Throughout its history, occupational therapy in Brazil has been incorporating and modifying theoretical-methodological perspectives and theoretical-practical references in consonance with historical, social and political contexts. Academic and professional production has been an important tool for spreading new references to the profession. This article aims to present and discuss the emergence of theoretical-methodological perspectives and theoretical-practical references by the Brazilian occupational therapy, from 1956 to 2017, according to historical, social and political milestones, based on indexed national journals of the area and gray literature for the years before their creation. This is a theoretical research on the historical-epistemological foundations of occupational therapy. We mapped and analyzed the production to identify trends and regularities, and thus present a systematic proposal of incorporation of perspectives and references in the area. This study identified four main movements: (i) Constitution of the first theoretical-practical bases of occupational therapy in Brazil; (ii) Problematization of the knowledge and practices of occupational therapy, based on contributions from Collective Health and Human and Social Sciences; (iii) Constitution of the fields of knowledge and practice of occupational therapy through socio-political contextualization, theoretical-conceptual problematization and proposition of emancipatory practices; (iv) Intense theoretical-conceptual and methodological diversification in the production of occupational therapy knowledge and practices. Panoramic studies on academic and professional production are necessary for the epistemological reflection of the profession. The study identified the emergence of critical thinking in Brazilian occupational therapy at the end of the 1970s, and the continuity of practices, knowledge perspectives and references previously presented.

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