A rua como lugar de existência: uma análise sobre a pobreza e suas implicações para o sofrimento psíquico.

Abstract

This research is situated in the field of the relational debate between poverty, the condition of being on the streets, and the implications of this context for the mental health of the subjects involved. The general objective of the study is to analyze how the street situation influences the manifestation of mental suffering. The methodological approach used is qualitative. Two homeless subjects, over 18 years 3 of age, with more than two years of experience on the streets and that were linked to the Center for Psychosocial Care Alcohol and Drugs (CAPS AD), participated in the investigation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted as a data construction tool. The data analysis occurred from discourse analysis, considering two central categories, around which are subcategories. The central category manifestation of psychic suffering of the homeless population, is subdivided into the experience of poverty, the experience of helplessness and substance use. In turn, the category psychosocial implications of the street situation involves the factors that implied going to the streets, the meanings of the street experience and the daily life of the street situation. It is concluded that the experience of poverty is directly involved in the exposure to social vulnerability and subalternity. The experience of helplessness lived by the homeless population comes from the rupture of family and social bonds and from governmental helplessness. The use of substances is a factor that precedes going to the streets, but it is emphasized in the process of ritualization. The factors that implied going to the streets are related to family, social and governmental disconnection, besides the use of substances. The meanings of the street experience are expressed in how the subjects interpret this reality and involve the feelings that follow from prejudice, social humiliation, and helplessness, as well as the need to leave the streets and the search for institutional support. Finally, the daily life of the street situation is crossed by the phenomena of exposure, vulnerability and exclusion that perpetuate a cycle conditioned to humiliation, violence and suffering. KEYWORDS: poverty; homeless people; psychic suffering;