Name Margaret Nichols | ||
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 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.