The presented thesis raises questions about the issue of integrating people with mental disorders in the formal labor. It is part of the realization that there is no novelty in the relationship between work and mental health , which is historic and dates back to the use of labor as a means of discipline in work houses of the seventeenth century. The thesis sought to historicize this relationship and demonstrate its latest configuration in the current scenario of integration of people with mental disorders in the formal labor. With this, we sought to identify the mechanisms that have made possible that this insertion occurs, meaning that the work has to these subjects, as well as the impact that the inclusion in the formal labor had on their lives. The research was guided by the idea that, despite the deleterious effects of the social order that the work assumes the capitalist system , that figure activity in the imagination of people with mental disorders as an ideal productive activity , among other things, due to the cultural and symbolic association It applies to the common sense, between work and normality. To perform the field research were interviewed 17 participants, including users of mental health services , managers and professionals who work with activities focused on the integration of people with mental disorders in the formal labor. Were elected as a research field the Work Management Project and the Pistrab / Nusamt Project. The latter involved also as a research field , the Psychiatric Center of Rio de Janeiro and the Municipal Institute of Mental Health Care Juliano Moreira. The survey results have revealed that for the majority of respondents work assumes the sense of employment and has the ability to promote recognition and social belonging, despite the monetary return it promotes. Questions which referred to the strengthening of stigma by labor relations were also recurrent in the speech of respondents.