Paper short abstract:

This study is about the scopes and limitations of recent forms of provision of mental health services in primary care centers. The observation point was a low socioeconomic status area with an ancient rural and agricultural tradition in the southern part of Mexico City.

Paper long abstract:

It has been documented that Mexico, a middle-income country with great income inequality, have a serious lack of mental health services for its population size and its mental health troubles. The more recent trends in the country points towards new ways to face it through primary care attention. In this scenario, the question this panel proposes to think about is specially pertinent. Because even if Mexico is part of the Western societies, large segments of its population have a culture deeply influenced by ancient traditions whose roots go back to pre-Hispanic times. Large parts of these groups have been relegated, along the historical process, to the most disadvantaged socio-economic conditions, and their daily life goes on under complex threats to their mental health. In this presentation I work with the testimonies of a small group of medical students who I accompanied during the last stage of their professional training, when they performed their social service in first-level health centers in Xochimilco and Tláhuac, two Southern regions in Mexico City with an ancient rural and agricultural tradition. Through the scenes I reconstruct, I try to show the benefits these people obtained for their mental health problems, but also the gap between their needs and beliefs, and the kind of professional services they got. I express my aspiration that an approximation like this would contribute to nurture the reflection in the quest for better modalities of mental health care services, closer to the subjectivity of those who require that care.