Tensions of Group Work in the Family Health Strategy
Keywords:
Family health strategy, Groups, Group work, Social constructionism, Psychology.Abstract
The aim in this article is to discuss the use of group work in the Family Health Strategy, focusing on the tensions present in the discursive practices of health professionals about this theme. The information presented here was obtained from audio recordings and transcriptions of “discussion groups”, held with professionals working in the Family Health Strategy in a town located in São Paulo State, and analyzed based on qualitative procedures of thematic analysis. The nomination of three discursive tensions resulted from this analysis: Therapeutic Group versus Nontherapeutic Group; Adherence as either a patient’s responsibility or a team’s responsibility; and Directive Coordination versus Participative Coordination. We discuss that these discursive tensions represent challenges to using group work as a resource for healthcare practice, since these tensions still indicate a fragmented perspective of care, a distance in the relationship between professionals and community, and the predominance of a discourse of individual responsibility regarding adherence to treatment.