Freak accidents changed his life Bayonne psychologist tours Hudson County …

MAKING IT – Dr. Joel Núñez returns to schools in his home town to talk about how he managed to overcome adversity to find success

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Dr. Joel Núñez knows what it is like to think that life is set against him.

A psychologist now, Nunez grew up in Jersey City and had many of the same aspirations that urban kids today have, dreaming that a career in sports might help him get out of poverty.

Then, as with many people, bad things began to happen to him.

“I had a freak accident while I was playing basketball in Lincoln Park,” he said. “I was wearing my father’s wedding ring and I fell. It cut off part of my finger.”

A short time later, his sister – who was serving stateside in the U.S. Marines – was struck by a truck while riding her bicycle and died.

“She was 20,” Núñez recalled. “We had a small family and we took it hard. My mother died a short time later.”

The series of incidents set him adrift.

“I was very angry,” he said, and recalled driving down Montgomery Street in Jersey City and seeing a bus. “The thought came into my head: ‘Why not end it all now?’”

He thought of driving into the bus. “Thankfully I didn’t do it,” he said.

A real success story

Núñez, who is a New Jersey state-licensed clinical psychologist, went on to earn a bachelor’s degree with honors in psychology from Drew University in Madison, and earned a full scholarship to study psychology at Penn State University in University Park, Pa.

As a graduate student, he was awarded the prestigious Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans on the basis of scholarly merit, academic promise, and potential to contribute to public life in America. He interned at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School/UMDNJ in Piscataway and earned his Ph.D. in Psychology in 2003, and worked for a time as a bilingual clinical psychologist at an inpatient psychiatric hospital in Secaucus, earning his license to practice psychology in 2006.

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“We have resources we do not know we have, and once we become aware of them, we can succeed.”– Dr. Joel Núñez
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Currently, Núñez works as a consultant psychologist at a residential facility in Totowa, where he treats adolescents and adults living with developmental disabilities, severe and persistent mental illness, and other life challenges. He also provides clinical supervision for psychologists-in-training at an inpatient psychiatric hospital.

He also maintains a private practice in Jersey City and Bayonne, where he treats individuals, couples, and families facing various challenges in living.

The son of a pastor, Núñez also serves as an elder at the Cityline Church of Jersey City where he teaches and provides professional pastoral counseling.

In his spare time, he has been touring local schools in Hoboken, Jersey City and elsewhere to talk about options that kids have, and how not to let life’s problems get in the way of their achieving success.

Education is the key

Born and raised in Jersey City, he said he is passionate about his home town and the ability of education to make a difference in children’s life.

“My parents were from the Dominican Republic,” he said.

While his father had been educated before coming to the United States, his mother took advantage of the education system after they came here – and instilled in Nunez the same passion.

“I made it,” he said. “But I always had a desire to return to Jersey City and other places like it to talk about how I did. It doesn’t matter what your background experience is. There is a way to become successful. And once you do, it is important to also give back to the community.”

In lectures in schools, he asks students what their aspirations are for the future.

“Many of them tell me they want to go to the NFL or the NBA,” he said. “I don’t want to snatch away their dreams, but they would have a better chance at winning the lottery.”

Part of his advice to the students is to not focus on basketball or baseball to the exclusion of study.

“Everybody has the opportunity to do better, and education is the vehicle,” he said. “I try to help them understand this, and how when they become parents, they should also work to help their kids understand this as well.”

Bringing it back home

Núñez said he started touring local schools back in 1998 after he had begun his own career. He went back to PS 39 in Jersey City where he had attended, and asked school officials if he could speak to the students. He figured he might serve as a model for what can be done.

“I figured I might be able to reach the kids,” he said. “When I grew up on Duncan Avenue I had many of the same dreams they had.”

Currently he speaks to students at all levels of education. In Jersey City, he lectures to students from Kindergarten to 12th. But he also has an agent that books him on the college circuit and he has appeared at colleges and universities in Texas, Nebraska, Minnesota and beyond. In late April, he is scheduled to appear at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, and at Julia A. Barnes Public School No. 12 in Jersey City.

“I’m delivering a message that many kids should be getting from their parents, but in some cases, may not be,” he said. “The message essentially is that they had ultimate responsibility for their own lives. Racism or bad situations can not stop them if they really want to succeed.

“This is my central philosophy, whether it is in my clinical private practice in Bayonne, or in my writing or speaking,” he said. “Regardless of the obstacles – divorce, a failed business, loss of love one, these are external problems that pale to the internal obstacles we create inside ourselves. But once we turn our attention to these internal obstacles, we can develop tools to dismantle them. We have resources we do not know we have, and once we become aware of them, we can succeed.”

He said people tend to get in the way of their own success.

“This is good news as well as bad news,” he said. “Because you understand this, you have the power to get out of your own way. It doesn’t matter what happens externally, whether if is the loss of a finger, a sister or a mother, it is how we interpret these events.”

Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.

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