Abstract
This article discusses the relationship between body and mental health based on interventions carried out by a Centro de Convivência e Cultura (CECCO) in the Brazilian city of Natal. In this sense, it aims to: understand the experiences lived by users and staff of this service; reflect on the body and the deinstitutionalization of mental health care practices. It was a phenomenological research, whose analysis and interpretation took place from the perspective of Merleau-Ponty (2018). The experiences lived with CECCO bring the possibility of de-medicalizing the body, as it opens up the possibility of experiencing it from its sensations, movements, affections and perceptions related to self-care. The body at CECCO is also experienced from experiences of artistic creation that enable the deconstruction of stigmas related to the diagnosis of mental illness. On the other hand, the relationships of coexistence that are constituted from the service open the body to processes of intercorporeity that inaugurate subjectivities that take place in the act of meeting bodies in movement through existence. These openings make it possible to re-signify notions related to health, thus creating new perspectives for care.