Maria Rita Sá Mendes Leal
21/09/1921 – 18/04/2019
Biographical notes covering the life of Maria Rita Mendes Leal who died on the 18th April 2019 aged 97 years.
She was born in Rome (Italy) in 1921. She was the youngest of two daughters from Augusto Mendes Leal and Maria de Barros e Sá Mendes Leal. Up to the age of twelve, her family didn’t stay more than two years in the same place because of her father’s professional obligations, since he was involved in the diplomatic career of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So they lived in Rome for two periods (1921-1923 and 1925-1928), in Washington DC (USA) (1923-24 and 1928-1930), in France, in England and in Switzerland. While staying in Washington DC she attended the Montessori Basic School (1928-30) and when she returned to Portugal, she went to the German School at Palhavã (Lisbon).
From these early times, she told us: “I learned Italian, Portuguese and German languages all together, after the English and I forgot the Italian, afterwards I went back to the Italian and forgot the English, then it was the French… In the middle there was the Portuguese, and when we returned definitively to Portugal I was in the German school. I always had to renew my relationships and my spoken languages. Therefore, I have no language of origin.”
Throughout her early youth, she had to overcome two major personal tragedies: The first one happened when she was eleven years old. Her older and only sister, Teresa, becomes very sick with an infectious articular rheumatism and died the next year (1933). Simultaneously, her father was placed in Paris where he remained by himself for two longs years (1934/1935) and in recognition of his personal sacrifice the Portuguese and French Governments honoured him with highest Civil Medals: the “Grã-Cruz de Cristo” and the “Legion de Honneur”.
Because of all these events her father become very ill mentally and had to be hospitalized – he was diagnosed with a serious major depression, which lasted for almost two years, until 1937.
Meanwhile, she finished her secondary studies at the German School, in Lisbon (1938-1939). The following year (1940), she started her professional life, as a child educator, at Queen Elizabeth School, which had a Montessori orientation, under the guidance of Miss Lester, a trainee from “Maria Montessori International Association” with a pedagogic emphasis on children with learning disabilities and two years later she gets her International Diploma (1942).
Meanwhile, as a working-student, she entered into Humanities at the Lisbon Classical University, where she achieved a diploma in Philosophical and Historical Sciences – as well as studies in Pedagogy and Education Administration (1940-45). After this she became quite ill and asked for a suspension of her degree thesis.
Between 1941 and 1946, she was involved with several Social Work initiatives through the “Centro de Estudos e Ação Social” within very poor residential wards where she made her first social research which would be published as: “Inquérito social a um «Bairro de Lata» (A Quinta da Curraleira em Lisboa)” (1943). There, she tried “groupwork” with children under 7 years of age, starting with a form of play conceived by herself (“Jogo de Areia”) inspired in Margaret Loewenfeld. She became enthusiastic about the possible recovery from a lack of school success.
In 1950/51, she became sick again with a rheumatic disease in her vertebral column which obliged her to stay in bed for long periods. After her recovery, she worked for several publishers mainly as a translator and text editor (1951-55).
Between 1952 -1957, she was invited to take up an official position as teacher of “Institute for Social Work ” a private graduating school for Family and Social Work Assistants and also to lead an Educational and Training Department in “Casa Pia de Lisboa” in 1954.
Meanwhile, she finished her degree thesis in Philosophical and Historical Sciences focusing on the modern concepts of dynamic psychology integrated in Late Middle Age thinking: “A unidade psicológica da pessoa humana segundo Santo Agostinho” (1960), where she emphasised her questioning about the essential basis of interpersonal relationships. She then became a Second Assistant Lecturer at the Humanities Faculty (Lisbon Classical University) to run Philosophical Anthropology in the Philosophy Department and also in the Pedagogy and Education Administration Department.
During 1958-1963, she developed ‘case-work’ (under the influence of Carl Rogers) with 20 adolescents, under the family replacement regime and professional and social adaptations from several secondary schools, which stayed in personal contact with her for a long time.
Between 1958 and 1973, she became the Head Principal for Education and Learning at another very old Social Work Institution: “Casas de Asilo da Infância Desvalida”.
She was invited again to become Assistant Lecturer in the Humanities Faculty (Lisbon Classical University) to run the History of Education at the Pedagogical Sciences Department until 1971.
Maria Rita and Group Analysis
In 1960, she started her personal training in Group Analysis with Prof. Dr. Eduardo Luís Cortesão. Afterwards, she initiated a professional training in “Clinical Psychology” with Eduardo Luís Cortesão at the University Hospital of Santa Maria, under the orientation of Prof. Barahona Fernandes. Besides her work at Lisbon Classical University, she started with her private activities inside the “Centro de Paralisia Cerebral “Calouste Gulbenkian”, where she developed a clinical model of psychological intervention named “dialogic relationship”, under the supervision of Eduardo Luís Cortesão.
In 1961, she was accepted as a full member of the British Psychological Society.
In 1964, she became a founding and full member of the Portuguese Group Analytic Society (S.P.G.).
During this period, she went to London and visited the Tavistock Clinic through the personal invitation of its Director, Prof. John Bowlby, who expressed his affinities with her proposed psychotherapeutic intervention: “dialogic relationship” at the Cerebral Paralysis Centre “Calouste Gulbenkian” (Lisbon).
In the sixties in London with Michael Foulkes (founder of Group Analysis), Anne Schutzenberger and Eduardo Luís Cortesão.
Estoril (First European Symposium, 1970), where she and Eduardo Luís gave several lectures.
Delegates at the II GAS Symposium, (from left to right): D.W. Abse, Elisabeth Foulkes, Ebbe Linnemann, Malcom Pines, Guilherme Ferreira, Michael Foulkes, João França de Sousa, F.R.C. Casson, Maria Rita Mendes Leal, A. Dutra, K. Nuttall, Patrick B. de Maré, A.C.R. Skynner, Harold Kaye, and Jim Home.
Meanwhile she developed a group analytic concept the “Internal Relational Matrix”, very much valued by Foulkes, Cortesão and followers. She introduced it in “Group Analytic Panel and Correspondence” (former version of the Journal “Group Analysis”) (1968).
Also dating from this period was the presentation of her hypotheses over “mutually contingent exchange” (similar to “mirroring” concept of Malcolm Pines) put into practice in the consultation room at the Cerebral Palsy Centre “Calouste Gulbenkian”.
After a first rejection of her PhD thesis focused on child development in 1973, she attended the Masters and PhD programs at the Institute of Education at London University, as a regular student, authorized to maintain research in Lisbon. After two years, she obtained her Masters Degree in Comparative Education from the Institute of Education (London) while she was attending her doctoral exams she lectured in Psychotherapy Techniques at “Instituto de Psicologia Aplicada” (Lisbon).
In 1975, at the London University and under the guidance of Prof. Mildred Marshal, former collaborator of Charlotte Buehler, she is approved with distinction and praised by the jury with a recommendation for publication of her research work: “Socialization Processes in the young child” which focuses on the initial development of social relationship capacities in children, and about the structuring of the mind at the pre-symbolic level. The first translation in Portuguese was completed in 1985.
This image is the cover from a second edition (in Portuguese) published by IPAF in 2004
During the revolutionary period, she felt very attacked for her beliefs as a catholic person, although with leftist positions, so she accepted an invitation to become an Invited Lecturer at the “Instituto Sedes Sapientiae” at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica, (São Paulo/Rio de Janeiro) to teach Dynamic Psychology and to supervise child and adult psychotherapy. Meanwhile, in 1976, she was invited to become a Board Member at the Group Analytic Society (London).
In 1980, she returned to Portugal where she was invited to assume the scientific and pedagogical coordination of Clinical Psychology from a newly created degree in Psychology at Lisbon Classical University. There she ran several scientific projects: “Psychological Consultation of the Child and Adolescent“, “Research in Clinical Psychology“, and several “Case Studies“. Also, she exercised Degree Thesis coordination and initiated the Masters and Doctoral Programs.
She was awarded with one of the first Foulkes Prizes, published in “Group Analysis”, 4(1) (1971).
In Rome, with Elizabeth Foulkes, in 1981
In 1981, she was elected President of the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, and was re-elected in 1982.
In 1983, Malcolm Pines published one of her papers “Why Group Analysis Works” in his book “The Evolution of Group Analysis”. In 1992, she started collaboration with the Editorial Board of Portuguese Group Analytic Society’s Journal: “Group Analysis” until 1994. She was elected President of the Portuguese Group Analytic Society for four years (1994-1997).
She accessed to the highest title in her teaching career (Professora Catedrática) and became an Emeritus Professor, in 1991, but remained linked to the University (Scientific Research and Clinical Supervision), while she intensified her private clinic, which she had started in the 60’s.
She also wrote several book chapters and books on child and adolescent development and group analytic psychotherapy, which you can access by clicking HERE.
“The fundamental is the pursuit of what is the relationship with the Other, it is the search to find oneself” (Maria Rita Mendes Leal)
Mário David and Isaura Neto
Lisboa, May 10th 2019