EXCLUSIVE - Ruth Anderson, The ATP'S New Director Of Well Being And Mental Health

Jill Craybas sits down with Ruth Anderson, the ATP'S new Director of Well Being and Mental Health to dicsuss every aspect of a player's mindset.Taken from the MindHQ.com website:Ruth has developed her expertise working as a psychologist and manager within welfare services, the mental health sector, and elite sport. With unique experience in both mental health and high performance sport, Ruth understands what is required to make change, and achieve maximum potential in all areas of life.Ruth’s career began leading teams in the welfare sector, providing services to disadvantaged young people and families, and delivering a range of psychological services and programs on mental health units for children, adolescents, and young adults. Transitioning her skills into the high performance sport environment, Ruth has worked within the elite sport industries in both Australia and the United Kingdom, and at all levels of international competition. For 8 years Ruth worked at the Australian Institute of Sport as a Senior Sport Psychologist, and established and managed the national athlete counselling service. Working across a variety of sports, and teams, including the Great Britain and Australian Cycling Teams, Tennis Australia, Paddle Australia and Diving Australia Ruth gained extensive expertise in elite sport performance. Holding roles at the last four Olympic Games, Ruth was the Head of Psychology Services for the Australian Olympic Team at the Olympic Games in Beijing, 2008 and London, 2012; the Lead Psychologist for the British Cycling Team for the Olympic Games in Rio, 2016; and Director of Psychology for the Australian Olympic Team for the Tokyo Olympic Games, 2021. Now based in London, Ruth is the Director Player Wellbeing for the ATP Tour.Ruth’s PhD investigated automaticity as the optimal psychological state for peak performance, and her research with elite athletes has been published internationally. Ruth’s research portfolio includes projects and publications across a range of areas related to sport performance and well-being including peak performance, automaticity, psychological recovery, athlete homesickness, and pain assessment and coping. Applied publications have been the areas of critical incident management and grief and loss. Ruth’s book, The Cycling Mind, has been published by Bloomsbury Publications, London.