"Catálogo de psicólogas": plataformização e precarização do trabalho de psicólogas clínicas

Abstract

This research aims to contribute to the debate on the platformization of work, a process that is linked to job insecurity and neoliberal rationality. To this end, the theoretical framework is based on Social Work Psychology, anchored in an ethical-political position that considers the centrality of work in the construction of subjectivities and in the organization of society. The capitalist production system is based on the exploitation of inequalities and, in the wake of precariousness, digital platforms have emerged as a new way of controlling the management of work and workers through the use of algorithms that regulate how, when, in what way and to whom work will be directed. This model has spread to various areas, including professions that used to be socially and economically privileged, such as Psychology. This is a qualitative study in which eight interviews were carried out with clinical psychologists who work through digital platforms. The general objective is to understand the phenomenon of platformization and its links to the precariousness of the work of clinical psychologists who provide services through digital platforms. Its specific objectives are: to understand elements of the day-to-day work of clinical psychologists who work through digital platforms; to know the psychologists' understanding of this type of work activity; and to analyze the effects that platformized work can have on the quality of the work itself. To this end, three main lines of analysis were drawn up: Platform Contradictions, Challenges of Psychotherapy in the Digital Context and Consequences of Digital Work. The analysis of the interviews revealed that the platformization of the work of clinical psychologists implies profound contradictions, ranging from false autonomy to the intensification of algorithmic control, directly impacting the quality of care. Professionals registered on digital platforms act as just-in-time workers, highlighting a characteristic aspect of this type of work. The interviews also show a blurring of the boundaries between working time and free time, as well as individual responsibility for adverse working conditions, typical of neoliberal logic. Finally, the reports point to daily resistance strategies built by psychologists, albeit often solitary and precarious, which reveal the need to collectively and politically rethink the conditions of professional practice in the digital platform scenario.