NARRATIVAS DE ADOECIMENTO E ENCONTRO COM UM CENTRO DE SAÚDE MENTAL ITALIANO

This article presents twelve illness narratives of mental health patients, focusing on biographical disruption and resignification of personal experiences. The essay aims to comprehend the experience of illness and its resignification through the narrative of people who attended a Day-care Center of Mental Health in the North of Italy. The data was collected in 2015 and 2016 during fieldwork in the Day-care Center in Settimo Torinese. A qualitative analysis of the textual corpus, underpinned in a hermeneutic posture, documents a set of deep biographical breakages in work, love and social relations areas, but also the presence of a set of resources fueled by the care relations in the Day-care centre for new possibilities of being in the word and belonging to a community where their experiences can be accepted and appreciated.