The purpose of this study was to outline a profile of the scientific literature concerning brief psychotherapies in Brazil and other countries of Latin America, from 1990 to 2000, based on an electronic databases survey. Data obtained from Lilacs, PsycINFO, Medline, Adolec, Scielo, MedCarib, Brazilian Thesis, PAHO and WHOLIS resulted in 81 abstracts analyzed according to the: production distribution, authorship, affiliation, source, publication year, language, document type, population, theoretic approach and publication type. Results suggested that: 1) the electronic databases are currently important sources for accessing the Brazilian brief psychotherapy production, but not for the other Latin America countries; 2) despite the quantitative difference of both productions, a similar profile may be verified respecting many of the variables under study.
brief psychotherapy; scientific production; limited time psychotherapy; data bases
