Josicélia Dumêt Fernandes’ professional trajectory: contributions to psychiatric and mental health nursing

ABSTRACT Objectives: to analyze nurse Josicélia Dumêt Fernandes’ life story, with emphasis on her work in the psychiatry and mental health fields. Methods: historical, qualitative research. Semi-structured interviews and documentary research were used as data collection techniques, collected from September to October 2021. For data analysis, we opted for the content analysis method and comparison with the Foucauldian philosophical framework. Results: four categories emerged: Transforming herself and mental health practices; (Re)framing professional practice; Nursing practice and power relations; and The paths and implications in the psychiatry and mental health fields. Final Considerations: the study of the biographer demonstrates a search for transformation of herself and mental health practices, with a rupture in paradigms and reframing of her practice in psychiatry and mental health.