Margaret Winifred Bartholomew was born on 21 August 1885 at Duntarvie, West Lothian, just over a dozen miles west of Edinburgh. She was the third of the five children of John and Agnes Bartholomew. Her father was a farmer and her mother a musician. She was educated at Edinburgh Ladies College between 1895 and 1903, and then she studied at the Edinburgh Medical College for Women, 1903-1908, graduating with the degrees of M.B. and Ch.B. from Edinburgh University, 1908. Her aunt, Dr. Isabella Mears, a missionary in China, was one of the first ten women to become a doctor in Britain.

From 1908, and for a year, Bartholomew worked as an Assistant in General Practice, and then in 1909 she gained a post as a Medical Missionary in the Womens Hospital, Nagpur, India where she carried out surgical work and midwifery. In 1914, she returned to Scotland, and on the outbreak of war took over her brother's medical practice near Edinburgh. In 1915 however, in November, she had returned to India, and in Bombay married Frank Rushworth who was at that time a Captain in the 7th Rajputs, an Indian Regiment stationed in the North West Frontier. By the end of the year though, Rushforth had been sent to Mesopotamia. In 1916, Winifred was working in the Mission Hospital, Jalna, in central India, doing surgical work and inoculations against bubonic plague and cholera. In 1917, her husband returned to India to a government post in Simla, and she did surgical work in a womens hospital there. In 1920 they moved to Calcutta, where Frank worked in business and Winifred was a volunteer worker organising infant welfare work and started child guidance with mothers groups. For this work, Rushforth received the Kaiser-i-Hind Medal (Emperor of India Medal).

In 1929, in London, she underwent training at the Tavistock Clinic beginning a personal analysis and carrying out analytic treatment of patients. By 1931, the Depression had ended her husband's career in Calcutta and so the family settled in Edinburgh where he worked as Registrar at the Edinburgh College of Art. Rushforth continued with personal analysis and in 1933 began work as an analytical psycho-therapist in private practice in Edinburgh - at this time, very much pioneer work in Scotland.

In 1939, just as the War started, Dr. Winifred Rushforth was joined by Dr. Elspeth Macleod - a child therapist - and several of her own patients who had teaching and other qualifications, and opened a small clinic with the support of a Presbyterian congregation. This was the Davidson Clinic. Her confidence in analytic psycho-therapy was strengthened by the arrival in Scotland of Jewish refugee psychiatrists from Germany, and one of them, Dr. William Kraemer, joined her in 1941 and they worked together for sixteen years establishing the Davidson Clinic.

During the wartime years, and after, the Clinic flourished, and as other doctors and clinicians associated themselves with it, psycho-therapists were able to be trained. As far as patients were concerned - and as concerned the analytical work - at one time as many as 100 patients were being treated daily. Then, with the passing of the Mental Health Act (1959), and the re-organisation of the mental hospitals across the UK, the treatment of neurosis and psycho-therapy was taken over by the State and new era of treatment began using barbiturate drugs and tranquillisers. Unable to offer comparable salaries to those offered by the National Health Service (NHS) it became impossible to recruit psychiatric staff, and so the Davidson Clinic was not able to survive.

From its inception in 1939 and until 1965, Dr. Winifred Rushforth was the Honorary Medical Director of the Davidson Clinic. On the death of her successor, she returned to the Clinic to wind up its affairs. Then, in 1967, Rushforth was awarded the OBE in recognition for her work. From 1965 until her death she continued her private practice in psycho-therapy working both with individual patients and also with Dream-Growth groups. In addition, Easter and Summer schools were held after 1965 and out of these the Sempervivum Trust emerged. Rushforth also provided inspiration to the work of the Salisbury Centre, Edinburgh (1973), and of Wellspring, Edinburgh (1978).

In 1981, at the age of ninety-five, she published Something is happening: spiritual awareness and depth psychology in the new age. It was first published in London by the Turnstone Press. Another work was Ten decades of happenings (1984), which was an autobiography. After her death, Life's Currency: Time, Money and Energy: An Anthology of Shorter Writings (1986) was published.

Dr. Winifred Rushforth died at her home in Edinburgh on 29 August 1983. Sir Laurens van der Post attended Dr Rushforth's Memorial Service in Old St Paul's Church, Edinburgh, as Prince Charles's representative. Earlier that year, the Prince and Princess of Wales had visited her in her home.