Building a (Brazilian) Psychology: CREPOP, Intersectionality, and Practices in Public Policies

Abstract:

The promulgation of the 1988 Constitution had the participation of many social movements in its elaboration and determined the creation and management of public policies, significantly changing the professional practice of psychology in Brazil, up to then hegemonically exercised in private practices. Faced with a national scenario that created several public policies that mainly regulated the participation of the category in work teams in mental health and social assistance, the Psychology Councils System – a federal autarchy created by Law 5.766/71 with the function of guiding, disciplining, and supervising the profession in Brazil – organized the Center of Technical References in Psychology and Public Policies, CREPOP. This study analyzed the 35 technical references (RTs) CREPOP produced from 2006 to 2021, a national network to research and disseminate knowledge on the practice of psychologists in public policies. The analysis showed that CREPOP represents a milestone in the recent history of psychology and public policies in the country. In doing so, it states a certain psychology, a Brazilian psychology, a know-how that is unable to be dissociated from a debate on intersectionality and subjectivation of the Brazilian population. The analyzed RT set shows this technical-ethical-political path in its compiled guidelines, stating the inseparability of an intersectional reading of the national reality and, therefore of the people assisted by the different Brazilian public policies, for the practice of psychology in these spaces.

Keywords:
Psychology; Public Policy; History of Psychology