Nise da Silveira recognized Brazilian psychiatrist

Nise da Silveira recognized Brazilian psychiatrist

Nise da Silveira (Maceio, February 15, 1905 - Rio de Janeiro, October 30, 1999) was a renowned Brazilian psychiatrist, a student of Carl Jung. He dedicated his life to psychiatry and was radically opposed to the aggressive forms of treatment of his time, such as confinement in psychiatric hospitals, electroshock, insulin therapy and lobotomy.

Training:

Her basic training takes place in a school of nuns of the moment, exclusively for girls, the School of the Blessed Sacrament, located in Maceió, AL. His father was a journalist and director of "Jornal de Alagoas". From 1921 to 1926 he attended the Bahia School of Medicine, where he graduated as the only woman among the 157 men of this class. She is one of the first women in Brazil to graduate in medicine. He married at this time with the health worker Mário Magalhães da Silveira, his classmate at the university, with whom he lived until his death in 1986. In his work he shows the relationship between poverty, inequality, promoting health and preventing disease in Brazil. In 1927, after the death of his father, both move in Rio de Janeiro, where he participated in the artistic and literary life. In 1933 he arrives at the Antonio Austregésilo neurological clinics. Approved at the age of 27 in a contest, he began to work in the assistance services of psychopaths and in mental prophylaxis of the Red Beach Hospital.

Prison:

During the communist conspiracy was denounced by a nurse of possession of Marxist books. The complaint led to his arrest in 1936 in the prison of the Friar's Cup for 18 months.

In this prison, Graciliano Ramos was also arrested, for which he became one of the characters in his book Memories of Prison.

From 1936 to 1944 with her husband she remains semi-secret, far from public service for political reasons. During his retirement he makes a profoundly reflective reading of Spinoza's works, from which the material published in his book Cartas a Spinoza in 1995 comes out.

Engenho de Dentro Psychiatric Center:

In 1944 he returned to public service and began his work in "The Pedro II National Psychiatric Center", and in the Engenho de Dentro Psychiatric Center, in Rio de Janeiro, where he resumed his combat techniques with what he considered to be aggressive psychiatric patients.

Because of her disagreement with the methods adopted in the halls, refusing to apply electric shocks to patients, Nise da Silveira is transferred to practice in occupational therapy, an activity that is overlooked by doctors. So in 1946 he founded this institution "Occupational Therapy Section".

Instead of the traditional cleaning and maintenance tasks that patients exercised under the title of occupational therapy, painting and modeling workshops are created with the intention of allowing patients to resume their links with reality through symbolic expression and creativity, revolutionizing the psychiatry practiced in the country.

The Museum of Images of the Unconscious:

The biography of Van Gogh is an important reference for scholars interested in understanding the therapeutic possibilities of creative work in the face of emotional disorders.

In 1952, he founded the Museum of Images of the Unconscious, in Rio de Janeiro, a center of study and research for the conservation of the works produced in the studies of modeling and painting that established the institution, considering that they are documents that open new possibilities for a deeper understanding of the universe within schizophrenia.

Among the patient artists, whose works are included in the collection of this institution, we can mention: Adelina Gómez, Carlos Pertuis, Emigdio de Barros, Octavio Ignacio.

This valuable collection boosted the writing of his book "Images of the Unconscious", films and exhibitions, participating in important exhibitions such as "Show Brazil 500 years".

Between 1983 and 1985, filmmaker León Hirszman directed the film "Images of the Unconscious", a trilogy that shows works made by the inmates with a script created by Nise da Silveira

House of the Palms:

A few years after the founding of the museum in 1956, Nise developed another revolutionary project for his time: he created Casa de las Palmeras, a clinic dedicated to the rehabilitation of former psychiatric patients.

This site can express their creativity every day, being treated as outpatients in a stage of transition between the routine of the hospital and its reintegration to life in society.

She was a pioneer in the study of emotional relationships between patients and animals that she uses and calls co-therapists.

He realized this possibility of treatment by seeing how a patient to whom he had delegated the care of an abandoned dog in the hospital had improved his responsibility by dealing with this animal as a stable reference point in his vital emotional well-being.

Part of this process is exposed in his book "Cats, dealing with emotion", published in 1998.

Pioneer of Jung's psychology in Brazil:

Throughout her work, Nise da Silveira presented and published Jung's psychology in Brazil.

Interested in the study of mandalas, a recurring theme in the paintings of his patients, he wrote in 1954 to Carl Gustav Jung, from which emerged a fruitful exchange of correspondence.

Jung encouraged her to present an exhibition of the works of her patients that received the name "Art and Schizophrenia", which occupied five rooms in the "II International Congress of Psychiatry", held in 1957 in Zurich. When visiting the exhibition with her, she led her to study mythology as a key to understand the works created by the inmates.

Nise da Silveira attended him "Carl Gustav Jung Institute" in two periods: from 1957 to 1958, and from 1961 to 1962. There he received supervision in psychoanalysis from Jung's assistant, Marie-Louise von Franz.

Returning to Brazil after his first period of studies at Jung, he formed the "Carl Jung Study Group" at his residence, which he presided over until 1968.

He wrote, among others, the book "Jung: Life and Work", published in the first edition in 1968.

Date: 06/02/2011

Author: Hortensia Hernandez

Source: http://www.heroinas.net/2011/08/nise-da-silveira.html

Alumnas: Melissa Alcarraz, Tatiana Pérez