In the corridor of madness, an anti-asylum breach

the Thaís S. Acácio Library and its significance to the city of Juiz de Fora – MG

Abstract

Established by the Academic League of Social and Community Psychology – Laço, an extension project of the Psychology program at Academia University Center – UNIACADEMIA, the Thaís S. Acácio Library emerged from the need to recover the historical memory of madness in the city of Juiz de Fora-MG. Its rich online collection, currently containing 414 different materials on mental health, aims to support future research and interventions on this field in one of the cities that belonged to the so-called “corridor of madness”. This paper aims to analyze how the recovery of the anti-asylum memory, through the library, can contribute to the promotion of health and quality of life in the face of the overwhelming psychiatric counter-reform in Brazil. Thus, the goal is to highlight the library as a successful extension practice committed to the socio-historical reality of the territory in question, thereby advocating for the rescue and materialization of the anti-asylum struggle as a complex social movement that, formed by a conjunction of multiple agents, promotes health by resisting against the institutionalization and commercialization of madness, so strongly condemned by the theoretical framework of Latin American social and community psychology. In conclusion, the library is a constant and dynamic construction that relies on the active participation of Laço members to develop, through the democratization of knowledge, a new social paradigm for madness and mental health, capable of promoting quality of life and well-being for the population.