This work aims at analysing the role of the psychiatric nurse in assisting the hospitalized mentally ill, viewing that practice not in itself, but as a social and historical one. An empirical research was done in two psychiatric hospitals in two stages: field observations and interviews with nurses. It was checked that the emphasis the role of the psychiatic nurse is not in therapeutic relationship but in administratives activities and that the relationship the members of the nursing team have with the patient is authoritarian and reproduce the authoritarism of the institutions. Thus the precepts of school that says the chief role of the nurse is the therapeutic relationship seem to have an ideological character. That makes us suggest that the teachinglearning relationships must be established on a praxis basis.
Role-psichyatric nurse; Psichyatric nursing