For many years, Rushforth was a close friend of Sir Laurens van der Post. She was fascinated, in particular, by his work on the Bushmen of the Kalahari and kept a carved wooden statuette of a bushman, by the contemporary sculptor Christopher Hall, in the drawing room of her home in Edinburgh. Her portrait in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery features the sculpture. It was van der Post who first told Prince Charles about Dr Rushforth's work on dreams and psychoanalysis, and urged the Prince to meet her.