Person Profile: Laura Cushman
Lauri Yablick, PhD
Laura Cushman could be one of AASCIPSW’s best kept secrets. Commonly described as quiet, shy, and introverted, Cushman is all about stealth. Soft-spoken is probably a better descriptor than quiet. And shy or introverted? Suspend judgment. Cushman attended her first AASCIPSW conference in 1990, and responded to the realization that she didn’t know anyone by volunteering to serve on the Membership Committee the following year. She then became involved with the prototype for the Clinical Practice Committee and also created the Professional Issues Committee. She participated in writing our first Standards of Care, and, ever the introvert, was elected to the Board of Directors. She has served two consecutive terms twice, so she has been on the Board for 12 of her 17 years as a member of the association.
Consequently, Cushman is well-known among the other association workhorses, who also seem to be the people having the most fun around here. Helen Bosshart has worked with her extensively over the years, most recently on the Program Committee which Cushman now chairs. “Laura is always on top of the best restaurants and cultural happenings no matter where you travel with her,” Bosshart said. “She often suggests some unusual, off the wall place, but it’s usually a memorable dining experience! Once, I believe in New York, we had the pleasure of dinner at a restaurant where all the waiters and waitresses were dressed in drag!”
Any good traveler knows that if you want to compare cities, it helps to have a benchmark. “Who else, besides me of course, would go to the Liberace Museum on an annual pilgrimage each year during AASCIPSW convention?” asked Alan Goldberg. “To say that Laura is a bit quirky is a bit of an understatement,” he added, without a trace of irony. Goldberg knows from quirky. “Who else sends Halloween cards rather than Christmas cards? Who else goes to Toronto’s Shoe Museum? Who else is a master at old movies and often has the posters from them as well?” Who else frames everything in the form of a question? Wait, that was Goldberg, who nevertheless managed to make his point affectionately. “Laura is a lot of fun, enjoys fine food and the company of friends. No wonder we get along so well.”
All of this makes sense, knowing that Cushman pragmatically chose not to become a frustrated artist. “I’ve always been drawn to the arts, but I had no talent,” she said. “By the time I got to college I knew I couldn’t sing, act, dance or paint. I decided to cultivate the appreciation, and pursue it as an avocation.” Whatever Cushman lacked in artistic ability she was graced with intellectually, and she was as deliberate in selecting a future in psychology as she was in excluding a career in the arts. “I found some old social psychology research in my high school library,” she recalled. “I liked science and English, and thought nothing could be more interesting than applying the scientific method to the study of human behavior.” Her personal clarity on this proved invaluable, as the diversity of her interests could have been the source of some confusion. “At some point I completed the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, and my interests were most closely related to those of male Catholic priests.”
Before anyone pitches their remaining supply of vocational interest inventories, it seems only fair to acknowledge that Cushman’s spirituality has also been a central and sometimes challenging part of her life. At about the time she discovered social psychology she also discovered feminism, which was at odds with the church she was raised in. “I began attending a different church when I was in high school, and ended up at a small evangelical college.” Seduced by the high academic standards of a school where two-thirds of the graduates pursued a post-graduate education, she was blind-sided by the extent to which her background and beliefs alienated her there. Her first year was pretty miserable, but she found a mentor and role model as a sophomore. “The most influential person I met there was the director of the theater program,” she said. “He was talented, compassionate and strongly spiritual, and showed me how to survive within a rigid and confining system.”
A useful skill to be sure, but Cushman was relieved to face new challenges in personal development when she chose to pursue her graduate work at Wayne State University. “Detroit was like a bombed out city then, because residents had abruptly taken flight for the suburbs,” she said. “There were huge socioeconomic barriers, with invisible fences and glass walls.” Graduate student housing was subsidized, but the living conditions were rough. Cushman made the best of it, and particularly took to the history and culture of the city. “I learned to love jazz in Detroit. It wasn’t even permitted on my undergraduate campus because of the historical association with prohibition.”
Cushman also immediately realized that Wayne State offered excellent opportunities in Clinical Neuropsychology, and immersed herself in the training. She completed two internships, and vaguely expected to work in one of the brain injury rehabilitation facilities that were proliferating madly at the time. “I had never considered pursuing an academic position,” she said. “I applied for a position in the psychiatry department at the University of Rochester with the intention of using it as a practice interview.” A position for a Rehabilitation Psychologist that had not yet been formally advertised had opened there at the same time, and proved to be an excellent fit. Cushman worked for the University of Rochester Medical Center for more than 20 years. “We had a 20-bed inpatient rehabilitation unit within a large acute care hospital. More than half the patients were there for spinal cord injury rehabilitation.”
Within a few years she found her way to AASCIPSW, and the longevity of her relationship with the association has been mutually invaluable. When Cushman lost her husband to polycythemia vera about six years ago, her involvement in the association provided a sense continuity and comfort. “He was admitted to the ICU immediately, and died four days later,” she said. “I was on the Board of Directors at the time, and it was a tremendous source of stability and support through a very rocky year.” Cushman believes that her demeanor once caused other Board members to question her leadership abilities, but either her doubts, or theirs, vanished as she continued to serve the association during that difficult time.
”Cushman is quiet and unassuming, but she can run a great meeting,” observed Helen Bosshart, after the recent Program Committee meeting in Orlando. “This is no small task with a group of opinionated social workers and psychologists!”
Cushman currently divides her time among several clinical and research endeavors in Rochester. She is close to her mother who lives nearby, and is a devoted dog mom. “Something many folks may not know is how much Laura loves animals,” said Marcia Scherer, who has worked with Cushman both within and beyond AASCIPSW. “Before she got her current dog, she would take in animals recovering from medical problems, or as a foster parent for those between owners.”
Dogs have the sense not to get hung up on the semantics of quiet, shy, or introverted, and make the best of people as we are. Fortunately with Cushman, AASCIPSW has shown the same wisdom.