Nisha Gupta, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Psychology
Department of Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology College of Arts, Culture, and Scientific Inquiry

678-839-0698
ngupta@westga.3oBmYuZLIXrepLou2sfKJ42edu

Melson Hall - Room 205
Office Hours
By appointment

Download curriculum vitae for Nisha Gupta, Ph.D. in PDF
Nisha Gupta, Ph.D.

DR. NISHA GUPTA is an associate professor of psychology at the University of West Georgia, where she works as an arts-based phenomenological researcher, creativity scholar, and liberation psychologist. She disseminates research about lived experiences of psychological and sociocultural phenomena as art for social advocacy and community healing. Her work as a researcher, artist, and educator seeks to embrace the creative process as a vehicle for building solidarity across difference, evoking empathy and compassion, and fostering joy and empowerment. Nisha was also trained clinically as a psychotherapist for eight years, with a focus on trauma therapy as well as liberation psychotherapy with queer people of color. She received her education at New York University (M.A.) and Duquesne University (Ph.D.), and has a background in the advertising industry prior to her career in psychology. 

Nisha’s arts-based phenomenological research projects include: “ILLUMINATE” a phenomenological short film about the experience of being in the LGBTQ closet, for which she received the 2020 Annual APA Division 5 Distinguished Dissertation Award in Qualitative Methods; and “DESI EROS,” a series of surrealist folk art paintings about reclaiming erotic power among women from the South Asian Diaspora, which was featured on the NPR-affiliated podcast “The Academic Minute.” At the University of West Georgia, she founded the PHENOMENOLOGICAL ART COLLECTIVE, an arts-based research lab through which she teaches students to disseminate qualitative research to the public as art for social advocacy and community healing. She also host workshops for community organizations to teach arts-based phenomenology to the public as a therapeutic method.

  • 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

Fall 2023 Sections

Summer 2023 Sections

Spring 2023 Sections

Fall 2022 Sections

Summer 2022 Sections

Spring 2022 Sections

Fall 2021 Sections

Summer 2021 Sections

Spring 2021 Sections

Fall 2020 Sections

Summer 2020 Sections

  • PSYC-3730 (Social Psychology) Section: E02
  • PSYC-4010 (Theories of Psychology) Section: E01
  • PSYC-6881 (Wmn & Brvmnt: Liberatory Prspc) Section: E01

Spring 2020 Sections

  • PSYC-3730 (Social Psychology) Section: 01
  • PSYC-4500 (Explorations into Creativity) Section: 01
  • PSYC-6899 (Exist Psyc & Hmn Sexuality) Section: 01
  • PSYC-7810A (Liberation Psychology) Section: 01

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

Gupta, N. (2023). Finding God in the Bedroom: The Sacred Goodness of Sexual Pleasure. Eros and Psyche: Existential Perspectives on Sexuality. University Professors Press.

Gupta, N. (2022). Truth, Freedom, Love, Hope, and Power: An existential rights paradigm for anti-oppressive psychological praxis. The Humanistic Psychologist.

Greene, E. and Gupta, N. (2021). Introduction to the special issue on the cultural therapeutics of film. Journal of Humanistic Psychology: Special issue on Film as Cultural Therapeutics.

Gupta, N. (2020). Teaching phenomenological research as a method of therapeutic art-making: A Covid-19 case study. Qualitative Methods in Psychology Bulletin: Special issue on creative and multimodal approaches to Qualitative Research, Issue 30 Autumn 2020

Gupta, N. (2020). Illuminating the trauma of the LGBTQ closet: A cinematic-phenomenological study and film about existential rights. Qualitative Research in Psychology.

Gupta, N. (2020). Singing away the social distancing blues: Art therapy in a time of coronavirus. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology; Special issue on COVID-19. Onlinefirst.

Gupta, N, Simms, E., and Dougherty, A. (2019). Eyes on the street: Photovoice, liberation psychotherapy, and the emotional landscapes of urban children. Emotion, Space, and Society, 33.

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.