Prendersi cura della cittadinanza: politica, intimità e ironia in un servizio di salute mentale all'Avana

The clashing of Cuba and the capitalist world economy has heralded a new beginning in Cuba’s revolutionary historiography. This paper analyzes the psychotherapy as a way to reconceptualise subjectivity in this era of shifting ideology. My research has been carried out in a Mental Health Community centre in La Habana (Cuba). Patients of this kind of Service are referred to as “neurotics”, people who, even though without a severe mental disorder, need psychological support because in a difficult moment of their lives. In a situation where the patient is disoriented about his/her perception of the "state of things", psychiatrists and psychologists may become the patient’s guide. Nevertheless, as the results of my ethnographic research suggest, psychiatrists and psychologists don’t use their role to shape the psychiatric care into a form of governmentality. Instead, they use the therapy, and the ironic speech sometimes included in it, also to highlight the social contradictions that bring citizens to a neurotic behaviour.