The central objective of the thesis will be to investigate how Nice da Silveira built her discourse on the issue of madness in Brazil in the years between 1944 and 1964. The psychiatrist sought to find a new understanding for madness - in her clinical experience at the Nacional Psychiatric Center of Engenho de Dentro - building through the tools of psychoanalysis and occupational therapy, a more humanistic approach to therapeutic treatment in relation to the current psychiatry of her time.

    Nise da Silveira is often described by the literature as a rebel and a free spirit who redefined the paradigms of Brazilian psychiatry. In this sense, we will evaluate this assumptions and the possible relations between rebellion and female condition in NIse da Silveira's trajectory.