[Learning to construct a clinical case in mental health]

This study describes the experience of an undergraduate Nursing student in the construction of a clinical case in mental health for the disciplines Mental Health Nursing II and Psychiatrics Nursing at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). In those disciplines case construction is understood as the coordination of the psychiatric interview and a number of concepts from the theory of psychoanalysis, learned in classes, supervision and books, with the aim of structuring a nursing care that is coherent with the psychoanalytical referential's conception of human being: a subject divided by the unconscious, structured as speech The report was based on the student's experience while taking the disciplines, producing reports and constructing the case as a final paper. The student was able to develop a comprehension of the case and build a supporting theory for caring through the demands that came up in the dialogue with the patient that pointed out the points in which intervention was possible.