[Attention to the Crisis in mental health: centralization and decentralization of practices]

This article focuses on the attention to the crisis in mental health within the scope of Brazilian public health policies. It sets out to show the theoretical and practical disputes of significance about the notions of crisis that unfold in different models of care in situations of urgency and emergency in mental health, as well as in challenges to the effectiveness of the care process in the health network. The survey began with a descriptive and exploratory study, with emphasis on the study of protocols and institutional documents in mental health, from the sociotechnical standpoint. As an original contribution of this article, the main socio-technical dichotomies that emerged from the processes of attention to the crisis in Brazil (in the use of terminologies, clinical practice and attention models, the main challenges for consolidation of network care and in the vacancy regulation strategies) were highlighted.