Through three movements, this paper foccuses on analyses of the relation between health and work at mental health public services. The first movement is devoted to mental health work genealogy and is an attempt to understand the tensions and transformations which have shaped this work field, such as it is known nowadays. In the second movement, it discusses and presents the diversity of Brazilian bibliographical production concerning relation between health and work at mental health services. In the last movement, the authors first approach the research field, carrying out individual and group interviews, with mental health service workers, trying to place these workers' experiences in the center of the relation between health and work analysis. These three movements allowed the authors to put together some elements that will subside the continuation of their research and will favor the ethical dialogue between knowledge coming from experience and built in different academic fields and subjects.
psychiatric reform; worker's health; working activity