You've worked hard to get here. But something still feels off.
You have built a life that looks, from the outside, like it is working.
The career, the competence, the ability to handle whatever comes. And yet there is something underneath all of that — a persistent sense of disconnection, or exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix, or a pattern in your relationships you cannot think your way out of — that has been there longer than you want to admit.
You may have tried therapy before. You are not sure it got to the thing that actually needed moving.
That is exactly the work I do.
I'm Dr. Maria Niitepold, a licensed psychologist and EMDRIA-trained trauma and somatic therapist. I work with high-achieving adults — executives, attorneys, physicians, veterans, founders, and people who are everyone else's anchor — who are privately carrying more than anyone around them knows. People who are insight-rich and emotionally defended. People who have read the books, understand their patterns, and are still stuck in them.
My approach is body-based and trauma-focused. I use EMDR, Brainspotting, and the Comprehensive Resource Model — methods that work at the level of the nervous system rather than the thinking mind, because that is where most of what you are carrying actually lives. Talk therapy can build understanding. These modalities build change.
I see clients in person in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and via telehealth across New York and throughout all PsyPact states.
My Own Story
My path to this work started in 2010, when I enlisted in the Marine Corps as an immigrant who felt that I wanted to serve a greater purpose in this country.
I also wanted to test myself, serve something larger than me, and find out what I was actually made of. An injury ended that chapter sooner than I expected. I was left with a question I couldn't let go of: how is the body so strong and so fragile at the same time? And how do those experiences shape the way we move through life and connect with ourselves and other people?
That question followed me through my undergraduate degree in exercise science, and then somewhere unexpected — into the hours I spent after class mopping floors and setting up a local dive bar, headphones in, listening to psychology audiobooks. Two of them stopped me cold: The Body Keeps the Score and The Center Cannot Hold.
I remember standing there with a mop in hand, thinking: this is it.
Not just helping bodies get stronger, not just listening to people talk about their troubles. Understanding how our minds protect us, adapt, and quietly find their way back toward wholeness. That was what I actually wanted to do.
I went back to school. In 2017 I began my graduate training at Antioch University New England, earning both my Master's and PsyD in Clinical Psychology. I trained in community mental health, college counseling, and the Veterans Affairs system — settings that showed me, consistently, how resilient people become when they finally feel genuinely safe.
I carry that into every session.
Who I Work With
The High-Achiever Running on Empty
You have built a career that works. The title, the output, the reputation for being the person who handles things. But underneath the competence there is a flatness you cannot explain: a sense of going through the motions, or a persistent emptiness that success keeps failing to fill. You are not burned out from working too hard. You are exhausted from holding so much together for so long.
The Person Talk Therapy Didn't Quite Reach
You have done the work. You have sat across from good therapists, built real insight, understood your patterns with clarity and precision. And you are still having the same reactions, the same shutdowns, the same moments where the body does something the mind cannot override. You are not resistant to healing. You have simply not yet worked at the level where the pattern actually lives.
The Survivor of Difficult & Narcissistic Relationships
You have spent years in relationships — romantic, familial, or both — that left you doubting your own perception. You know, intellectually, that what happened was not your fault. The knowing has not been enough to make the patterns stop. The hypervigilance, the self-erasure, the way certain interactions still send your nervous system somewhere you cannot easily come back from. Understanding it has not yet healed it.
The Veteran Carrying
It All Alone
You did what was asked of you. You came home. And yet something did not fully come back with you — or something came back that was not there before. Hypervigilance, emotional distance, the feeling of being unreachable even to the people who love you most. You do not need someone to thank you for your service. You need someone who understands what it actually cost.
The LGBTQ+ Adult Seeking Real Understanding
You are not looking for a therapist who is merely affirming. You are looking for one who understands the specific, cumulative weight of navigating a world that was not built with you in mind — the chronic self-monitoring, the family wounds, the trauma that does not always have a single identifiable event but has shaped everything anyway. You want to work with someone who does not need it explained from the beginning.
The Caregiver Who Has
Nothing Left to Give
You have spent so long being the reliable one — the parent, the partner, the colleague everyone leans on, the friend who always picks up — that you have lost track of what you actually need. Asking for help feels uncomfortable at best, intolerable at worst. You are not here because you have fallen apart. You are here because you are tired of being the only one holding everything together, and some part of you knows that is not sustainable.
If you recognize yourself here, that recognition matters. It is usually the first honest thing.
How We Work Together
Starting is simple
The free consultation is not an intake. There are no forms, no pressure, and no commitment. It is a 15-minute conversation where you can ask me anything, get a feel for how I work, and decide whether this feels right. I will be honest with you about whether I think I can help. If I am not the right fit, I will tell you that too.
This is not the kind of therapy where we spend months building a timeline before anything shifts. From the first full session, we work directly with what your nervous system is carrying. Sessions are active, body-focused, and structured around creating real change, not just understanding. You will not sit across from me recounting your history week after week. We go where the work actually needs to happen.
I see clients in person at my Gulf Breeze office and virtually across New York, Florida, and 40+ states through PsyPact. Sessions are 50 minutes. All telehealth sessions use a secure, HIPAA-compliant platform. I work with private pay clients and can provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement if your insurance allows it.
Or reach me at (850) 696-7218 — call or text anytime.
Credentials
Education
Doctor of Clinical Psychology (PsyD) — Antioch University New England, 2023
Master of Clinical Psychology — Antioch University New England, 2020
Bachelor of Science, Exercise Science — Keene State College, 2016
Licensure
Licensed Psychologist — Florida #PY12736 | New York #027962
Authority to Practice Interjurisdictional Telepsychology (APIT) — PsyPact E.Passport #22072
Advanced Training
EMDR — EMDRIA-trained
Brainspotting — Phase 1 and Phase 2
Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)
Clinical Hypnosis
Clinical Experience
Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System — Biloxi, MS & Pensacola, FL
Manchester VA Medical Center — Manchester, NH
Harbor Care Health + Wellness Center — Nashua, NH
Connecticut College Student Counseling Services — New London, CT
Antioch University Psychological Services Center — Keene, NH