In recognition of her dedicated work for almost 50 years in the field of psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, Melbourne based Dr Sabar Rustomjee was honored with the prestigious Member of the Order of Australia award on Australia Day, January 26, 2020. Among the 125 persons selected for this national recognition, Rustomjee conveyed that "communicating hope and optimism has formed a major part of my professional life… As far as I know, no female Parsi Zoroastrian has been awarded this honor.”
Now retired from practice, she continues to contribute to her field in various ways. Her book on analytic psychotherapy titled From Contempt To Dignity is with the publishers and should be released in a couple of months, Rustomjee stated in response to Parsiana’s email queries. The book includes articles by famous psychoanalysts and expounds techniques to help patients overcome anxiety as well as recover from serious ailments including criminality. Vulnerabilities in life and the courage to face contempt are further highlighted in the book. Her other published works have dealt with subjects like containment and failures of containment, creativity of social dreaming, solitude and agony of unbearable shame, and working between eastern and western cultures.
Dr Sabar Rustomjee; right: Member of the
Order of Australia medal Photo: gg.gov.au
Former president of the Australian Association of Group Psychotherapy, she continues on the board of directors of the International Association of Group Psychotherapy of which she had been elected president in 2000. Having spent a lifetime listening to patients’ stories with empathy, compassion and respect, by redefining possibilities, Rustomjee has helped individuals navigate the trying times in their lives. She has been invited to give lectures in Japan, UK, USA, Italy, Greece, Spain and India.
Hailing from a family of doctors in Sri Lanka, Rustomjee had decided from an early age to be a medical practitioner and would parade around the house with her father Dr Maneksha Rustomjee’s stethoscope. When her father was diagnosed with cancer, the family relocated to Bombay for his treatment but he succumbed to the disease when Sabar was only five years of age. Despite struggling on a paltry pension, her mother Mehra provided the best education to the children. After her early education from the J. B. Petit High School for Girls and Elphinstone College, Sabar qualified for a scholarship to study medicine at the Grant Medical College. On completing her graduation and internship she migrated to Sri Lanka to marry Dr Pirosha Rustomjee, a trainee surgeon.
In the following decade she continued to practice in Sri Lanka, later studied pediatrics in Liverpool for over a year and when the family migrated to Victoria, Australia she joined the Mental Health Authority. "It was during this time that I was introduced to individual and group psychotherapy by a brilliant supervisor Dr Tom Murray,” she recalled. Influenced by Sigmund Freud and his theories, she pursued a diploma in psychological medicine and was awarded fellowship of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry.
She is happy to attend meetings and functions of the Zoroastrian Association of Victoria, her husband Pirosha being the first president of this body. Professing liberal views, during an interview with Parsiana (see "The trusted therapist,” February 2002) she had stated, "I’m a very accepting person. I can’t think of not accepting any human being. Those who are very keen should be given an opportunity (to enter the religious fold). The quality of commitment should be considered. After all, Zoroastrians were converted from another faith.” Preferring not to treat people she knows in the interests of objectivity, Rustomjee had observed that Zoroastrians in Australia "are less prone to mental illnesses,” qualifying further that it is "the healthier ones who have migrated. Zoroastrians have adjusted better than other races, by and large.”
Future City model
Participating in the Future City engineering competition that encourages middle school students to come up with innovative solutions, 13-year-old Anoshi Eduljee worked with 13 of her fellow students from Langtree Charter Academy to win first place in the North Carolina contest on January 25, 2020. Qualifying for the national round, their team was among the nearly 43 selected from USA to participate in the competition held in Washington DC. Winning the third place, at the awards ceremony at Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington on February 18, they earned $ 2,000 as scholarship sponsored by Shell Oil Company for their school’s STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) program, stated Anoshi’s father Farokh.
Future City competitions encourage students to imagine, research, design and build cities of the future, offering solutions to sustainability issues. "This year’s topic was clean water. Our goal was to pick a country that had many issues with their clean water and to fix the threat to their city’s water supply. We picked Cambodia and designed a resilient system to maintain a reliable supply of clean drinking water,” explained Anoshi.