Dr. Niloo Dardashti
Licensed Psychologist, Workplace Consultant, Author, Documentary Producer
Growing up in a Jewish Iranian household prepared Dr. Niloo Dardashti, a first-generation American Iranian woman, to navigate multiple personalities and temperaments. She began her career at roughly the age of 12, questioning the meaning of life and delving into books about Buddhism and Jungian psychology. By 17, she was taking dream interpretation courses at the Jungian Institute in NYC, while her peers were playing soccer in a suburb just outside of Manhattan.
From an early age, Dr. Dardashti was drawn to philosophy, metaphysics, and psychology, exploring various ideas and paths toward enlightenment and balance. While pursuing her bachelor’s degree in psychology at NYU, she engaged in meditation and mindfulness training, yoga retreats, astrology, and Reiki, all alongside her social life. When she graduated, she worked as a media strategist at Doremus, an advertising agency, where she worked for two years before entering a doctoral program at LIU. Concurrently, her training in Eastern modalities complemented her Western psychology education, which included CBT, psychodynamic therapy, DBT, and family therapy. Her dissertation focused on the intersection of spirituality and psychotherapy.
After earning her doctorate, Dr. D studied diverse mental health wellness treatments, including nutrition, herbology, targeted amino acid therapy, biochemistry testing, anti-aging strategies, and the use of various nutraceuticals for mental wellness. She established her practice in NYC, Manhattan Psychology Group, which she co-owns with her partner and subsequently sold the practice in 2024. At MPG, and nationwide, Dr. D has helped hundreds of adults over her almost 20 years in practice – including couples, families, and workplaces, integrating her extensive studies to offer accelerated, solution-oriented approaches. With her depth psychology training and a passion for facilitating change, Dr. D continues to provide focused coaching and awareness-based interventions to help clients achieve their goals in months rather than years.
In 2010, Dr. Dardashti produced a documentary titled Into the Twilight Haze, exploring the pop-culture phenomenon of the Twilight books and films.
Following the film, she authored a coffee table book, Fifty Shades of Women’s Desires, which addresses various relationship issues highlighted in the documentary.
As an educator, Dr. D has conducted workshops for clinicians on holistic mental health principles regarding sleep, anxiety, and mood, which she compiled into an accessible online manual, Holistic Mental Health & Wellness.
Her most distinctive trait is her unfiltered approach to people and situations; she is known for her candidness. Dr. D is driven by a deep-seated desire to empower others to express their truths and help relationships flourish—both at home and in the workplace.
She frequently shares her insights with the media on topics such as relationships, pop-culture issues, work-life balance, stress management, and maintaining harmony in the workplace.
Mission & Vision
My mission is to help individuals thrive, not only personally but also within their relationships—both at home and at work. I aim to strengthen the integrity of these relationships to minimize conflict and empower people to communicate assertively and effectively. I am passionate about helping individuals feel more alive and present with their families, whether at home or in the workplace. Ultimately, I believe the purpose of life is to connect with our true selves and with those around us—our coworkers, communities, and loved ones.
My long-term vision is to highlight the importance of integrating psychology across various settings. For example, having psychologists on staff in corporations can be incredibly beneficial on multiple levels. Workplace psychologists can assist with healthy leadership methods, address individual employee issues, provide empathy training, manage stress through mind-body strategies, and serve as mediation experts for conflicts that arise between “work family” members. The ultimate goal is to enhance workplace flow, enabling teams to persevere and flourish amid daily challenges. I view this as an essential pathway to cultivating an extraordinary company culture.
My passion for nurturing flourishing relationships aligns with my interest in pop culture phenomena and current relationship trends, as well as dispelling misconceptions that create distance between people. While my documentary focused on the Twilight Saga, it revealed a deeper examination of why long-term relationships often lose the sense of aliveness that we yearn for. Regardless of the nature of our relationships or the obstacles we face, we can transcend mediocrity through the passion we bring to our connections and the joy we derive from them. Although psychologists undergo approximately eight years of training, we often struggle to make our expertise known to the public. Many of us are not great at marketing ourselves, yet we have so much to offer beyond psychotherapy, which can undoubtedly be life-changing. My vision includes bringing psychology into the public eye in diverse ways to benefit individuals, couples, communities, and society at large.