Context here, context there

anthropological contributions to the training of psychologist-psychotherapists

Abstract

This article aims to discuss possible contributions of anthropological science to the training of psychologists, particularly regarding attention to the sociocultural context for racialized mental health care. Drawing from a larger-scale ethnographic investigation with an internship group and racialized psychotherapy service, I analyze the documents that govern psychology training at a university in the central-western region of Brazil, specifically the Pedagogical Project of the Psychology course (PPC). In the analysis of this document, I identified and questioned certain imposed meanings, such as the excessive use of the word "context," which is used ambiguously, sometimes referring to the environment and at other times as a synonym for culture. Based on this observation, I argue that this reflective stance of questioning and relativism is characteristic of anthropological research and can contribute to the training of mental health professionals by challenging the ontological and epistemic universalism of psychological knowledge. Therefore, I propose anthropology as a methodological tool that does not offer prescriptive answers but can foster reflexivity through questioning, enhancing communication between otherness, diplomatic mediation between worlds, and mental health care that resonates with the sociocultural context, which, in this case, would be racialized.