Paper short abstract:

Contending that the category of spirituality deserves attention on its own, we demonstrate that the notion of “spirituality” has been mobilized agents and institutions involved in the provision of alternative/complementary therapies within Brazilian public health system.

Paper long abstract:

The recent availability of alternative therapies in Brazil's public health system is a result of the 971 Interministerial Order, which, in 2006, established the National Policy of Integrative and Complementary Practices (PNPIC). Such policy aims at ensuring and promoting access, through the Unified Health System (SUS), to traditional Chinese medicine, homeopathy, phytotherapy, thermalism, and anthroposophical medicine. In this paper, whose focus is on the policies of ICPs, we investigate the processes of legitimation and regulation of such therapeutic practices within SUS, as well as their implementation routines in health care units, clinics and public hospital in Brazil. We analyse the invention of Integrative and Complementary Practices (ICPs). Invention of ICPs refers here equally to the production of bureaucratic state records that are specific to such policy, and to the daily work of therapists, physicians and managers who strive to turn alternative/complementary therapies into ICPs. With this in mind, we conclude that the ICPs policies, in addition to legitimizing the availability of alternative/complementary therapies within SUS, likewise create the regulatory tools for carrying out such practices. In the second part of this paper, we look into the ties established between ICPs, spirituality and health. Contending that the category of spirituality deserves attention on its own, we demonstrate that the notion of "spirituality" has been mobilized agents and institutions involved in the provision of alternative/complementary therapies within SUS. We indicate, lastly, that the provision of ICPs within SUS has become an official means of drawing attention to the spiritual dimension of health.