The paper presents the base of Sílvia Lane's theoretical-methodological work, highlighting its ontological and epistemological presumptions and delineating the grand moments of its configuration process. The dialectic process that advances incorporating new knowledge without abandoning the previous, but uniting it in producing something new. This "pragmatic-critical-revolutionary" methodology, initially intuitive, became scientifically chiseled out from empirical research, according to Lane, fundamental for criticizing the concepts and advancing the theory. The task of the text is easy because Sílvia registered in her books each change of her principal interests, analytical categories and philosophical reflections. There are four moments to be highlighted. All of them make a profound study of her radical theoretical overcome: the transition of a configured reference in the interface between Lewin, Mead, Skinner to Marxism: 1) from the 70's, marked by the privileged dialogue with representations theory and with concerns with language and social groups; 2) from the 80's, a time of vigorous reflections on a new conception of man for psychology, with emphasis on the categories of consciences and alienation, orientated by soviet psychology and neo-marxism (Politzer and Heller); 3) from the 90's, characterized by the reflection on the role of subjectivity/affectivity on social awareness and on transformative action, overcoming the subject's imprisonment to exteriority and to pure repetition and the purge of singularity, and by reaffirming participant research and community praxis; 4) from the new millennium, dedicated to unveil the secrets of human creativity. Emotion, art and creativity were the themes that became to mediate her incessant critical thoughts on psychology's theories and practical consequences for Latin America's social condition. Thus, this paper hopes to present the process of her conception-compromise of science in search of the knowledge of boundless human existence.
psychossocial praxis; Latin American Social Psychology; singularity and social transformation; ethical-esthetic resolution