Desafios da trajetória da psicologia nos Centros de Referência de Assistência Social - CRAS

Abstract

This research analyzed the trajectory of psychological performance in the basic social protection of the Sistema Único de Assistência Social (SUAS), in Brazil. Also, it identified the individual profile of psychologists and their motivations to insertion at work; their activities at work; and their challenges at Social Assistance Policies. Ten psychologists of Centros de Referência Assistência Social (CRAS) of the city of Natal-RN/Brazil were interviewed with semi-structured questions. In comparison to researched information in 2007-2008, under Marxian theory, this study discovered that those psychologists have the same profile of current psychologists. They are women, young people, with undergraduate in private universities, with further training on Health Psychology or Clinical Psychology. They have new jobs in the SUAS and were motivated because there are no other opportunities to work. Their main activities are the social assistances (included in group activities, to refer the family to another social services, home care social services, cooperation with other public services); individual psychotherapy; and living conditions services to families. Findings of this study demonstrate that psychologists cannot do individual psychotherapy at Social Assistance Policy in Brazil, performing Community Psychology, instead. In spite of this, there are demands for psychotherapy in CRAS due to the lack of specialized psychological services in the other public services. Also, interviewees say there is no definition of the specific tasks of psychologists in relation to other technical staff; they highlight psychologists in CRAS perform different actions from those whose traditional training in Psychology was conditioned by the interests of the bourgeois class. Finally, this research presented the challenges and possibilities to advance theoretical-methodological proposals in Psychology in order to strengthen and consolidate the performance of psychologists in this field.