The Classification Act and Mental Disorders Labeling Models: A Socio-anthropological Approach

Abstract

This article is based on a doctoral research (Silva, 2017) and aims to discuss the classificatory act of the so-called mental disorders, from the approach of theorists situated in the social-structuralist perspective, Anthropology and Health Sociology, in the sense of understanding how the current nosological manuals are used as forms of clinical configuration of psychic diseases. The problem composes the following guiding questions: How to explain the act of classifying? Where does this human practice come from? Is it common to all cultures? Is it part of an a priori logic of the human mind or is it a skill based on empirical and social reality? What does it reveal about the mechanisms of distinction and distribution of power in a group? In order to answer these questions, a qualitative research was carried out using documentary research, systematic observation and narratives of teachers of basic education in the State of Amapá, who have experienced suffering and psychic illness, and who attended in a unit of psychosocial care, locus of our research. Thus, 822 medical charts were consulted, 40 teachers were interviewed, 10 multidisciplinary team technicians and 10 school managers were interviewed. Based on theoretical discussions and constructed data, we understand that the classification tendency in mental health may be useful as a technical-scientific instrument to facilitate the treatment process, since it is performed with great care and parsimony, otherwise it may provide bases for the social stigmatization of people.