LIVES SUSPENDED: mental health in adolescent women during pandemic (Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, 2022)

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyze the incidence of the Preventive and Mandatory Social Isolation measures established in the context of the covid-19 pandemic, on the life trajectories of adolescent women hospitalized for mental health conditions in a hospital in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires in 2021. A qualitative methodology was applied, with intentional non probabilistic sampling of semi structured interviews with 9 professionals from treatment teams, 2 adolescents who underwent said hospitalizations and 2 significant people. As secondary sources, reports and social stories related to the situations of the young women were analyzed. Neoliberalism is considered as an art of government that, among other multiple functions, involves the biopolitical management of the suffering of subjects. The conclusions include that the pandemic operated as an enhancer of situations of psychological suffering for which the adolescents were hospitalized, in convergence with sociohistorical and contextual factors.