Suffering and defense in work in a mental health care service

ABSTRACT Objective: to know the suffering and the strategies of defense of CAPS AD III workers, from the perspective of the Work Theater proposed by Dejours. Method: a descriptive qualitative research, of the case study type, with CAPS AD III workers, using as theoretical framework the Psychodynamics of Work. Results: CAPS AD III professionals identify that the suffering in the work arises from the frustration between the real and the prescribed one; by the hegemony of practices guided by the biomedical model; stigmatization and prejudice with users; and the limitations of the Health Care Network (Rede de Atenção à Saúde). As an individual defense strategy, the rationalization was defined, and as a collective strategy, the protection strategy. Final considerations: worker uses strategies of defenses to face suffering and give a new meaning to it, characterizing themselves as ways of apprehending, understanding and giving meaning and new looks to their work.