Three offices in New Jersey! Telehealth services available. We now accept Medicare, Cigna, Aetna, and UnitedHealthcare with select providers. Please call for more information.
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. What ails women? The short answer is – that elusive thing called desire. The most common reason that women seek therapy for sexual problems is ‘lack of desire,’ which sometimes means – “the thought of sex with ANYONE leaves me cold” and other times means “the thought of having sex with…
In the video I explain a little about the difference between sex therapists and ‘regular’ therapists – i.e., licensed psychologists, social workers, counselors- including marriage counselors. In a word: sex therapists are specialists. You wouldn’t go to your family physician if you needed heart surgery, and you don’t go to a counselor for help with…
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. In a previous post I wrote about Jack Morin’s research on long-term couples who still have regular, satisfying sex lives. Like Morin, in both my career and personal life I’ve seen great relationships with lousy sex and vice versa. I’ve seen high passion give way to boredom, but sometimes – I’ve…
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. Years ago Jack Morin wowed the field of sexology with his book “The Erotic Mind.” He created a new paradigm for sexual arousal that explained why sex can be particularly hot if it is taboo, forbidden, unattainable, and why couples seem to lose interest in sex the longer the relationship goes…
The Institute for Personal Growth, the premier outpatient mental health organization with three offices in New Jersey and New York City, has launched a Postgraduate Sex Therapy Training Program. The Program, based in Highland Park, NJ, currently has fourteen residents, seasoned psychologists and social workers who are participating in intensive training to become certified sex…
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. I hate these kinds of articles – my eyes glaze over when I see them– and so this is the first time I’ve written one. But I think my advice might be slightly different from what you’ve have heard before. For nearly thirty years, my two main professional specialties have been…
Book Review by Margie Nichols, Ph.D. What is ‘natural’ in human sexuality? It’s not a trivial question: what is ‘natural’ is assumed to be normal, and by tenuous extension, what is ‘unnatural’ is inferior, deviant – abnormal. We take it for granted that the ‘purpose’ of human sex is reproduction, which privileges heterosexual penile-vaginal intercourse…
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. First, let me say a little more about decoupling sex and love. Because, imho, the source of many of our sexual difficulties is our sloppy sentimentality about sex and love. The reason we personalize our partner’s sexual behavior so much is that we are viewing sexuality through lenses distorted by false…
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. In the sex therapy field there is a wonderful concept put out by my colleague Barry McCarthy called “good enough sex.” Modeled after the old psychodynamic concept of the “good enough mother,” it proposes that people’s idealized visions of what should be – the perfect mother, the perfect sexual experience, the…
By Margie Nichols, Ph.D. It seems a bit anti-climactic now, since the FDA Advisory Panel decided yesterday to advise against the approval of what was touted as the ‘female Viagra.’ The fact that they turned down approval because they found no convincing evidence that it worked better than placebo didn’t surprise anyone who studies female sexuality. We…
