Education, Clinical Practicum and Writing: Care of the Self in the Trajectory of the Psychology Student

Abstract

This study problematizes the experience of psychology students in the context of mandatory clinical internships, situating it within the contemporary landscape of professional training in Brazil. It is based on the recognition of the field’s expansion and the tensions between critical educational proposals and the influence of institutional and market-driven logics. The objective is to analyze the challenges faced by students at the beginning of clinical practice and to reflect on writing as a device of self-care within the formative process. This is a qualitative, theoretical-reflective study grounded in a narrative literature review, articulating contributions from psychoanalysis, particularly Ferenczi, and from the philosophy of Foucault, with emphasis on technologies of the self. The findings indicate that the clinical internship constitutes a space where anxieties, insecurities, and impasses are intensified, revealing fragilities in the training process, while also enabling the construction of professional identity and the development of an ethical stance. It is concluded that writing can function as a device of self-care, fostering the elaboration of experience, the production of meaning, and the ethical positioning of the student.