ANALYSIS OF A SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY SERVICE
University Psychology Clinic, University psychological services, clinical practice, Psychology advanced teaching and training, National Curriculum Guidelines.
The history of university psychological services centers has a close relation to the history of Psychology courses and its regulation in Brazil (1962). Over the years, they have been the main setting for psychological practice and training for undergraduate students in the process of becoming professional psychologists. The hegemony of the clinical branch in the Psychology field its initial period made these centers functioned essentially as psychological clinics, which offered mainly individual psychotherapy and psychological evaluation services. These university psychological services were conceived with two main goals: working as psychological practice for psychology students and providing psychological services to the community. Lately, however, it has been questioned whether these university psychological services centers have effectively met the multiple social demands of the contemporary world. The National Curriculum Guidelines for undergraduate courses in Psychology have instructed university psychology clinics to broaden their lines of actions in order to meet a growing demand for a variety of psychological services and to adapt to the changes in the psychology training process. The present research aims to carry out a systematic analysis of the Psychology clinic of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) which is known as Service of Applied Psychology (SEPA). It is a transversal, descriptive and comparative study, since it proposes to characterize the SEPA itself and to compare it with some other Psychological Services Centers in order to identify possible areas that need changes and improvements. A multi-methods approach has been chosen for data production which will include systematic observation, documentary analysis, database consultation and interviews. With this approach the research aims to carry out an in-depth analysis that will foster greater discussion and understanding and to give support to further actions aimed at an effective management and an increase in quantity and quality of the services provided by SEPA (taking into account the various approaches and psychological methods).