Nisha Gupta, Ph.D.

Nisha Gupta, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Contact info

Assistant Professor

Biography

Nisha received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Duquesne University, and her B.A. and M.A. in psychology and mental health counseling from New York University. Alongside her training as a psychotherapist, she experiments with integrating liberation psychology, hermeneutic phenomenological research, and the media arts to create therapeutic interventions for personal and sociocultural healing. She developed a "cinematic-phenomenological research method" that disseminates phenomenological research to the mainstream public in the format of short films to evoke empathy, compassion and solidarity. She is the founder of the Phenomenological Film Collective (PFCollective), a filmmaking-research group which utilizes cinematic-phenomenological research to produce social advocacy films. Her research topics currently focus on the cultural politics of sexuality. Her projects as a researcher, artist, psychotherapist, and educator seek to disrupt cultures of silence, evoke empathy and compassion, initiate dialogue, and build solidarity across difference. Prior to her career in psychology, she worked in the advertising industry in NYC for Saatchi & Saatchi NY and BBDO Worldwide, helping to produce TV commercials.

Education / Degrees

  • B.S., Psychology and Communications, New York University, 2006
  • MA, Counseling for Mental Health and Wellness, New York University, 2012
  • Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, Duquesne University, 2018
  • Courses Taught
  • Course Sections and Syllabi

    Fall 2019 Sections

    • PSYC-4350 (Culture and Psychology) Section: E02
    • PSYC-4350 (Culture and Psychology) Section: 01
    • PSYC-6899 (Assimilation 1st & 2nd Gen Imm) Section: 09

    Summer 2019 Sections

    • PSYC-3730 (Social Psychology) Section: E02
    • PSYC-4010 (Theories of Psychology) Section: E01
    • PSYC-6899 (Buber and Subculture) Section: 02

    Spring 2019 Sections

    • PSYC-3730 (Social Psychology) Section: 01
    • PSYC-4085 (Liberation Psychology) Section: 05
    • PSYC-8002 (Studies in Mind-Body) Section: 02

    Fall 2018 Sections

    • PSYC-4350 (Culture and Psychology) Section: 03
    • PSYC-5500 (Explorations into Creativity) Section: 01
    • PSYC-7810F (Tutorial: Film & Psychology) Section: 01
  • Publication List

    Gupta, N. (2019). The phenomenological film collective: Introducing a cinematic-phenomenological research method for social advocacy filmmaking. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 13(4)

    Gupta, N. (2018). Harnessing phenomenological research to facilitate conscientização about oppressive lived experience. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology; Special issue: Radical Humanism, Critical Consciousness, and Social Change. Onlinefirst.

    Gupta, N. (2018). Stories of faith, stories of humanity: Fusing phenomenological research with digital storytelling to facilitate interfaith empathy. Qualitative Research in Psychology. DOI: 10.1080/14780887.2018.1442705

    Gupta, N. (2017). Exploring the schizoid defense of the closet through the existential-phenomenology of R.D. Laing. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology. 5(2), 170-189.

    Gupta, N. (2015). The cinematic chiasm: Evoking societal empathy through the phenomenological language of film. Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts, 14(2), 35-48.