[The history of psychiatric nursing in Rio Grande do Sul: Part I]

The objective of this article is to contribute towards the history and historiography of Psychiatric Nursing in Rio Grande do Sul by reconstituting the Professional School of Nursing that functioned from 1939 to 1952 at the São Pedro Hospital. Since this is recent history, documentary research and oral history were used as primary sources of information. It was possible to characterize the context that favored its organization, the main characteristics of the process used to train nurses in the field of psychiatry and its effects in attaining the discipline of these professionals in relation to the psychiatric project, which at that time was hegemonic.