Psychologists in public health: Historical aspects and current challenges

Abstract

This article presents the historical context of the insertion of psychology, as a profession, in health policies in Brazil, in order to understand its current challenges. Analysis was based on a non-systematic literature review about professional training, practice, and research in psychology. Three challenges were identified: working in high social vulnerability contexts, practice in multidisciplinary teams and the need to expand the research agenda. We conclude that dealing with these challenges will depend on the area's capacity to reinvent itself and become more permeable to interdisciplinary dialogue.

Multi-, Inter-, and Transdisciplinarity within the Public Health Workforce: A Scoping Review to Assess Definitions and Applications of Concepts

“…Of the 59 articles referring to both multi- and interdisciplinarity, only 8 (14 %) provided a definition for one or both concepts [ 26 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 ]. Of the twelve articles referring to inter- and transdisciplinarity, four provided a definition for the concept(s) [ 9 , 69 , 70 , 71 ], and among the eleven articles mentioning multi- and transdisciplinarity, only one provided a definition [ 72 ].…”

“…In definitions of interdisciplinarity, the collaboration of disciplines was described in terms of co-responsibility ([ 26 ] citing [ 105 ]), collective ownership [ 50 ] as well as being integrative, synergistic, and synthesising or harmonising efforts [ 51 , 64 , 67 ] to achieve a “coherent whole” [ 67 ] or “coherent entity” [ 64 ]. Other definitions remained vague, describing the work mode merely as collaboration [ 52 , 68 , 70 ].…”

“…Multi-professional work, in contrast, is a term often employed to describe the work of multiple professions working together within one discipline. The term is used in particular in a healthcare context, e.g., physiotherapists, physicians, and nurses collaborating, with knowledge from these different professions overlapping but not being integrated into each other’s practice [ 24 , 25 , 26 ].…”

Interlaced strands: Health psychology in Brazil from an autobiographic perspective

“…The long road that led to the present-day Brazilian Unified Health System (BUHS-SUS) has been written about extensively, including articles published in the special number of the Journal of Health Psychology , on health psychology in Brazil, published in 2016 (Spink et al, 2016). Two texts in this special number provide some of the flavour of this trajectory: the role of psychologists in public health (Ferreira-Neto and Henriques, 2016) and the continued fight in defence of the BUHS-SUS (Lara and Guareschi, 2016).…”

“…This narrative, the data presented and the many histories of the presence of psychology in health settings point to diversity as can be seen in the various articles published in the special issue on health psychology in Brazil (Spink et al, 2016), among them: historical data on the presence of psychologists in public health (Ferreira-Neto and Henriques, 2016); the present state of the Psychiatric Reform Movement (Yasui et al, 2016); the variety of practices in mental health, such as services delivered in the streets (Severo et al, 2016); web-based intervention to change attitudes towards the LGBT population (Costa et al, 2016); counselling in STD/HIV/AIDS (Carvalho et al, 2016) and the promising interdisciplinary work through matrix support (Iglesias and Avellar, 2016). However, all these themes converge to two important issues: the diversity of training routes for work in health settings and the lack of a common denomination for psychologists working in health settings.…”