Abstract

GALINDO, Wedna Cristina Marinho; FRANCISCO, Ana Lúcia  and  RIOS, Luís Felipe. Reflections on HIV/AIDS counseling. Temas psicol. [online]. 2015, vol.23, n.4, pp. 815-829. ISSN 1413-389X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.9788/TP2015.4-02.

The article analyses the Health Department's recommendations to HIV/aids professional health counselors in Brazil. It recognizes that professional counseling as a strategy to combat HIV/aids recently came about in Brazil due to its population's demands for improvement in the public health sector, in that access to health is seen as a citizen's right and an obligation of the State to their citizens, such demands were especially noticed in the movement for sanitary reform. Three handbooks issued by the Health Ministry on HIV/aids counseling were analyzed with an emphasis on the performance and development of professional health counselors. The wording found in the handbooks adopt a reductionist perspective on its recommendations to health advisers with direct technical guidelines highly aimed at their objectives. The recommendations found in the handbooks are noticeable distant from historic aspects found in the popular defense of Brazilian healthcare as a constitutional right. The analysis suggests the valuation of rationality typically found in the instrumental logic of capitalism; it limits the meeting between counselor-user to mechanical activities. An alternative approach to the development of health professionals as presented in the handbooks is discussed. It suggests that all complexities involved in counseling should be explored, making it a stronger practice in the fight against aids.

Keywords : Counseling; aids; health professional; HIV.

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