This study proposes to assess the nurses' comprehension of their identity construction process as managers in Belo Horizonte's private hospitals. This is done from a parallel with the theoretical concepts of Jean Piaget, in which human identity is constructed during childhood and throughout life with other people's help. From this epistemological point of view, we know that the individual is not born with their cognitive structure. It is constructed by an organized process of adaptation that improves and refines mental structures and intelligence. Utilizing the semi-structured interviews and a projective graphic test, we identified that the identity construction process of the nurse managers reflects the singularity of their life and different phases of maturity related to management. We observe that identity construction and knowledge elaboration includes three stages: the identity crises or cognitive conflict; the transition phase or the adaptation (assimilation and accommodation); and the phase of equilibrium.
Knowledge; Management; Identity crisis
