Kathleen Niegocki, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Kathleen.Niegocki.CTR@USMMA.EDU

Dr. Kathleen Niegocki is a licensed Counseling Psychologist with more than 15 years of experience. She has devoted her career to providing psychological services to university students and supervising psychotherapists and therapists-in-training. Kathleen enjoys helping young adults better understand, appreciate, and draw upon their emotions, needs, values, and intuition so that they can access greater authenticity, freedom, joy, and ease in their lives and relationships.

Kathleen has worked in the counseling centers at Ball State University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Barnard College. At Barnard, she was the Associate Director, Training Director, and Coordinator of Eating Disorder Treatment at the Furman Counseling Center. 

In the Fall of 2024, Kathleen lived and worked aboard the MV World Odyssey as a mental health counselor on Semester at Sea’s 134th voyage, sailing from Germany to Thailand. In this role, she provided counseling, crisis intervention, consultation, and outreach services to the shipboard community. She also supported voyagers during the pre-departure period, helped students prepare for re-entry, and interviewed voyagers several months after disembarkation about their re-entry experiences.

Kathleen’s clinical interests include anxiety, adjustment, grief and loss, disordered eating, emotional self-awareness, cultural and social identities, relationship issues, depression, college transitions, study abroad, adult children of emotionally immature parents, body image, chronic illness, trauma, sexual assault and coercion, and suicide prevention. She has received advanced training in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) and completed two years of postgraduate training at the Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center.

Kathleen earned her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and M.A. in Counseling and Social Psychology from Ball State University, and her B.A. in Psychology from Earlham College. In addition to her role at the Merchant Marine Academy, she maintains a private psychotherapy practice and provides clinical supervision to therapists.