Comunidade Terapêutica e Hospitalidade: a questão do estrangeiro

Abstract

Hospitality can be conditioned or absolute. It makes us dive into rules, treaties, and laws or into the correlations of acknowledging alterity, as well as hostility and the perception of someone else as the enemy. Hospitality is in the basic organization of human bonding and culture, and it introduces to us the relationship towards someone else, towards the foreigner. Thus, this work problematized how hospitality presents itself on the welcoming strategies of a Therapeutic Community in Parnaíba – PI. Our aim is to map the hospitality techniques in a therapeutic community‟s routine; to distinguish the links with RAPS; to analyze the institutionalization and the hospitality processes experienced in these installments; to reflect on the hospitality and welcoming strategies inside mental health in the light of the philosophy of the differences and of the deconstructed process of thinking. We used the following methodological triangulation: cartographic research, participative observation, and group mobilization, as a way of generating information. We analyzed the matters through the discourse and the implications of the meetings between the cartographer and the foreigners. Three points must be emphasized: 1) the arrival, introducing the foreigners and the Therapeutic Communities means of organization and institutionalization, as well as its routine and its rules; 2) the reciprocity, stressing the ensuing subjectivity productions and how it unfolds on the Therapeutic Communities hospitality offer and the connections with RAPS; 3) the departure, which focuses on the dreams, wishes and friendship bonds built during the meetings, which can reinforce the warm welcome regarding health matters. We noticed that the Therapeutic Community, as well as the RAPS, still falls short on offering a hospitality that acknowledges the differences, strengthens the building of long-term bonds, and overcomes the awkwardness towards foreigners – in other words, that develops a caretaking, welcoming and embracing environment.