Autonomous Medication Management: an analytical intervention in mental health care services

In a context of high rates of medicalization of the population and in light of the scantly critical use of psychiatric medications in mental health services, this paper reports aspects of a qualitative study that had the opportunity to intervene in care practices in three major Brazilian cities. Following the principle of Brazilian Psychiatric Reform championing users' rights to participate in decisions about their treatment, the research intervened in psychosocial care centers (CAPS) seeking the empowerment of the users regarding the use of drugs in their therapeutic projects. Interviews were conducted and focus groups set up. From this recorded material, the paper analyzed some situations that, among other things, attested to the difficulty of avoiding the exercise of power over users via the administration of psychotropic drugs. Little dialogue about drugs, and the existence of stigmatization spaces where user rights are inhibited or "accepted with caution," was also detected in the services surveyed.