A ação territorial do Centro de Atenção Psicossocial (CAPS) enquanto indicativo de sua natureza substitutiva
The present dissertation aims to investigate the possibilities of action of a 
Psychosocial Care Center (CAPS) in relation to its territory. The theoretical reference 
provided by the Italian Democratic Psychiatry and by the experience from Santos of a 
mental health program introduces services which act as a replacement for the madhouse 
model as they promote a rupture concerning the psychiatric hospital work. The territory 
becomes a strategic actor to the transformation of the relationship among psychiatry, 
insanity and society. As a group of social references, of intrapersonal functioning codes 
which confront a social imaginary and reality that include or exclude the different, the 
territory is a stage of exercise to the cultural transformation in relation to the 
phenomenon of madness. 
In the context of SUS (Sistema Unico de Saude), the CAPS, created in order to 
replace the continuous treatments in psychiatric hospitals, is included in the category of 
health services by the ministerial decrees, and is spread nationally as a place of 
reference and treatment for people who suffer from psychiatric disorders. The 
production of substitutive services related to SUS challenges the services to break with 
a trajectory of a reform reduced to a technical-assistance dimension, in order to 
approach again to the ethical, conceptual, judicial and social transformations which are 
part of the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform movement. Therefore, it is necessary to go 
beyond the traditional clinic view, and include in the praxis different ways of knowing 
the patients, families and territory. 
A CAPS in the state of Rio de Janeiro was taken as a field of investigation in 
order to verify how its everyday praxis is organized, investigating the possibilities of its 
actions, either inside the institution or in relation to the territory, strengthen 
transformations in the ways of conceiving and dealing with insanity. A participant 
observation was used as well as semi-structured interviews with some professionals 
who work in the CAPS. The investigation emphasizes the importance of making the 
everyday work reach an understanding of the transformations it can operate.
Protagonismo e subjetividade: a construo coletiva no campo da sade mental
This paper is a reflection on the origins as well as conceptual and historical bases of the production of subjectivity by the subject that is considered insane. The importance of the concept of mental alienation in the shaping of the social place of insanity in modern society is analyzed in parallel with the constitution of an alienated subject, incapable of subjectivity or desire: a non-subject of medicalized insanity. Then, after an elaboration about the genealogy of subjectivity, a reflection is presented on the current practices in the field of mental health that aim at the collective construction of the subject of insanity no longer as an alienated subject but as a protagonist, which means a new social relationship with insanity.
The Role of Democratic Politics in Transforming Moral Convictions into Law
Professor Michael Perry's new book, Morality, Politics, and Law, is an ambitious attempt to address the extent to which moral and religious beliefs in a pluralistic society, such as ours, can legitimately influence law. He departs from the common opinion in legal circles that moral beliefs are a matter of taste or "values," and defends an older conception that it is possible to attain moral "knowledge." ' He also departs from the "liberal political-philosophical project," 2 which claims that it is possible (and desirable) for governments to steer a neutral course between competing moral understandings of the good. This, he suggests, is an illusion, and a disguise for the imposition of a particular moral structure without opportunity for open deliberation and reflection. Professor Perry brings some refreshing common sense to these riddles of moral philosophy. His "naturalist" approach has obvious roots in Aristotle-not a bad place to begin thinking about ethics. His dismissal of