[Time in mental illness according to Nise da Silveira]

This research is about time at psychiatric hospitals. After a brief review of the literature on time and time at a psychiatric hospital, the author focused on psychiatry's approach and on studies by Nise da Silveira, a researcher who worked at the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional do Engenho de Dentro, Rio de Janeiro (now named Centro Psiquiátrico Pedro II), where in 1946 she founded an Occupational Therapy and Rehabilitation Division, which a patient named "the emotions coping room". Time of mental illness according to Nise is equal to the synthesis of time versus affection, with no considerations towards the sensitivities of scientific knowledge, but instead is a search for the real complexities of the human condition. Referring back on life and then suffering, Nise instead she considered affection as a sine qua non condition for the understanding of "difference" and "at the limit" referring to what the psychiatric jargon called " time and space disorientation ". Considering the trends of the adoption of new policies in psychiatric care in Brazil, an alternative for secluded time of mental illness is a contribution from Nise da Silveira as a dignifying survival measure in a time of psychosocial care.