehension of this method and the innovative strategy of a ER, showing its multiple potentials. The consolidation of this method offers a powerful model for working groups, contributing to the rise of group techniques and the diversification and establishment of a biopsychosocial mental health net. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 18/02646-9 - Expanding the understanding about the grupo Comunitário de saúde mental: the reflexive stage
• Grantee: Marília Hormanez
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master