Collective mental health: a review of the concept in the academic literature of Brazil, Colombia, and Spain

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The notion of collective mental health refers to an alternative proposal to the biomedical and behavioral perspective that has been gaining centrality in academic publications in Brazil, Spain, and Colombia, especially in the last two decades. METHOD: In order to understand the meaning acquired by this notion, an analysis of the concept was carried out through a narrative review that used intentional criteria for the selection of the material. RESULTS: nuances were identified in each country and/or its associated problems, in close connection with the historical and socio-cultural particularities of each scenario. Violence related to asylum logic (Brazil, Spain), and those derived from armed conflict and political violence (Colombia) are the problems where collective mental health provides epistemological and practical guidelines for accompaniment in contexts of social suffering. CONCLUSION: the delimitation between the collective and the community is the main conceptual challenge that emerges from the intersection between mental health and collective health.