FROM NORM TO AFFECT: A CARTOGRAPHY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS AND CARE IN MEDICAL EDUCATION

Abstract

This study analyzes the relationships between psychological distress and the production of care in medical education, taking subjective experiences and the intensities that traverse the training process as its central axis. It is a qualitative study with a cartographic approach, integrating in-depth interviews and the application of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). The theoretical framework draws on the contributions of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Joel Birman, understanding medical education as a dispositif for the production of subjectivity. The results indicate the presence of significant levels of psychological distress among students, articulated with institutional demands, pedagogical relationships, and experiences of contact with the suffering of others. Distress emerges as an effect of assemblages that operate on bodies, functioning as an analyzer of formative practices. The study concludes that medical education not only produces technical knowledge but also modes of subjectivation and ways of relating to care, being traversed by tensions between norm and affect. The need for formative dispositifs that recognize and sustain the affective dimensions involved in healthcare is emphasized.