Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D.

Dr. Cummings is a visionary who for half a century not only was able to foresee the future of professional psychology, he helped create it. A former president of the American Psychological Association (APA) as well as its Divisions 12 (Clinical Psychology) and 29 (Psychotherapy), he formed a number of national organizations in response to trends. Since organized psychology resisted these inevitable changes, Dr. Cummings’ blazed the way, expecting others would follow. He launched the professional school movement by founding the four campuses of the California School of Professional Psychology that established clinicians as full fledged members of the faculty. As chief of mental health for the Kaiser Permanente health system in the 1950s, he wrote and implemented the first prepaid psychotherapy contract in the era when psychotherapy was an exclusion rather than a covered benefit in health insurance. He wrote what is known as the freedom-of-choice legislation that requires insurers to reimburse psychologists along with psychiatrists, and he conducted the medical cost offset research showing that psychological interventions save medical/surgical dollars.

Foreseeing the industrialization of healthcare, and particularly behavioral healthcare, he founded American Biodyne, the nation’s first psychology-driven managed behavioral health organization (MBHO), to be emulated so that the profession could own managed behavioral care before it fell into the hands of business interests. For two years he limited enrollment to 500,000 covered lives, but when the professions of psychology and psychiatry ignored the model, he took his foot off the brake, and the number of covered lives soared to 14.5 million in the next 5 years. Other organizations he founded were the National Academies of Practice (the 150 most distinguished practitioners in each of dentistry, medicine, nursing, optometry, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, podiatric medicine, psychology, social work, and veterinary medicine), the National Council of Professional School of Psychology (NCSPP), the San Joaquin County Psychological Association, and the American Managed Behavioral Healthcare Association (AMBHA). With others he co-founded the California Psychological Association, the San Francisco Bay Area Psychological Association, the Council for the Advancement of the Psychological Professions and Sciences (CAPPS).

In spite of being controversial all of his life, he is the recipient of numerous awards, including psychology’s highest, the APF Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Practice.

He received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley, the master’s degree in psychology from Claremont Graduate School, and the doctorate in clinical psychology from Adelphi University. He has been awarded five honorary doctorates for his innovations in such diverse fields as education and the Greek classics. Along with his professional, scientific and educational contributions, he has been feted as the foremost entrepreneur in psychology.

Dr. Cummings was a member of President Kennedy’s Mental Health Task Force and President Carter’s Mental Health Commission. He was an advisor to the Health Economics Branch of the then Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Senate Subcommittee on Health (Senator Edward Kennedy, Chair), and the Senate Finance Committee (Senator Russell Long, Chair). He has testified before the Congress of the United States 18 times. On behalf of the Health Care Financing Administration, he conducted the 7-year Hawaii Medicaid Project that prompted the federal government to overhaul the way Medicaid was being delivered.

His daughter, Dr. Janet Cummings, remembers that her father always had two, and usually 3 fulltime jobs, She attributes this to her father’s ability to get along with only 3 hours of sleep at night. He served as executive director of the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, and he has written over 450 journal articles and 45 books, 8 of them with his daughter. Throughout the half-century of professional activity, Dr. Cummings never saw less than 40 to 50 patients per week in private practice. His belief has been that once he lost contact with hands-on clinical practice, he would lose sight of the important factors in clinical psychology.

At the present time he resides in Reno, Nevada with the one love of his life, Dorothy, and they maintain a winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is Distinguished Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. He chairs the boards of directors of both The Nicholas & Dorothy Cummings Foundation, Inc. and CareIntegra, and he is president of the Cummings Foundation for Behavioral Health.

Dorothy Mills Cummings, M.S.S.

A licensed clinical social worker, she received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles and her master’s degree in psychiatric social work from Adelphi University. She has worked in the Family Service Agency in both New York City and San Francisco, and was on the staff of the Golden Gate Community Mental Health Center. For many years she was a school social worker for the Sacramento (California) Unified school District.

Married to Nick Cummings for 60 years, she has always been a proponent of strong family ties, and she arranged all of her professional activities to coincide with her children’s school schedules and their other needs. Her husband attributes his productivity to the inspiration she always provided, and she was not only supportive, but insistent of his many risk-taking professional ventures.

Currently she is secretary/treasurer of The Nicholas & Dorothy Cummings Foundation, Inc. and a member of the board of directors of the Cummings Foundation for Behavioral Health, Inc.

Janet L. Cummings, Psy.D.

The daughter of Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings, Dr. Janet Cummings earned a degree in genetics and molecular biology at the University of California at Davis and a graduate degree in semantics at the University of Texas at Arlington, before going to Wright State University where she earned the doctor of psychology degree with the university president’s annual commendation. She completed her internship and a post-doctoral residency at Arizona Biodyne, and remained as a staff psychologist there for several years.

At the present time Dr. Cummings is the independent practice of psychology in Scottsdale, Arizona and serves as president of The Nicholas & Dorothy Cummings Foundation, Inc. She is also the secretary/treasurer of CareIntegra. and serves on the board of directors of the Cummings Foundation for Behavioral Health, Inc. She is adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno and the Forest Institute of Professional psychology in Springfield, Missouri. She is the author of several articles and book chapters, and she has co-authored 8 books with her father. She was named Wright State University's 2007 Alumnus of the Year.

She resides in Scottsdale, Arizona with her husband, George J. Geiser, a civil engineer, and her two children.

Andrew M. Cummings, J.D., LLM

Mr. Cummings is the Senior Vice President for for Magellan Health at the New York City office. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business and computer sciences from California State University at Sacramento, earned his law degree from the McGeorge College of Law of the University of the Pacific, and obtained an advance degree in tax law from Boston University. After several years with a private law firm, he became the general counsel for American Biodyne, and remained with that company through a series of mergers until it became Magellan Health Corporation.

Coming into managed behavioral care during its infancy, he has been a part of the developing law pertaining to healthcare, and particularly managed behavioral healthcare, as it evolved over the years he was general counsel for American Biodyne, Inc. He serves as vice chair of The Nicholas & Dorothy Cummings Foundation, Inc. and is on the board of directors of the Cummings Foundation for Behavioral Health, Inc. He currently resides in Greenwich, Connecticut with his wife Laura Felsten Cummings.

William T. O'Donohue, Ph.D.

He is the Nicholas Cummings professor of organized Behavioral Healthcare Delivery at the University of Nevada, Reno. In this role Dr. O’Donohue has created a new curriculum in clinical psychology that adds knowledge in healthcare delivery and adds a certificate in behavioral health administration. His innovative program has attracted an unprecedented number of doctoral candidates to his track, and those who have already graduated have been enthusiastically welcomed by the marketplace. He holds the rank of full professor in the psychology department, honorary associate professor in the department of philosophy, and adjunct professor in the department of psychiatry. Outside the University of Nevada, he is adjunct professor in both the University of Hawaii, Monoa, and the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.

In fulfilling his role as Cummings Professor, Dr. O’Donohue is an entrepreneur who is president and CEO of CareIntegra. He is additionally the executive director of the Cummings Foundation for Behavioral Health, Inc., an educational and service organization that is nonprofit in contrast to CareIntegra which is an entrepreneurial endeavor.

Dr. O’Donohue earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and both his master’s and doctorates in clinical psychology from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook. Later he earned another master’s degree, this time in philosophy, from Indiana University in Bloomington. He is licensed to practice psychology in Nevada, Maine and Indiana. He has authored over 100 articles in refereed journal, 73 book chapters, and 44 books. He resides in Reno with his psychologist wife, Dr. Jane Fisher, and their two daughters.