When different ways of caring become a problem: the careless profession, an experience with the methodology of instruction to the double

Abstract

This article summarizes an intervention conducted with caregivers of people with intellectual disabilities in a private organization in Minas Gerais, Brazil, with the approach of the Activity Clinic and which subsequently led to a research for a doctorate by the author in Occupational Psychology. The intervention took place with six caregivers, between 2010 and 2011, under the principles of Vygotski's historical and developmental methodology, associated to the method of instruction to the double. The content analysis of the dialogue was adopted, inspired by works of authors in the area and guided by the dialectical relation between activity and profession. In addition to the many evidences that a methodological framework could be installed, leading the caregivers to discuss the raised issues, two main results were selected to emphasize the methodological potential of the instruction to the double: the development of the activity of a caregiver, illustrated by an excerpt of the dialogues, and the arguments that indicate the absence (dysfunction) of the psychological function of the work collective (the professional genre) for those professionals.