[Challenges for Psychosocial Care Centers as alternative services: the new chronicity in question]

This paper is part of a qualitatively oriented research project conducted in a Psychosocial Care Center (Caps) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The goal of this work was to analyze the risks of a new chronicity in this service. The research was based on semi-structured interviews with professionals, patients and relatives, analyzing the data from a social constructionist perspective. The main conclusion of this study is that the people interviewed agree with the tendency of a new chronicity, an expression that was useful to analyze the operations, advances and challenges of this service.