The article aims to reveal the invisibility of nursing work and the individual and collective strategies established to face the labor risks of attending psychiatric patients in situations of crisis. The theoretical-methodological approach combined ergonomic analysis with ergology contributions, examining in 2012 a team from an emergency unit of a Brazilian public psychiatric hospital composed of 17 nurses and two physicians (the director and medical coordinator of the unit). The results revealed that user care is strongly characterized by teamwork, especially in the confrontation of the knowledge of doctors and nurses, and is often mediated by other professionals such as social workers, administrative staff, and entrance guards. In this way, the health team extends beyond the care staff to include support services as well. It was also evidenced that this construction is effective in day-to-day work and requires skills for cooperation as well as the development of collective abilities.