Transformations in the world of work, the intense competition for a place in the market, working in public health institutions and work relationships and hierarchies are factors that must be taken into account in the process of deterioration in the health of mental health workers. Based on an understanding of the worker as a social-historical subject, with a socially constructed identity that can be affected by the pressures triggered by work, the aim of this study is to capture the socio-historical process of the constitution of social relations of work, under the aegis of the capitalist system, and its interface with health, as well as the way in which the area of mental health has become a public policy. Finally, the aim is to link these two major themes: social relations of work and mental health as a public policy, with the intention of understanding the mental health of workers in a psychiatric hospital.