Abstract

This study, oriented by the health qualitative research approach, addresses the inclusion of psychologists in primary care services of the Brazilian Unified Health System by the Family Health Strategy (FHS). The objective is to analyze the specificity of the psychologists’ performance in these health services, focusing on struggles for recognition and professional autonomy. Concerning to the construction of the empirical material, the technique employed was the semi-structured, based on dialogue with 18 psychologists with extensive professional experience in basic Health care and training for the FHS. The theoretical framework adopted is based on the concepts of symbolic power and habitus, central concepts in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Also theoretical elements from the sociology of professions are used in the analysis. The study results show relevant tensions and struggles involving professional autonomy. A professional habitus is a illustrative of the specific and distinctive practices of the psychologist: knowing how to deal with interpersonal conflicts; being a problematizing agent and mediator in interprofessional relationships; the capacity to be able to recognize historical processes being a problematizing agent and mediator in interprofessional relationships; the capacity to be able to recognize historical processes involved in the subjective production of the group and their relationships. Some challenges to professional autonomy are identified: the social expectation and prestige associated with classic models of clinical performance; the reception of an overload of work in territories of great extension; and the need to elaborate positions that counterpoint and complement the biomedical model.

Keywords:
Psychology; Health Systems; Primary Health Care; Professionalization; Basic Health Care