ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the value of the cultural-historical theory of subjectivity both for professional practice and for research in the field of mental health. Drawing on empirical findings from original research undertaken in Brazilian community mental health services, a complex articulation between mental health care and subjective development is proposed by emphasising a unified research/professional practice. Subjectivity is understood on the basis of a new ontological definition that emphasises it as a symbolic-emotional system. This perspective overcomes the traditional intrapsychic and individualistic reductionism that has typified the use of the concept of subjectivity. At the same time, it represents an alternative to the social reductionism that has dominated critical and cultural-historical psychology. Three fields that are usually separated from each other are integrated: Psychotherapy, subjective development, and institutional functioning. Dialogue is discussed as a key epistemological and methodological device for this approach, which implies the creation of relational spaces in which individuals may emerge as active agents. From this perspective, theoretical construction is developed hand-in-hand with the therapeutic process, both being grounded on an ethics of the subject. Theory is a process in perpetual development, which feeds and is fed by, new domains of practice.
