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A parallel look at, on the one hand, four decades of psychosocial intervention and, on the other, the social and community practices set in motion by the authorities, allows us to see similarities between these two ways of treating social issues in Brazil, and their shortcomings. Whereas psychosocial intervention, using analytical measures focused on the autonomy of individuals, groups, organizations, and communities, departs from non-knowledge about social issues, social policies, following institutionalized, bureaucratic procedures, start from the position of technical, rational, and universal knowledge. In the paternalistic, authoritarian context of Brazilian society, which is still dominated by the “host awareness of the oppressor,” according to Paulo Freire, these differences become important.