Conformation of the ‘modern’ Brazilian nursing and interfaces with Psy Knowledge

a historiographical study – 1932-1988

Abstract

This study aims to describe and analyze the circulation of Psy Knowledge – Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Psychiatry – in the journal ‘Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem’, between 1932 and 1988. Methodologically, it is a historiographical research whose primary sources were 59 texts from the aforementioned journal that addressed such Knowledge. The results indicated that the Psy Knowledge were subjects of interest to that collective that started to publicize it, in the journal, and to introduce it in the curricula of the Nursing Schools. They were appropriated to compose the process of conformation of the modern nurse by, at least, three mechanisms, namely: 1) teaching of Psychology toward the moral and behavioral training of nurses; 2) teaching of Psychology for the training in patient care, in addition to health of the body; and 3) Psychiatry teaching to train nurses in caring for mental illness. Therefore, Psy Knowledge circulated in the thought collective of those authors who published in the journal and, concomitantly, in line with the Nightingale style of thought for the ‘ideal’ training of nurses. Hence, such Knowledge alluded to the conformation of what would be considered the ‘modern’ Brazilian nursing.