Australian Dictionary of Biography

Ruth Redom

Courtesy of Jackie Salathé

Ruth Diana Redom (1941–2000), psychiatrist and community activist, was born on 4 August 1941 at Taunton, Somerset, England, eldest of three children of Polish-born Rywka Regina, née Weintraub, and her German-born husband Hans Joachim ‘Joe’ Rosenberg, window dresser and artist. Born into a Jewish family, Joe had been imprisoned in the Sonnenburg and Buchenwald concentration camps in the 1930s for anti-Nazi activity. In 1939 he escaped to England, where he volunteered for the British Army. Though the family was not strongly religious, Ruth later described her father as having a proud Jewish identity, which inspired his art.

For many of her early years, Ruth lived in West London and attended the nearby Godolphin and Latymer School at Hammersmith. At some point the family shortened their surname to Rose, and in 1957 they emigrated to Sydney where Ruth attended North Sydney and Sydney Girls’ high schools. The Roses settled in the eastern suburbs and were active in the local Jewish community in the late 1950s and 1960s, often appearing in the social pages of local newspapers. In 1964 Joe painted a portrait of Ruth, which was entered for the Archibald prize. His social conscience and concern for human rights, as well as his imprisonment by the Nazis, were said to have had a lasting influence on Ruth and her career in psychiatry. Her sister recalled that their father was ‘deeply affected’ and that ‘[we] grew up in a household that attempted to keep a calm “disposition”’ (Salathé 2025).

While studying medicine at the University of Sydney (MBBS, 1965), Ruth met Richard Michael Redom, a London-born sales executive. They married in the Jewish synagogue at Coogee, Sydney, on 15 December 1963. Their daughter, Lisa, was born in 1968. The following year Ruth treated the English actress and singer Marianne Faithfull, who was in Australia for the filming of Ned Kelly with her boyfriend Mick Jagger, after she overdosed and was hospitalised at Mount St Margaret’s Hospital, Sydney. The Redoms subsequently travelled to London, where Ruth studied for a diploma of psychological medicine in 1972.

During the late 1970s Redom worked at the Bowral community support centre in the New South Wales Southern Highlands. In the early 1980s she made her way to Tasmania to take up a position as senior psychiatrist at the Launceston General Hospital. She became active in the Medical Council of Tasmania and helped to establish a local branch of the Association of Friends and Relatives of the Mentally Ill. In 1985 she moved to Hobart to lead a community mental health service at Gavitt House, Glenorchy. She later entered private practice with another psychiatrist at Sandy Bay, Hobart, and collaborated with her husband on mental health advocacy.

Feminist political philosophy framed Redom’s approach to mental health and social justice. She became involved in projects to address male violence against women and children, particularly as a founding member (1989) of the family violence service Support Help and Empowerment (SHE), which grew out of grassroots community organising in Tasmania. Closely following the growing awareness of the issue of childhood sexual abuse, she publicly supported survivors at a time when the rates of incidence and recall of memories of childhood sexual abuse among adults were contentious within psychiatry, psychology, and the media. In 1994 she explained that ‘the amazing fortitude and courage of these women makes it possible for me to keep working in this field’ (1994, 22).

At the forefront of changing attitudes towards mental health, Redom was an early adopter of trauma-informed paradigms. The understanding of trauma and adverse life experiences as the origin of certain mental health issues, particularly among survivors of child abuse, had been gaining traction from the 1980s. She adopted a social model that considered and critiqued the role of societal power structures in the life experiences of vulnerable and marginalised groups and individuals. This marked a departure from biochemical explanations for mental illness that were then favoured by many psychiatrists. Her commitment to community activism and honouring the lived experiences of survivors and those living with mental health conditions made her a progressive and enlightened figure in Australian psychiatry.

After travelling to Perth to receive specialised treatment for lung cancer, Redom died at Nedlands on 25 August 2000. Her husband and daughter survived her. She was cremated and a memorial service was held at the Hobart Synagogue, where she was remembered for her generosity, impish sense of humour, and loud, infectious laugh. In her younger days she was known to love the British radio comedy The Goon Show; later she enjoyed concerts and theatre, bridge, gardening, and bushwalking. She was also a supporter of environmental causes and an animal lover with a special fondness for Siamese cats.