Precariousness and degradation of working activity: Central theoretical operators

The allusion we have made to the work from the biblical roots of the Old Testament, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, highlights the centrality of this activity for the constitution of psychosocial identities of individuals, as well as for the historical development of the economy and the societal functioning as a whole. This point persists in contemporaneity in terms of what is conventionally called the “principle of the centrality of work”. According to this principle, work cannot be restricted to the means of obtaining purchasing power (despite being so) or considered a central phenomenon for the comprehension of socio-economic-political and historical structure - despite the pertinence of this treatment path, as evidenced by the Marxist tradition of analysis (cf. ^{Marx, 1867/1975}). The work, in the sense explored here, is configured as a human activity of a semiotic nature, therefore founded on superior mental processes (cf. ^{Vygotski, 2014}); in this context, as ^{Marx (1867/1975)} rightly observed:

A spider performs operations like those of a weaver, and a bee overcomes more than one human architect when building its hive. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best bee is that he represents in his mind the construction to be made before turning it into reality (Volume 1, Part 3, Chapter VII, Section 1).

The semiotic character mentioned by Marx, therefore, necessarily situates work in the context of a dialogy, in which the individual-worker interacts with other workers, in the specific context of a collective of work, through this dynamic within this collective, with a professional gender not directly tangible, but real, and otherwise source of reference for this individual. More explicitly, Yves Clot assimilates, within the clinical approach of work activity, the concept of textual genre, originally proposed by the Bakhtin Circle (cf. ^{Bakhtine, 1977}), to the concept mentioned here of professional gender, which he defines as “[…] a professional respondent that, going through the professional activity of each worker [referenced by this genre], puts this worker precisely at the intersection of the past and the present”. In this sense, ^{Clot (2008)} points out that the professional genre is the generic respondent of the métier, or, in the original in French, répondant générique du métier. The collective of work, in turn, is also defined by Yves ^{Clot (2008)} as a constitutive instance of the real work activity, which encompasses several workers, a common set of tasks, a common language, internal rules to work, or, in the original in French, règles de métier, and lasting respect for such rules on the part of workers (p. 147). This respect should be considered in the context of a dynamic process that allows possible collisions between what the rules of office establish and the eventually creative and innovative initiatives that the individual-worker provides for the realization of such rules in the context of real or accomplished work (cf. ^{Falcão, 2019}).

There are two important points to be recovered and highlighted here: first, the principle according to which there is the prescribed work, that of the rules and demands of instances external to the individual-worker, and the work effectively performed, the one that results from the effort and initiative of the individual-worker to account for what is demanded of them; a central point of theoretical reference, here, concerns the principle according to which the work performed will never reproduce completely, faithfully, the prescribed work: there will always be a “gap” or discontinuity between prescribed work and real work (cf. ^{Clot, 2008}); this discontinuity brings a potential and a danger: the potential of professional gender innovation due to the stylizing contributions of the individuals-workers in the day-to-day process of their activity, and the risk that these contributions exceed the intangible and non-explicitly defined limit of what is acceptable by professional gender, and what is rejected. The stylization mentioned above is also another theoretical operator that the present clinical approach to the activity of work, advocated by Yves Clot, recovers and adapts from the Bakhtinian approach of the textual genre and its possibilities of generating singular “styles” (still linked to a genre - cf. ^{Bakhtine, 1977}).

In the field of meaning production to which we are submitted as semiotic beings, ^{Bubnova et al. (2011)}, from bakhtininana theoretical matrix, state that all words are directed at someone and are from someone (there are no neutral words, which exist on their own), and saying words that could be shared by someone else is only possible in response to something that was said before us. It is in the process of verbal communication, interaction with others, that someone becomes a subject, forging their own self. The “I” (myself) only exists to the extent that it is related to a “you” (another person): to be means to communicate, and an “I” is someone to whom another person has addressed as a “you” (^{Bubnova et al., 2011}, p. 271). The appropriation of this Bakhtinian theoretical matrix by the Activity Clinic, in terms of the dynamics that are established between professional genders and working individuals, through collectives of work, emphasizes that the work activity will always have a recipient, the instance that prescribes it, in addition to a reference according to the professional métier involved. It also establishes that it is in the context of the confrontations between individual-worker and professional gender that the individual-worker specifies their path to perform the well-done work, in view of a greater or lesser power to act (^{Clot, 2008}).

Each worker lives, therefore, in a constitutive dialectical tension with the professional genre that refers to their professional activity: they cannot become a mere ventriloquist doll who only pretends to articulate what their operator actually speaks; in a diametrically opposite sense, they cannot completely refuse this gender referencing, since this would lead them to a dangerous contravention and, at the limit, to a loss of professional affiliation. As it metaphorically illustrates the myth of Icarus, it is necessary to seek the point of balance between the proximity of the sea of the professional gender, whose waters can drown the one who flies too close to them, and the heating sun of free and singular stylization, whose heat could melt the wax of the wings, with equally tragic result. In addition to these two poles producing dramatic collisions, it is also necessary to consider a third condition: the one in which the worker is in a context of exhaustion, weakening, or even disappearance of the professional genre, in the case of professional crafts in the process of disappearance, or of those professional offices in a situation of heterogeneity of referencing by diverse professional genres.

This seems to be the case of Psychology as a professional domain, which would justify the analysis of such heterogeneity, the elements that constitute it, and the expectations that await it. This is the discussion of the next section.

The deterioration of the work activity in Psychology as a professional domain

In a world dominated by banal forms of spirituality such as reiki, positive psychology, neoxamanism, astrology, Zen meditation, tantric sexuality, what everyone seeks is a universal harmony that calms the greatest of all spiritual temptations ever: the temptation of despair. But, as everyone knows, these forms of consumer spirituality are all false. Products addressed to the bearer of a miserable narcissism (^{Montaigu, 2020}).

The word “profession” originates from the Latin professionis, meaning the act or effect of professing. This act of professing is initially closely linked to the conviction of beliefs, values, or commitments. From the 18^th century on, the term acquired a new meaning: the act of exercising a craft, a science, or an art. Professions arise in response to the demands and needs of societies at a given historical moment. With Psychology, it was no different, with the aggravating factor of inserting itself in a contemporary historical context of demands for well-being accessible by ways not always sufficiently rigorous, as suggested in the citation that opens this section.

According to Yves Clot, work that cannot be done by certain workers from a professional domain has serious consequences on these workers, and this becomes even more serious when there is no clear perspective on the work to be done (^{Clot et al., 2021}). Already in a report dated 1949, by the realization of the Bulder Conference, aimed at the discussion about the search for scientific circumscription for psychotherapeutic activity, George F. J. ^{Lehner (1952)} writes in his concluding report: “I am afraid that in spite of our efforts we have left therapy as an undefined technique is which is applied to unspecified problems with non-predictable outcome” (p. 547).

The historical process of formal regulation of the profession of psychologist in Brazil met, simultaneously, social needs and movements of professionals who already exercised their work in the country. Law No. 4119, promulgated on August 27^th, 1962 by the Brazilian president João Goulart, provides for formation in Psychology and regulates the profession of psychologist. At the present moment (the year 2022), when the professional activity of psychologist celebrates its 60^th anniversary in Brazil, there are 422,733 professionals enrolled in the regulatory councils system, but the number of graduated psychologists is higher than that, since a portion of these graduates do not work in professional domains of Psychology, and, consequently, does not enroll in the Regional Councils of Psychology. These data bring embedded in it the growth of the number of graduated psychologists in Brazil, especially from the 1990s (an increase of more than 20%) and the first decade of 2000 (an increase of more than 50%), according to ^{Lisboa and Barbosa (2009}, p. 729), relatable to the expansion of the offer of Psychology programs in private institutions: there were more than 80% of private institutions among new institutions authorized in 2006, reaching 89.7% of private offer of education in Psychology. This growth, which, at first sight, could be interpreted as positive, as social recognition of a profession that gains new spaces and attracts young candidates, reveals, in turn, the great offer of psychologists in the context of Brazilian society, in a process that contributed to the degradation of this professional craft. Additionally, it should be emphasized that Psychology has expanded the list of practices associated with psychological doing. If in its early days it was a profession limited to the fields of education, clinical practice, and the management of what was called “human resources”, there are currently 13 specialties formally recognized by the Federal Council of Psychology, characterizing the plurality of professional practice in Psychology in Brazilian contemporaneity, either in terms of diversity of practices or in terms of the available places of action of psychologists. Psychology as a professional domain was, in its early days, accused of being an “elitist” profession; today, in contrast, it contributes to health and social assistance policies, seeking to more largely contribute to the democratization of the access of the general population to psychological services (^{Yamamoto, 2000}). ^{Oliveira (2021)}, in his master’s thesis, draws attention to the historical importance for workers in health domains of the approval of Law 8,742 of 1993, known in Brazil as the Organic Law of Social Assistance (Lei Orgânica da Assistência Social [LOAS]). LOAS regulates the organization of health policies around a unified system: the Unified Social Assistance System (Sistema Único de Assistência Social [SUAS]). In a work focused on the approach of the work activity of designated psychologists, within the scope of career positions in the states of the federation, to the monitoring of so-called “homeless populations” (or “populations in vulnerable situations”), ^{Oliveira (2021}, p. 5) observes that such services were systematized in terms of Specialized Service for Homeless Population. They are described, in Brasil (²⁰¹¹, p. 29), as a service offered to people who use the streets as a space for housing and/or survival, with the purpose of ensuring care and activities directed to the development of sociability, with a view to strengthening interpersonal and/or family bonds that favor the construction of new life projects. This same author also observes that, in addition to the desirability of the rules that established this workspace and social commitment of the psychologists, such rules do not guarantee, by themselves, due clarity about the work to be done. The consequence of this seems to be the illness of professional psychologists in charge of offering the services recommended by the rule-based SUAS. ^{Oliveira (2021)}, who is a researcher and also a professional psychologist inserted in the context of these activities, writes:

With regard to the problem of workers [psychologists and social assistants], being personally in this condition, I realized that the daily work at the Pop Center offers many challenges, which, due to their dynamics, affect the health of these professionals. The constant contact with this reality - trying to enable a decent care to this population, and, in turn, the low effectiveness of interventions, since the problem of the PSR [Person in Street Situation] is a complex and multifaceted problem, which is part of other macrosocial determinants - negatively affects the service workers. In my case and colleagues, it appeared through tiredness; frustration around the feeling that efforts do not yield results; high level of stress; difficulties in sleeping; nightmares evoking service situations, usually some situation concerning violence, threat, or some strong emotion, provoked by frustration at a follow-up of a case (^{Oliveira, 2021}, p. 8).

The above considerations suggest that Psychology has been under pressure for changes, and these have required this professional domain to widen its borders to expand dialogue with other professional fields. However, a reflection must inevitably be made from this scenario, seeking to include the conceptual network that characterizes Psychology, associated with a multiplicity of professional doings (acts of métier). It is worth resuming recurrent reflection on how much Psychology education could follow up this process, emphasizing that a Brazilian graduate psychologist has the prerogative to exercise any professionally recognized practices.

Brazilian curriculum guidelines highlight the diversity and theoretical multiplicity of Psychology, as indicated by Resolution No. 597, September 13^th, 2018, which establishes formal recommendations concerning general curricular principles for undergraduate students of Psychology in Brazil (^{Brasil, 2018}). This diversity reinforces the need for theoretical articulation between a research-based education and intervention methodologies; encourages the integration of psychologists from different areas of activity of Psychology with other professionals; stimulates the entry and performance of the psychologist in different contexts and their participation in the construction of public policies; considers the complexity and multidetermination of the psychological phenomenon; aims at critical understanding of social phenomena; strengthens the dimension of psychology’s social commitment to the promotion of well-being, considering social needs and human rights. Thus, psychology is characterized as a multipurpose profession, in interface with other fields of knowledge and with a set of practices that can be applied in different situations. In this context, it is necessary to question the extent to which psychology as a professional worker has a professional genre sufficiently circumscribed to the point of offering the rules of métier that will allow the characterization of well-done work, quality work, which is the basis, in fact, for the quality of life at work (^{Clot et al., 2021}). Psychology as a work activity, in contemporary Brazilian times, brings some of the elements discussed here in the sense of the characterization of processes of the precariousness of this professional domain.

Final considerations

We seek, in this article, to reinforce the principle according to which the precariousness of work activity should not be restricted to a certain list of “dirty” works, inherently problematic due to the external working conditions that characterize them. However, research data focused on socially valued professional activities, such as elementary school teacher (^{Andrade & Falcão, 2018}), show a situation of precariousness much more established and verifiable than what is observed in “dirty” professions, characterized by negative social representation (in the tradition of “dirty work”), as the case of technicians in the examination of corpses (^{Messias, 2017}; ^{Falcão et al., 2020}). These technicians reveal larger consciousness about the paths of work well done in the inspection of corpses, unlike the loneliness and lack of referencing of elementary school teachers, trying desperately and alone to deal with their students “who do not learn”.

^{De Gastines and Desriaux (2021)} emphasize that the job well done is the key to health at work. The path to well-done work, in turn, does not find sufficient subsidies in work prescriptions, however detailed they may be. The well-done work is referenced by the collectives of work, by the colleagues involved in the same métier, capable, in their interlocutions, of constructing, dialogically, the circumscription of this well-done work. As a result, there can be no reference to the well-done work in the absence of professional gender, or in its explosion in terms of multiple niches of activity. What does the psychologist do? When is it possible to affirm that this psychologist has done their métier well? Suppose the answer to these questions is difficult. In that case, this fact is connected to the diversity and richness of the field of psychology as a domain of knowledge production and mastery of professional activity. However, it also alludes to the considerable risk of precariousness of the professional activity of this psychologist. The work that is not done is harmful to the mental health of the worker, but the work to be done by this worker, in a situation of lack of reference by the professional gender, generates even more suffering and mental illness.

This article is published in the year Psychology reached its 60^th anniversary as professional activity, as it was formally established in Brazil on August 27^th, 1962. There are currently more than 440,000 Brazilian psychologists who practice a so-called profession of care, attention, questioning, and empathy with each other. In almost six decades of regulation of the profession in the country, Psychology has often required, on the part of its professionals, ethical reflection, more effective professional training, and commitment to the unrestricted defense of human rights. If Brazilian psychology in its early days was charged due to an elitist and fragmented praxis, currently, the challenge of the profession lies in the establishment of theoretical and methodological parameters that ensure the exercise of a practice that faces the concrete problems of our reality, contributing to the psychology professional being an agent of transformation of Brazilian society. This is a relevant and challenging task that requires the development of the professional gender of Psychology in order to ensure the professional reference psychologists need.