ABSTRACT Objective: To identify the nursing staff’s difficulties in providing care in psychosocial rehabilitation to CAPS users. Methods: Qualitative study based on constructionism. Sixteen members of the CAPS nursing staff participated in the study in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The data collected in the interviews and observations were organized in Nvivo software and analyzed based on thematic content. Results: The difficulties identified were: the territorial violence that imposes a silence to the actions of CAPS, low user education as a barrier to protagonism, impaired family adhesion, the technical-conceptual discomfort of nursing in acting in the crisis and material and human of CAPS dismantlement. Final considerations: The challenges consist of overcoming staff exhaustion; however, they do not prevent nursing from betting on the possibility of protagonist care. Therefore, such care is dimensioned by the clinical-political-ethical relation in constant negotiation with the territory.