Abstract
The Family Health Strategy (ESF) has been established as a gateway for psychologists in the Unified Health System in Brazil, providing opportunities for access of the population to psychological practices and contributing to the expansion of professional workspace. This paper aims to understand the socio-professional space of the ESF, from the perspective of psychologists inserted in the field, and to analyze the places occupied by psychology practices in that context. The concept of social field in Pierre Bourdieu was used as a theoretical framework. This is a hermeneutical study of qualitative approach, in which 18 psychologists with experience in the fields of attention and training were interviewed. The results show some featuring elements of the social construction process of psychological practices in the field, marked by the territorialization, the uniqueness of the practices, and the collaboration with other services and technical-scientific knowledges. The field is described as hierarchical and confrontational, especially associated with the hegemony of the biomedical model and the power differentials between the professions. The place of psychological practices in the ESF, on the one hand, is appointed as subaltern to the medical hegemony, and on the other, is recognized by its specificity in dealing with subjective dimensions of the health-disease-care process.
Psychology; Family Health Strategy; Unified Health System; Professional Practice