We recently connected with Dr. Noah H. Kersey, Ph.D. and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. Kersey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
I was born in Tampa, Florida on May 17, 1951 to a poor, illiterate and abusive mother who had been abandoned by her illiterate and abusive husband so her mother was the only one present at my birth and she named me after my father and her maiden name as my middle name. Up until the age of eight my mother would take out her anger towards my father, Noah Kersey, on me and used my face and head as a pugilist’s speed bag punching me with her fists until I was knocked out cold and bleeding very badly from my eyes and nose. She did this until my father came for a visit one day and when they got into another fight, my dad kidnapped me and drove me to Georgia from Tampa for almost five month until one night he came home intoxicated and in a fit of anger dragged me out to his beat up old car and left me on the side of a deserted rural country road in the middle of the night where he left me alone sitting on my old beat up green metal suitcase as he drove away into the lonely night. From there a very kind man picked me up and drove me back to Tampa where he happened to be going and dropped me off at my mother’s home where she was shacked up with an old boy friend. When I knocked on her front door she opened it and upon seeing it was me she slammed the door in my face. To make a very long story short, I roamed the streets of Ybor City, an old Cuban neighborhood of Tampa which had been annexed by the city of Tampa many years before. After eating out of garbage cans, sleeping in a dry Dempsey dumpster for five months a social worker from DCFS found me and placed me in an orphanage called The Tampa Children’s Home on Florida Avenue where I grew up before going off to college after high school.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
It’s a very long story.
Nothing about my life has been a smooth road because being beaten up regularly and abandoned made me suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for the rest of my life which resulted in my doing, years later, my doctoral dissertation on the subject and its titled: The Effects of Fear of Bodily Injury and the Locus of Control On the Development of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: An Analogue Study.
I overcame the abuse in my childhood as well as surviving prison and being given the opportunity to finish college to become a doctor of psychology I knew God wanted me to use those experiences to help other people, not only as a clinical psychologist but by telling my underdog coming of age story as a motorcycle riding martial arts champion who grew up in an orphanage and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for the tragic mistake of almost killing my high school, college sweetheart and her heroic, loving father. protecting his family.
Because of my own crisis, I later, in college as a junior I volunteered part-time and trained to be a crisis counselor for Florida State University’s telephone counseling services. I was suppose to give them six months of service in exchange for six months of training but loved it so much I gave them two years of service helping callers when they were depressed and suicidal. I also did this while in graduate school at Georgia State University in Atlanta for the Fulton County Emergency Mental Health Services until 1983 when I left for my doctoral training in Hattiesburg Mississippi at the University of Southern Miss.
Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses.
I was very creative building my practice from the ground up.
I was the first in my profession to use the internet to reach out to more prospective patients with a colorful informative website. After a newspaper article “Noah Rode Out Storm To Thrive” was published in 1998 I placed it on my website which attracted patients from other states who travelled to see me. My practice exploded with new patients who felt my experiences growing up could help them more than a psychologist who grew up in a loving home. I also wrote creative articles about movies and the lessons I learned from watching them like, “The Art of CinemaTherapy: What I Learned From The Movies”, which can still be found online.
Now, I continue being creative with other things such as using what I call “the Pin Ball Machine process” to find investors or film producers for our film project. This process entails my searching for one thing and it leading me to something else to finally something even better thus, the “Pin Ball Machine” process.
I worked with individual adults and families specializing in depression, anxiety, and, of course, PTSD. for 32 years and now I’m retired to work on writing about my “amazing” true life underdog coming of age story to help other young men from making my near tragic mistake.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
It comes from a number of sources but primarily my need for survival when my parents abandoned me. When I was eight or nine years old my father left me on the side of a rural county road in southern Georgia in the middle of the night and soon after when my mother slammed the front door in my face when I tried to return to her home in central Florida. Then there were many other experiences when I was roaming and surviving on the streets of Ybor City, a Cuban neighborhood that had been annexed many years before by the city of Tampa.
As an “orphan” I didn’t have a normal childhood which required me to do everything for myself so, as I grew to young adulthood, I learned self-reliance. I worked hard to obtain the necessities of life which most kids take for granted. This made me realize if I didn’t work hard I would never have what the other kids had and failure frightens me. I very quickly learned to use my fear to achieve success.
It mostly came from reading Superman comic books. He was the only “father-figure” I had for many years and as an adult I looked back and it occurred to me that, if I had not read these comic books, I would’ve never had as many role models to know how to be a confident older yet still young man which was one influence for me becoming a psychologist helping others to overcome the same obstacles. I also found older men in movies and on television who I admired and respected so, I would emulate their behaviors. In psychology, we call this having an “introject” or internalized trait which eventually becomes so much a part of our psyche that it merges with our own sense of self or identity.
While I’m not a “religious” person I’m very spiritual and have a very strong faith in God so He/She has always been everywhere.. here.. there.. with.. for and in me whether on that lonely deserted road in southern Georgia or in prison. I’ve been placed in many dangerous situations and have always survived because I finally accepted in jail that there absolutely is a God.
Since I retired I rode my motorcycle 7,000 miles to Wyoming and back, as well as 16,000 miles through 18 countries in Europe to visit dear friends I made while backpacking 500 miles on El Camino de Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain in 2014. Both were challenging solo experiences but informed me that I could still have adventures after thirty-two years of helping people. Now I just want to help millions of young people by telling my story to keep them from making the same tragic mistake I made over fifty years ago.
I did managed to write a screenplay “Malicious Intent” aka “A Stray Bullet” under my nom de plume “Howard Henderson” my maternal grandmother’s maiden-married name and I will soon begin writing a novel of the same title.
An example of my creativity is I watched DareDevil and wondered who his stuntman was which is how I found the director of our film. His name is Chris Brewster and he has a website so I sent my story to him and he called within five minutes excited to hear from me. He said he would love to direct our film and told me “your life story is incredible and it needs to be told!” I saw his videos and they’re very exciting to watch. Here is his work: https://vimeo.com/469560257 and, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hj65GVg0jU.
Thank you for sharing my story. If anyone else has questions, they can reach me at [email protected]
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.polarsteps.com/NoahKersey/810002-harley-across-europe
- Instagram: n/a
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noah.h.kersey/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/docnoah7/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DocNoah7
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gXyzjLC9SQ
- Yelp: n/a
- Soundcloud: n/a
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/TrekCaminoForDiabetesCure/
Image Credits
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