NISE DA SILVEIRA
Nise da Silveira was born in Maceió, Alagoas state, in 1905. She attended medical school at the Faculdade de Medicina da Bahia (the Medicine Faculty of Bahia) and graduated as the only woman in her class.
After moving to Rio de Janeiro she worked as psychiatrist at the Hospital da Praia Vermelha.
She was arrested in 1936, during the Vargas dictatorship, for being a member of the União Feminina Brasileira (Brazilian Women’s Union). After being pardoned in 1944, she continued her work at the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional (National Psychiatric Centre), currently known as the Instituto Municipal Nise da Silveira (the Nise Silveira Municipal Institute).
She was against the confinement of patients and psychiatric practices such as electric shocks, and championed new treatments. As such, she founded the Occupational Therapy Section, from whose expressive activities the Museu de Imagens do Inconsciente (Museum of Images from the Unconscious) originated, which currently holds the world’s largest collection of its kind.
She pioneered the use of animals in therapy. Her contact with Swiss psychiatrist Carl C. Jung introduced Jungian psychology to Latin America. She also created Casa das Palmeiras, the first rehabilitation clinic for outpatients of psychiatric institutions in Brazil.
Her research and studies have resulted in art exhibitions, courses, symposia, publications, and other intellectual productions, and she has received innumerous accolades, homages, and titles in different fields of knowledge.
Her spirit of deep humanism has exerted a strong influence on Brazilian culture as a whole. Her work predated the psychiatry renewal movements in England (1960s), in Italy (1970s), and in Brazil (1980s).
After her death in 1999, her private archive was included in the UNESCO International Memory of the World Register.
