This article aims to show the results of field research conducted between December 2010 and July 2011 in a city in southern Brazil, about the exploitation of the concept of psychological violence, brought by Maria da Penha Law (Law 11.340/06), in order to read the law using this concept. Data are primarily related to agents working at a Women Police Station, and also prosecutors. At these locations, I sought to understand how the concept of psychological violence is worked by agents and its theoretical and practical meaning. Anyway, this concept is used to question the implementation of the law, to think the changes that are occurring in the condition of women in situations of violence and to problematize the relationship between local and global in the studied field position. The methodology consisted of ethnographic and bibliographic research in the fields of Law, Psychology and Anthropology.
Psychological Violence; Law 11.340/06; Agents of Security and Justice