Draft:Margaret Nichols (psychologist)

Margaret E. Nichols (born 1947) is an American psychologist and sex therapist who works with individuals and couples and has sub-specialties in sexual dysfunction, trauma and in the population of LGBT people. As Executive Director of the Hyacinth Foundation in New Jersey, an organization that received a contract from the state in 1986 to provide services to intravenous drug users with AIDS, Nichols spoke out on New Jersey's failure to provide services to those with AIDS. and noted "70 to 80 percent of the cases involve gay men". She is a psychotherapist and a founder of the Institute for Personal Growth (IPG Counseling), a provider of mental health services.

Life and career
After teaching at The New School, Nichols received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1981 and is an AASECT/Certified Sex Therapist.

Nichols became a pioneer in the field of sex therapy for lesbian couples, writing on the subject since the 1980s.

In 1987, she suggested that high dissolution rates of lesbian relationships could be due to women coupling prematurely, leading to a "later falling off of sexual desire". She suggested it is important for lesbian couples to expand the ways their desire is developed. In 2005, Nichols asserted that lesbian community has become more sexual in the previous two decades. In her practice, Nichols has encouraged the use of sex toys to increase the frequency of sex and education about the Basson's sexual response model.

Nichols started the Institute for Personal Growth (IPG Counseling) that offers psychotherapy and counseling services.

In 1985, Nichols and IPG staff created a non-profit that became the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation, the first and largest AIDS service organization in New Jersey. Nichols served as the first Director of the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation from 1986 to 1988.

Nichols also helped create the Women's Center of Monmouth County, NJ, one of the state’s first battered women's shelters. She is a member of the American Psychological Association and the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT).

Much of Nichols' therapeutic practice focuses on the sexual problems of men and women. She said of Viagra: "The drugs have ushered in an era of looking at sexual problems from a medical perspective instead of from a psychological perspective", though she continues to treat men with psychological problems around erectile dysfunction.

Her writings are focused on the theory and sex therapy of bisexual and lesbian women, lesbian couples, women with AIDS, and also queers and kinky clients.

Selected publications

 * Nichols M (1987). "Lesbian Sexuality: Issues And Developing Theory". The Boston Lesbian Psychologies Collective (eds.) Lesbian Psychologies: Explorations and Challenges. University of Illinois Press, ISBN 978-0-252-01404-8
 * Nichols M (1988). "Low Sexual Desire in Lesbian Couples". In Leiblum and Rosen (eds.) Sexual Desire Disorders. Guilford Press, ISBN 978-0-89862-714-5
 * Nichols M (1988). "Bisexuality in Women: Myths, Realities, and Implications for Therapy". In Cole and Rothblum (eds.) Women and Sex Therapy, Closing the Circle of Sexual Knowledge. Harrington Park Press, ISBN 978-0-86656-808-1
 * Nichols M (1990). "Lesbian Relationships: Implications for the Study of Sexuality and Gender". In McWhirter, Sanders and Reinisch (eds.) Homosexuality/Heterosexuality. Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-505205-3
 * Nichols M (1990). "Women and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome: Issues For Prevention". In Voeller, Reinisch, and Gottlieb (eds.) AIDS and Sex: An Integrated Biomedical and Biobehavorial Approach. Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-506909-9
 * Nichols M (1994). "Therapy With Bisexual Women: Working On The Edge of Emerging Cultural and Personal Identities". In Mirkin MP (ed.) Women In Context, Toward a Feminist Reconstruction of Psychotherapy. Guilford Press, ISBN 0-89862-095-3
 * Nichols M (1995). "Sexual Desire Disorder in Lesbian-Feminist Couple: The Intersection of Therapy and Politics". In Rosen and Leiblum (eds.) Case Studies in Sex Therapy. Guilford Press, ISBN 978-0-89862-848-7
 * Nichols M (2005). "Sexual Function in Lesbians and Lesbian Relationships". In Goldstein, Meston, Davis and Traish (eds.) Women's Sexual Function and Dysfunction: Study, Diagnosis and Treatment. Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-1-84214-263-9
 * Nichols M (2006). "Psychotherapeutic Issues With 'Kinky' Clients: Clinical Problems, Yours and Theirs". In Moser and Kleinplatz (eds.) Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures. Haworth Press, ISBN 978-1-56023-639-9
 * Nichols M (2006). "Therapy with sexual minorities: Queering practice". In Leiblum and Rosen (eds.) Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy, Fourth Edition. Guilford Press, ISBN 978-1-59385-349-5