In private
practice since 1981, Dr. Nixon provides counseling, psychotherapy
and mind/body therapies to adults, couples and families. She is well
known in the Washington metropolitan area, as well as in her field,
for her expertise in somatic therapy, a mind/body approach to counseling
that synthesizes the best of conventional counseling approaches with
complementary and alternative medicine philosophies and techniques.
Dr. Nixon
is a licensed professional counselor, licensed marriage and family therapist
and certified massage therapist. She earned her bachelor's degree from
Springfield College in 1976, with a double major in special education
and rehabilitation. Dr. Nixon was awarded a full internship/scholarship
to attend Boston University for graduate studies, and in 1977 earned
a master's degree in education with a concentration in special education.
For five years she taught special education in the Maryland and Virginia public schools, working in a self-contained environment with adolescents diagnosed with emotional disturbance and learning disabilities. Dr. Nixon deepened her special education experience by working as a crisis counselor with adolescents at the Chestnut Lodge psychiatric hospital.
With her interests in the field of health and wellness, Dr. Nixon began her studies in massage therapy and bodywork at the Potomac Massage Training Institute in Washington, D.C., in 1980. Earning an advanced degree in the field, in 1981 she began her practice in bodywork. Simultaneously, she completed a yearlong training program in Gestalt therapy at the Gestalt Institute of Washington, D.C. Over the course of ten years, she pursued studies in bodywork modalities. Dr. Nixon has taken training in craniosacral therapy, Trager, deep-tissue massage and energy work. Her fascination with the effects of bodywork on her clients motivated her to pursue advanced studies. As a doctoral student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, she creatively blended her interest in counseling with bodywork by conducting a research study for her dissertation evaluating the use of counselor's touch as perceived by women who had been incested as children. Dr. Nixon was a finalist in the Common Boundary's National Dissertation Contest. In 1992, she graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a doctoral degree in education, with a specialty in counseling and a concentration in family and child services.
In 1996, Dr. Nixon was licensed as a professional counselor in the State of Virginia and in 1997 earned licensure as a marriage and family therapist. Dr. Suzanne Nixon maintains a private practice in Lansdowne, Virginia where she specializes in working with adults and couples. With a combined twenty-five years in the field of education, counseling and bodywork, Dr. Nixon draws on a variety of psychological theories and therapeutic approaches in the delivery of care to her clients. Her holistic counseling style is client-centered, meaning, she respects and treats each person for the individual they are and devises a treatment plan according to their needs, objectives, goals, life history and current life space situation. In practice, she integrates the theories of humanistic psychology, Gestalt psychology, transpersonal psychology and somatic psychology as well as psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, family systems, relational and trauma & recovery theory. Dr. Nixon’s counseling approach often incorporates a psycho-educational component, which empowers clients through dispersing information and teaching skills applicable to the client’s treatment objectives.
Her unique clinical practice in counseling and somatic therapy combined with her skill in teaching and public speaking, led educational institutions and professional conference organizers to offer her teaching positions and speaking engagements. Dr. Nixon taught a graduate course in the Family and Child Services Department at Virginia Tech, conducted continuing education courses for massage therapists and bodyworkers at reputed schools, consulted for renowned health spas and resorts, and was invited to speak at dozens of professional conferences. Dr. Nixon continues with her speaking engagements addressing professional audiences at regional, national and international conferences on somatic therapy, professional ethics, the use of bodywork in the recovery of sexual abuse, energy medicine, healing and wellness.
