Recognizing the subjective production of care

Abstract

This article assumes that there is a subjective production implicit in health care and suggests that qualitative investigation in health should also take into account studies on this dimension of reality. The subjective production of health care manifests itself on three levels: the first, the rizomatic networks which are formed and act in flows of intensities within health services and connect the workers in their working environment through lines of integral care; the second, the desire which is formed in primary, unconscious processes and operates as a productive energy to propel the processes that construct reality; and the third, the 'live work in action' which serves as a platform upon which the networks of health care are produced. There is a combined and synergic movement among the three dimensions. This tells us that workers construct their work processes according to a unique way of understanding the world and taking part in it, putting a limit on the normative frameworks that attempt to structure the practice of care into rigid protocols. It is within the work of caring for health that these personal singularities manifest themselves and for this reason is a diverse, varied expression of manifold subjectivities in action.