Madness without State: practices of Mutual Support and Community Activism in Mental Health of the Organization “Autogestión Libre-mente”

Abstract

Abstract This text approaches the invention of other ways of well-being and care around needs not covered by the mental health system. Through an ethnographic approach, the practices of community activism and mutual support of the collective “Autogestión Libre-mente” are studied, a group from Santiago de Chile that holds weekly meetings under the principles of voluntary association and peer support. The values of horizontality and reciprocity as axes of shared work imply a strong political content and a “therapeutic” sense, without the latter being the explicit purpose of the activities they organize. Around this experience we reflect on the implications of the assembly methodology and deliberative democracy in the configuration of new forms of mental health from the community in the contemporary scenario.