Paranóia, histeria ou paranoiquice? Revisitando cinquenta anos de psiquiatria portuguesa pelo caso da pintora Josefa Greno

It is from two distinct moments and three central characters, that this article explores the history of Josefa Greno, a well known floral painter who murdered his husband in the early XX century. The first moment deals with Greno's internment in a psychiatric hospital, causing a controversy opposing doc tors and society, divided between her inimputability and the accountability of her actions. This moment has Miguel Bom barda, the director of the Rilhafoles Hospital at that time, as it's main protagonist, acting emphatically towards the attri bution of a diagnose of paranoia, so he could prove his thesis concerning the "deliriums of persecution". The second mo ment comes fifty years later, when his case is rescued by the painter and art critic, Varela Aldemira, seduced by the pos sibility of creating a psychoanalytic critique of the medical outcome. Finally, the doctor Barahona Fernandes emerges in opposition to Aldemira, persuaded to defend the medical positioning and their scientific probity. Following this path, the article revisits fifty years of history considering Josefa Greno's case study as significant to the construction of por tuguese psychiatry.