The article analyzes the relations between psychiatric science and social services in Rio de Janeiro from the late 1930s to mid-1950s. The historical development of psychiatric science and social services in France and Germany, each country with its own distinct features, serves as an analytical reference in investigating the Brazilian context, starting with the emergence of psychiatry in Brazil in 1852, when the Hospício Pedro II was founded. In 1938, this asylum was transformed into the University of Brazil's Institute of Psychiatry, bringing the model of German research institutes up to date and reflecting a new correlation of forces between the provision of social services and the production of a Brazilian psychiatric science. At the close of the 1930s, social services and psychiatric science in Rio de Janeiro were taking separate paths: social services still pivoted primarily around asylums while the institutionally autonomous science of psychiatry focused on the research of mental diseases as manifestations of organic illness.
history of psychiatry; social services; psychiatric science; University of Brazil's Institute of Psychiatry