Through analysis of the medical charts from an institution for treatment of the insane run by an association of Kardecist spiritists, it is possible to identify the various perceptions and strategies for treatment and social control of insanity developed by different sectors of the Brazilian population in the first half of the twentieth century in the Brazilian countryside. The multidimensional aspect of the experience of insanity is stressed, as it is a sociocultural event capable of different analyses and interpretations by heterogeneous groups of social actors, who interpret it based on their own systems of meaning and understanding.
psychiatry; spiritism; insanity; medical charts; Brazil