This article reports a study whose aim was to identify in federal health legislation to what extent and how the public health policies include the psychologist in primary care in Brazil in order to increase the understanding of the psychologists’ integration in the Unified Health System. The method of documentary research was used and the results showed that the policies mention the psychologist’s inclusion in the health care teams in only 14 out of the 964 documents searched. There’s a prevalence of their inclusion in the secondary and tertiary health care levels. In the model of care recommended, the relationship that the psychologist establishes with the primary care is given by the matricial support for family health teams. However, it was identified that the matricial support model is a secondary level practice. Thus, it was concluded that the configuration of public health policies don’t conduct to the effective psychologist’s performance that the primary care demands. It is understood that the public health care system should have psychologists in local health units, inserted in the health care family teams, developing an interdisciplinary work focused on integral health attention and psychologists in the nuclei and centers of secondary and tertiary health care levels.
Psychologist performance; Helth services; Public policies; Primary health care; SUS