Mental Health and the Social-judicial Field: the "state of the art of debate" with the Psychiatric Reform

In the present paper we aim to outline the trajectory of the theme of mental health in the social-judicial field, in an attempt to visualize the "state of the art of debate" of the academic production on this theme in the last decade (2001-2011), in the knowledge production areas of the applied human and social sciences (CAPES, 2009). This problem emerges as a relevant issue to be object of research due to changes that have occurred in several mental health spaces after the psychiatric reform movement that took place in Brazil. This paper has an innovative character, in view of the originality of the construction of the "state of the art" on the issue of mental health. Therefore, it has an eminently exploratory character. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, a database was constructed as a tool for analyzing the universe of works that were found about the theme of mental health in the social-judicial field in the main means of publication with virtual access. However, it was identified that, despite the advances perceived in the public policies in the area of mental health in this country, the scientific-technical production does not seem to have accompanied these changes with the same intensity.