KEYWORDS: Isolina Borges, infant cognitive and emotional development, Psychology Degree, University of Porto, Portugal
SHE THOUGHT IT
A member of the Founding Committee of the Psychology Degree of the University of Porto, Maria Isolina Pinto Borges played a decisive role in the affirmation of Psychology as a scientific field in Portugal. She was the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in Psychology by the University of Porto (1981) and the first Full Professor of the College of Psychology and Social Sciences of the same university (1991).
She graduated from the University of Coimbra with a 5-year degree in Historical and Philosophical Sciences (1961). The topic of her graduation thesis was “A Associação Protectora da Criança contra a Crueldade e o Abandono” (The Association for the Protection of Children Against Cruelty and Abandonment), which pointed to her interest in human behavior and, specifically, that of children. Between 1969 and 1971, as an intern in the Services Médico Pédagogiques of Geneva, she attended the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute, namely the courses on Intelligence and Perception taught by Jean Piaget. In 1971, she was hired to teach in the Philosophy Department of the College of Humanitites of the University of Porto.There, she introduced the then innovative courses of Introduction to Psychology, Experimental Psychology and a Psychology Seminar; she also supervised graduating seniors on topics such as Psychoanalysis, Developmental Psychology, and the History of Psychology. Between 1977 and 1980, she did research at the University of Cambridge, England, under supervision of Professor David Ingleby. While at Cambridge, she developed pioneer work in the field of child development from a cognitive and developmental perspective, which she would present in the Ph.D. thesis she defended in 1981 with the title “The organization of the ‘Object’ in the first few months of an infant’s life”.
Published as a book, the thesis conceived of a system of analysis based on a laboratory paradigm created by the author during her stay at Cambridge, which she would later introduce in the Psychology degree courses at the University of Porto. In the words of Pedro Lopes dos Santos in his Preface to the second edition, this system allowed her to use a microgenetics approach, making it possible to detect fundamental changes in infant behavioural patterns that are empirically consistent with the hypothesis that the baby is […] “much more aware than was previously thought of the presence or absence of the human figure with whom he or she has established a relationship.” The thesis further put forth the innovating hypothesis of an interconnectedness between auto and hetero regulatory factors, identifying regulatory patterns in the first year of the baby’s life; today, these patterns are a relevant domain for research and discussion among researchers in the field of Developmental Psychology.
Isolina Borges is the author of a vast scientific bibliography within her area of expertise, and an equally prolific author of articles detailing the history of the field of Psychology in Portugal from the early Modern period to the 1950s.
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Maria Isolina Pinto Borges was born in Porto (Oporto) on the 14th of December 1931 in a family of liberal and artistic traditions. Her father, conductor and composer Horácio Augusto Pinto Borges, died when she was nine years old. Acting on the belief that a solid education was supremely important for her daughter’s future, her mother, Alice Josefina Macedo Pinto de Magalhães Borges, made the decision to send her daughter to a private boarding school, the Colégio Nossa Senhora da Esperança, in Porto. The child excelled academically, but suffered from loneliness and a feeling of abandonment that never quite left her.
Having graduated with distinction from boarding school in 1950, she was accepted that same year at the University of Coimbra to attend what was then called the Historical and Philosophical Sciences degree. One important factor in her decision to choose this degree was that it allowed her to write a final dissertation on a topic of Psychology. Her interest in human behaviour, particularly the mechanism of bonding in childhood, was already marked; it is no surprise that her graduating dissertation was a study of the Portuguese Association for the Protection of Children Against Cruelty and Abandonment, which became the work’s title (A Associação Protectora das Crianças Contra a Crueldade e o Abandono). That the dissertation was defended only in 1961 was due to difficulties reconciling her family life in Porto and the degree requirements in Coimbra: she had married Luíz Gonçalves Paulino in 1952 and between 1954 and 1956, had given birth to a girl and a boy. Nevertheless, she finished her degree Summa Cum Laude.
At the invitation of psychiatrist Celeste Malpique, Isolina Borges began her professional training as a psychologist at the Centro de Saúde Mental do Porto (Mental Health Centre of Porto), after a two-year internship at the Hospital de Santa Maria, in Lisbon, under supervision of psychiatrist Arminda Velez Grilo, who had worked with Henry Vallon, in Paris. Between 1969 and 1971, funded by a scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation, Isolina Borges interned with the Services Médico-Pédagogiques of Geneva, where she worked under supervision of Sylvia Roth, a renowned professor of Clinical Psychology. On her suggestion, Isolina Borges applied to the College of Psychology and Education Sciences of the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute, now the College of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Geneva, and attended Jean Piaget’s courses on Intelligence and Perception, along with Statistics, Neuropsychology and Experimental Psychology, the seminar on Affectivity, and the final year seminars under the leadership of Barbel Inhelder, Jean Piaget’s closest co-researcher.
Directly upon her return to Portugal, she was invited by Carlos Abranches de Soveral to become an Adjunct Professor in the Philosophy department of the College of Humanities of the University of Porto. The following year, in 1972, she became an Assistant Professor in that department and began to organize the Psychology laboratory and to introducethe then innovative courses of Introduction to Psychology, Experimental Psychology, and the Seminar on Psychology. She also began to supervise undergraduate theses on topics like Developmental Psychology and History of Psychology. That same year, she was the recipient of a second scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation, which allowed her to do research work under the mentorship of Elsa Schimid Kitsikis of the University of Geneva.
By this time, she had begun to take an active part in initiatives conducive to the creation of a Psychology Degree at the University of Porto. Between 1972 and 1974, the year of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution, she was extremely active in that regard. She eventually became a member of the Founding Committee of the Psychology Degree of the University of Porto, which was officially created in 1977.
In the meantime, her pedagogical and research activities continued. In 1972, she completed the first phase of psychoanalytic training, and was examined and approved by psychoanalysts Hanna Segal and René Diatkine. She completed the Psychoanalysis Training Seminars led by Pierre Luquet and attended four annual training courses organized by the Psychoanalytical Society in Paris.
It was the revolution of the 25th of April, 1974 that finally made it possible for the Psychology Degree to be created by the First Provisional Government, in 1977. As a fully-fledged Psychology Assistant Professor, Isolina Borges was awarded funded scholar status by INIC (National Institute for Scientific Research), and began to have regular stays at the Medical Psychology Unit of the University of Cambridge, England. Her collaboration with Cliffton Everest, a professor at that institution, led to him becoming a valued mentor to the Psychology degree in Porto, between 1977-1980, assisting with its establishment. During her regular stays in Cambridge, Isolina Borges began to develop research on the topic of the Permanence of the Object from a comparatist perspective, looking at both Jean Piaget’s approach and Melanie Klein’s Freudian perspective. This eventually led her to work under supervision of David Ingleby, professor at both the Social and Political Department and the Medical Psychology Unit of the University of Cambridge, and of Elena Lieven, professor at the Department of Experimental Psychology of the same university. It was during that time, as she developed working relationships with other institutions and professors, such as the Ethology Center, in Madinglen, and the Tavistock Clinic, in London, that the research topic of her Ph.D. began to take shape.
In 1981, Isolina Borges defended her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at the then named College of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto. She became the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in Psychology by the University of Porto, and thus reinforced her decisive role in the affirmation of Psychology as a proper scientific field in Portuguese academia. Her thesis, titled The Organization of the “Object” in the First Months in an Infant’s Life, presented pioneering work in the field of child development from both cognitive and developmental perspectives.
Published as a book, the thesis conceived of a system of analysis based on a laboratory paradigm created by the author during her stay at Cambridge, which she would later introduce in the Psychology degree courses at the University of Porto. In the words of Pedro Lopes dos Santos in his Preface to the second edition, this system allowed her to use a microgenetics approach, making it possible to detect fundamental changes in infant behavioural patterns that are empirically consistent with the hypothesis that the baby is […] “much more aware than was previously thought of the presence or absence of the human figure with whom he or she has established a relationship.” The thesis further puts forth the innovating hypothesis of an interconnectedness between auto and hetero regulatory factors, identifying regulatory patterns in the first year of the baby’s life; today, these patterns are a relevant domain for research and discussion among researchers in the field of Developmental Psychology.
In 1982, Isolina Borges was promoted to the rank of Auxiliary Professor, although she performed the tasks of an Associate Professor, supervising senior seminar dissertations, internships, and Ph.D. theses. She became a member of the Scientific Committee of the College of Psychology and Education Sciences and pursued her research activity, now in collaboration with the Social Sciences Department of the University of Utrecht, Holland. Within the scope of this collaboration, and the research done with the Dutch pediatric Wilhelmina Hospital, she researched the organization of the Symbol in children and the developing behaviours of premature babies, including reflexive activity and its consequences in cognitive processes. After obtaining Tenure in 1990, she became a Full Professor in 1991, the first in her field in the College of Psychology and Education Sciencesof the University of Porto.
Isolina Borges was the author of a vast scientific bibliography within her area of expertise, and an equally prolific author of articles detailing the history of the field of Psychology in Portugal from the early Modern period to the 1950s.
SHE SAID IT
When you come across a circle, do not focus only on the circumference.
Isolina Borges in conversation with Jorge Nunes Barbosa.
Though I don’t know if I can do it justice, my profession gives me the unique opportunity to be an active participant in shaping the future.
Isolina Borges in conversation with Pedro Nuno de Azevedo Lopes dos Santos.
It was all worth it, after all.
Isolina Borges in conversation with Pedro Nuno de Azevedo Lopes dos Santos on the subject of her early retirement due to illness.
THEY SAID IT
The academic career of Professor Isolina was always anchored in a strong sense of generativity. Change and transformation held an intense fascination for her. … Therefore, she brought to her work the soul of someone who feels she is shaping the paths of the future.
Pedro Nuno de Azevedo Lopes dos Santos. In Memoriam Maria Isolina Pinto Borges, 1931-2007.
With but the support of a few Philosophy students who shared her enthusiasm for Psychology, and the pressing wish to see a degree in that field created at the University of Porto, she seized the opportunities offered by the democratic regime initiated in Abril 1974 and the paths opened to the social sciences by the new leaders of the country… Thus, the then Assistant Professor Isolina Borges became active in various fronts and projects, with a well-defined objective: To prove that it was possible to create a Psychology degree in the College of Humanities of the University of Porto.
Amâncio da Costa Pinto. In Memoriam Maria Isolina Pinto Borges, 1931-2007.
Her actions in the Philosophy department in the College of Humanities of the University of Porto were symptomatic of a time in which the scientific autonomy of the field of Psychology had not yet acquired its just value in the eyes of academia. I remember Isolina Borges’ commitment to repairing this intellectual injustice and her conviction that this worldview would eventually change.
Januário Ferreira Torgal. In Memoriam Maria Isolina Pinto Borges, 1931-2007.
INTERTEXTUAL MATERIALS
Exhibition And Yet, They Move! Women and Science [E contudo, elas movem-se! Mulheres e Ciência], Rectorate of the University of Porto, Portugal, 10-29 September, 2019. [an illustration of Isolina Borges by Miguel Praça is displayed at the exhibition].
E contudo, elas movem-se! Mulheres e Ciência (com poemas) (2019), Org. Ana Luísa Amaral e Marinela Freitas. Porto: U.Porto Edições [the book contains a short bio on Isolina Borges, as well as an illustration by Miguel Praça].
WORKS BY ISOLINA BORGES
Books
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1983), A organização do objecto e os primeiros meses da criança. Lisboa: A Regra do Jogo.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1987),Introdução à psicologia do desenvolvimento. Edições Jornal de Psicologia, com o apoio da Fundação Eng. António de Almeida.
Articles published in scientific journals, sole authorship
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1998),Estruturação da personalidade e criatividade. Saber (e) Educar. nr. 3, 7-15.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1998), Desenvolvimento psicológico em fases precoces: alguns aspectos. Revista da Sociedade Portuguesa de Psicologia, Coimbra.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1992), A influência do meio e da aprendizagem na dor. Dor(1993) 1:76-78.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1992), As provas operatórias de Jean Piaget: características metodológicas e implicações na avaliação psicológica. Revista de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação. 3/4: 7-22.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1986), Reflexões sobre a avaliação psicológica: alguns aspectos. Revista de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação. 1: 115-123.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1986), História da psicologia em Portugal: antecedentes das faculdades. Jornal de Psicologia.5, 1, 7-12.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto, (1985b), História da psicologia em Portugal VI: da década de 20 à década de 50. Jornal de Psicologia. 1, 4, 3, 18-23.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1985a), História da psicologia em Portugal V: o século XIX e os primórdios do século XX. Jornal de Psicologia. 4, 1, 18-21.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1984b), História da psicologia em Portugal IV: evolução do pensamento português de Luís Verney a Silvestre Pinheiro Ferreira. Jornal de Psicologia. 3, 4, 5 e 8.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1984a), A psicologia em Portugal III: dos finais do séc. XVI aos primórdios do séc. XVIII. Jornal de Psicologia. 3, 1, 5 e 8.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1983), A psicologia em Portugal: uma hipótese de abordagem histórica. Jornal de Psicologia. 3, 4, 5 e 10.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1983b), História da psicologia em Portugal II: contributo do pensamento português até ao séc. XVI, Jornal de Psicologia.2, 4, 4 e 8.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1983a), História da psicologia em Portugal. Jornal de Psicologia.2, 2, 3 e 10.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1978(, A noção de objecto e os primeiros meses de vida da criança. Análise Psicológica4. Vol. I, I, 70-78.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1977), Dimensão patológica da linguagem verbal, Livro de Atas de Conferência Nacional.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1975-1976), Função simbólica: implicações. Revista Portuguesa de Psicologianr.12/13, 87-106.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1972), A imagem mental na psicologia genética. Revista da Faculdade de Letras, Série Filosofia, Vol. II, Fasc. 1/2, 79-89.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1972), O laboratório de psicologia: sugestões. Revista da Faculdade de Letras, Série Filosofia, Vol. II, Fasc. 1/2, 165-163.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1970), Reflexões sobre a psicologia experimental. Revista da Faculdade de Letra, Série Filosofia. Vol. I, Fasc. 2/3, 239-253.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1971), Dimensão psicológica da patologia mental: alguns aspectos. Revista da Faculdade de Letras, série Filosofia. Vol. II, Fasc. 3/4, 1-26.
Borges, Maria Isolina Pinto (1971), Geets c. – Melanie Klein, ed. Univ. Paris, Recensão. Revista da Faculdade de Letras, Série Filosofia, Col. I, Fasc. 2/3.