About Us » Our People » Therapists » Ruth Gawler
Dr Ruth Gawler, MB BS (Syd) MGPPsych (Monash) FACPsyMed
Dr Ruth Gawler is a GP with a specialised interest in Mind-Body Medicine and meditation.
As Ruth Berlin, she graduated from Sydney University, and spent 2 years as a Resident Medical Officer at Sydney Hospital before working in the Nairobi Hospital and Tumu-Tumu Hospital (a Presbyterian Mission Hospital in the Kikuyu Highlands) for 2 years.
She came back to Australia in 1985 to work at The Rozelle Hospital as a Psychiatry Registrar for a year, she then completed her training with the Family Medicine Program to become a vocationally registered GP.
From 1990-95 Ruth worked at the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress (Alice Springs) and was Medical Director of the Family Planning Association of Central Australia from 1991-1997.
In 2001 Ruth completed a Masters in General Practise Psychiatry and became a fellow of the Australian College of Psychological Medicine.
After 10 years in Central Australia, Ruth moved to Victoria to marry Ian Gawler in 2000, and has been working at The Gawler Foundation since 2001.
Ruth is a strong advocate of the therapeutic value of lifestyle factors, being convinced that they provide the fundamental tennants to prevent disease, foster long term good health and to powerfully promote healing. A key technique in this regard is meditation, which Ruth has been studying and practising since 1986, intially through Hatha Yoga and in the last 20 years using Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation and Imagery. Ruth has studied extensively the teaching of her husband Ian Gawler, and been trained by him directly over many years also being a longterm student of the great Tibetan Meditation teacher Sogyal Rinpoche.
She works leading group sessions in the - Life and Living Residential Program and Life and Living - the Next Step and providing medical care and personal counselling. Ruth has been teaching yoga and meditation at The Gawler Foundation since 2001, and is particularly engaged with the use of meditation therapeutically - for health, healing and wellbeing. She is also a member of the Board for ATMA.