We recently connected with Dr. Noah H. Kersey, Ph.D. and have shared our conversation below.

Dr. Noah H. , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Is there a heartwarming story from your career that you look back on?

Yes, it’s when I discovered God exists and found forgiveness as well as redemption for a tragic mistake following an emotional crisis when my high school sweetheart broke up with me and I went for help at the Florida State University Student Health Center on Campus. However, rather than being assigned to a counselor who might talk me through my feelings and suicidal thoughts, I was seen by an elderly psychiatrist who would only provide me with a handful of mind-altering prescription drug samples – methaqualone (popularly known as quaaludes) – which messed up my not yet fully developed young mind and someone who was already consumed with grief and confusion. It resulted in a horrifying mistake which could have ended up with my sweetheart and her loving father being killed by an unrecognized intruder (me) and my going to the death chamber for murder.

Instead, by the grace of God, they survived….. and I avoided the death penalty.

Dr. Noah H. , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

First, I’m retired and I’m no longer seeing patients.

I did practice for thirty-two [32] years in the areas of (obviously) emergency / crisis mental health services along with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety as well as for individual, couples and family problems.

I began with training at Florida State University as a volunteer at the school’s telephone counseling services for students who were in the same situation I had been in a few years earlier. I then worked in hospitals and eventually for Fulton County Health Department’s Emergency Mental Health Services full-time while attending graduate school in psychology at Georgia State University in Atlanta. I did both at the same time until I graduated and moved on to my doctoral training at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg where I attended an APA-approved psychology program and then completed a full-time pre-doctoral training APA-approved internship program at the Student Health Center at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

I then worked for other psychologists until 1993 when I opened my own private practice using everything I had learned from others.

It was a synergy of ideas that I used to build on to create and make my own practice successful.

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What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

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Personally, I built my reputation by treating everyone as I wanted to be treated – basically living by The Golden Rule.

I taught paients that in order to be healthy you had to be four [4] things. One is to be Mature. Develop self-awareness and take full responsibility for their own actions instead of blaming others for their mistakes or flaws. And, be as Fair as they wanted to be treated.

Two is to be Trustworthy which also entails being trusting of others whenever possible. Say what you mean and mean what you say – be reliable. Three – be Empathetic of others – imagine yourself in other’s situation and what that must feel like. [sociopaths either cannot do this or they have to fake it] and lastly, be Generous with others – help them, give someone a “leg up” when it’s needed – stop being selfish, thinking only of yourself.

Patients loved being taught this because their parents either didn’t think of it or couldn’t do it themselves.

The other thing which built my reputation was an article published in the newspaper titled Noah Rode Out Storm To Thrive. An editor at the local newspaper heard about my life story and because he had adopted his own children wanted to write and publish my story of success which, when I placed it on my beautifully designed [at the time] website, brought people from Boston, Kentucky and as far away as Texas to fly in to see me for counseling because they said they couldn’t trust the advice of a psychologist who had known only a normal or wonderful childhood.

All this made my private practice the success it was but later, when I sold my practice to a protegé, he changed my website to look rather bland without all the color I used to create it.

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Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

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Yes, I can. When a famous screenwriter read the article Noah Rode Out Storm To Thrive, he suggested that I write a screenplay about my life story saying, “You have a story which needs to be told.” But, I had no idea how to write a script not being taught how to do so in school as he had been in California.

So, he suggested paying his protegé thousands of dollars to write it for me because his student had just graduated from Indiana University film school and was headed out west to begin his career. Long story short, I paid him in advance [the only only way he’d do it] and he absolutely butchered my life story and I had to fire him and ended up writing it myself which was the best thing I’ve ever done. I learned how to write it and finished it in a month and had a professional screenwriting friend – by then – edit and format the script for me.

It’s finished now and titled Prisoner of Hope. – “Based on a true story of a young man whose life went tragically wrong after a bad prescription drug-induced altercation”.

I also wrote a more detailed book about it by the same title and it can be found on Amazon.

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Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FR3R18X2?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noah.h.kersey
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/
• Twitter: https://x.com/docnoah7
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gXyzjLC9SQ
• Other: Email Me: DocNoah7@gmail.com