Posted by Oliver Prado at the ISMHO Discussion Forum, March 14, 2005

The Brazilian Scenario:
In 1998 the Federal consil of psychology (CFP www.pol.org.br) promoted a national seminar about psychology and informatics. there was a raise regarding the subject in the media and there were some psychologists doing the work without any training or knowlegde.
After that the CFP said NO to any on line practice and started a work group to better discuss the situation and to write a regulamentation regarding on line work. (I was part of the group)
The regulamentation came up on 2000 http://www.crpsp.org.br/a_orien/legislacao/fr_cfp_003-00.htm
It says that the psychologist cannot do psychotherapy on line, but can do research on it. we can offer other kinds of works like consults, counseling, training, evaluations, etc.
To be able to offer such services, the psychologist must fill up a protocol that will be evaluated by a CFP comitte (im part of it) and then the CFP will generate a digital seal (kind of certification) that has to be placed on the services web site.
The web site is this: https://www.cfp.org.br/selo/
I think that regargind regulation the situation is good.
But there are problems too:
- Just a few has requested the protocol (many psychologist do work on line and did not requested it) - there is no training available - almost no research is done (I know only mine and another dissertation) - no kind of service evaluation is done by the psychologist that offer them (this problem is actualy a problem in amost all the psychology services)
I had a meeting with a CFP member and we planned some actions:
A small and closed event to call the psychologists that are studing and working with informatics.
To re-start the brazilian journal of psychology and informatics (this on line journal was created some years ago but halted because of lack of money)
To organize a bigger event (congress) in 2006 about psychology and informatics. Regarding this event would be awesome to have people from ISMHO to give conferences.