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CSUB served as ‘building blocks’ for retired clinical psychologist

Dr. Janet Barnett Pierucci to be inducted into Alumni Hall of Fame

By California State University, Bakersfield

February 10^th, 2025

Dr. Janet Barnett Pierucci knows firsthand how transformative therapy can be.

She faced many hardships in her early years, including the death of her older brother when she was still a toddler and having to drop out of high school at the end of her sophomore year after becoming pregnant. Pierucci had two daughters by age 18. Just four years later, her youngest died after developing lymphocytic leukemia.

But the retired clinical psychologist and California State University, Bakersfield alumna was able to use those experiences to build a life that she dedicated to helping others heal and grow beyond their traumas.

“After my daughter died, I became significantly depressed. I got into a hole, and I couldn't find my bootstraps to pull myself out of that hole,” she said. “I knew I needed help, but I didn't know where to go and I didn't know what to do.”

Pierucci was able to make an appointment with a psychologist with Kern County Mental Health. Although she was nervous at first, the sessions proved to be very beneficial.

“I didn’t want to be there. I didn't know what to expect, but he was a very kind and gentle kind of guy and was very patient with me,” she said. “After about two years of weekly therapy sessions, I developed an inner emotional strength that I never knew was possible, so it was a good experience for me. It was a difficult journey, to say the least, but that experience was really the foundation of what led me to my career.”

Although Pierucci had to drop out of high school and now had the responsibility of being a parent, she didn’t let that get in the way of continuing her education. She was able to get her high school diploma from the Bakersfield Adult School, after which she enrolled at Bakersfield College (BC) when she was 18.

“I’d never lost my yearning for learning,” she said. “I started taking one class at a time and just progressed very slowly.”

It took over three years, but Pierucci was finally able to earn her associate degree from BC in 1971 before enrolling at what was then still known as California State College, Bakersfield, which had just opened the prior year.

Pierucci earned both her bachelor’s and master’s in psychology at CSUB in 1972 and 1976, respectively. She went on to attend the California School of Professional Psychology in Fresno, where she received a master’s in clinical psychology in 1984 and her Ph.D. in 1990.

Pierucci has devoted her career to promoting positive mental health, much of it spent as a clinical psychologist and as a marriage and family therapist.

“After I became a therapist, I was on a mission to educate people because knowing how I had profited from therapy, I wanted to let other people know that it wasn't something to be ashamed of but something to be grateful for, that through therapy they could learn skills and develop tools to help themselves in a way that was probably not possible if they had not gone to have some professional help,” she said.

In recognition of her perseverance and career achievements, Pierucci has been selected to be inducted into CSUB’s Alumni Hall of Fame this year, along with award-winning author Donna Barba Higuera, Kern County Superior Court Judge Elizabet Rodriguez and Miramar International Real Estate and Investment CEO Dan Shanyfelt.

The inductees will be honored at a ceremony at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel on Feb. 20 in Bakersfield. Tickets for the ceremony are available here.

“At 83 years old, I have more life lived behind me than I had than I have ahead of me, so this becomes a very special gift to be honored in this way, alongside so many other accomplished alumni,” Pierucci said. “I feel especially fortunate to have been given this honor. I'm grateful to all the people in my life who cdontributed to my success as a person and as a therapist.”

Richard Noel, a former CSUB psychology professor who taught Pierucci and became a close friend, nominated her for the award and was excited to hear that she had been selected.

“I think it is obvious that she deserves the award, and I’m very happy that she was able to receive it,” Noel said. “She’s never been somebody who’s reached out to try to get accolades, but I know this award means a lot to her, so I appreciate Cal State giving it to her.”

'A sense of confidence'

Pierucci’s interest in psychology began when she took her first class on the subject at Bakersfield College. She had originally started college thinking she wanted to become a doctor. After taking the class, however, she thought that being a psychologist would be a better fit for her. When the time came for her to transfer to CSUB, Pierucci was on a mission.

“When I got to Cal State Bakersfield, I took every psychology class I could find. I was so enthusiastic and happy to be there,” she said.

Pierucci said she developed great relationships with her professors, including Dr. Steve Suter. His Psychology of Learning class had a major impact on her, as it was in this class that she discovered she had dyslexia.

“I never knew why I transposed numbers, why I couldn’t tell my left hand from my right hand and why I had trouble spelling and doing math,” she said. “But what was so wonderful about that knowledge was that I no longer had to be ashamed that I couldn’t always spell right or do math correctly. I learned that I had a part of my brain that didn't work very well, and so rather than being ashamed, I just explained it to people and they accepted it and moved on. And that was very freeing for me, to learn that about myself.”

Pierucci also took several classes with Noel, who was immediately struck by her focus on her schoolwork and her dedication to becoming a psychologist.

“It was obvious that she was more responsible than most students, and she already knew a lot about what she wanted to do, so she was very focused on getting a degree and getting into psychology,” he said.

By the time Pierucci was preparing to graduate with her bachelor’s degree, she felt she not only had gained a better understanding of herself but was also better able to picture herself as a psychologist.

“One of the most important things is that my professors helped me see their view of me as a clinical psychologist,” she said. “Sometimes it was hard for me to see that myself, but they were affirmative and reassuring and gave me a sense of confidence that I don’t think I could have earned on my own.”

At her graduation, Professor Patsy Sampson encouraged Pierucci to apply for a doctoral program so she could become a clinical psychologist. However, she didn’t feel she was at the right place in her life to move. Her husband at the time, Leo Pierucci, was working in Bakersfield and she still had a young daughter at home.

She opted instead to continue her education at CSUB and pursue her master’s degree, which would meet the requirements for Pierucci to become a marriage and family therapist.

During her graduate program, Pierucci helped Noel gather materials and teach classes while serving as a graduate student assistant in the Psychology Department. She also co-taught psychology classes at Bakersfield College.

“She was just extremely dependable, knowledgeable — well beyond most of the other students,” Noel said. “She was also older than a lot of the students, so it was a good opportunity to find out what she could do.”

Noel said Pierucci not only helped him with his classes but in his personal life as well. He had a deep-seated fear of needles, to the point that even just smelling the alcohol a nurse would rub on him before injection could cause him to faint.

“Janet was involved in systematic desensitization, which is a technique to help get rid of phobias. She worked with me as part of her program to get me so that I could take a shot without fainting,” he said. “I remember going over to the health center on campus, having the nurse over there give me a bunch of shots just to prove that I could do it. Now when I go to the doctor, I feel like a hero because I don’t faint, and it was entirely because of Janet. She didn’t have to do that, but it fit in very nicely with her training and she did a wonderful job.”

Pierucci was also a major resource for her fellow students. One of the friendships she developed during her time in the master’s program was with Bobbie George, who was pursuing a counseling degree and had some of the same classes as Pierucci.

“Janet is so bright and so articulate, and she impressed me from the very beginning,” she said. “If you had a question about something, she would know an author that had written about that and had a book to recommend. She was a very good resource for us in a lot of areas, and she always had an opinion. It was always interesting to hear what she had to say about things. She just is a dynamo.”

A commitment to learning

After graduating with her master’s in 1976, Pierucci continued to work at CSUB for four years as a program coordinator for Extended Studies, designing a variety of courses and seminars for medical professionals and community members. She also co-taught seminars and classes on death and grief.

Pierucci opened her own private practice in 1981 —Westchester Counseling Center — as a marriage and family therapist. While it was an exciting moment for her, she quickly came to the realization that she needed to further her education if she wanted to continue in the profession.

Pierucci pursued a master’s and Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology in Fresno while continuing to work part-time as a therapist. She committed to classes in Fresno two to three days a week.

“Some of my classes didn’t end until 10 at night, so thank goodness for Buck Owens and Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard and the whole Bakersfield Sound on the radio that kept me awake on my drive home,” she said.

Pierucci finished her education at the school in 1990 after eight years. She started a private practice in Bakersfield as a clinical psychologist two years later after obtaining her license. One of the main focuses of her practice was on bereavement counseling and working with people who were experiencing chronic illnesses.

Pierucci didn’t just stop there. She continued to educate herself and went on to become a registered hypnotherapist and a diplomate member of the International Academy of Behavioral Medicine Counseling and Psychotherapy.

“I realized that I continued to need more training to specialize in areas that I wanted to practice in, so I took a lot of behavioral medicine classes focusing on ways to help people learn self-soothing, how to manage anxiety and calm themselves,” she said. “You can't address trauma if you're so hyper-anxious that you can't pay attention, and so that was great for me to further my knowledge, because I dealt with a lot of patients who had suffered trauma.”

Given Pierucci’s own personal history, Noel said she was well-positioned to help patients come to terms with the deaths of loved ones.

“Her goal is to help people and she knows what she's doing,” he said. “Having gone through it herself, she developed some experience as to how people could deal better with death and dying and communication in general, and she did it admirably well during her career. She has no problem rising to the challenge and doing what she has to to succeed.”

George said Pierucci has a strong empathy for people who are grieving, which enabled her to know the best ways to help them cope.

“She has a reputation that is well-deserved for working with people that are suffering in this way. The people that I know that she has helped have really, really appreciated her,” she said. “I very much admire what she has done in that area. Her practice has been a wonderful addition to the world of counseling in Bakersfield.”

Janet and Leo Pierucci and their daughter Lori.

New beginnings

After spending over 25 years as a clinical psychologist, Pierucci’s life took a turn when her husband Leo died in 2006 at the age of 86. She was in her 60s when her husband died and wasn’t sure how to move forward.

“After he died, it was like, ‘oh, my gosh, what am I going to do now? I have to kind of figure out how to start over,’” she said. “So it took me about a year for me to get my bearings, to get my feet under myself.”

Pierucci decided to move to Santa Barbara, a place she had always wanted to live. She was hired at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a psychologist in the Counseling Center. She stayed in the role for a few years, concurrently having a private practice at Santa Barbara Behavioral Health.

During her time in Santa Barbara, she found love again and married her now-husband, Adrian Adams.

“He loved me at a very late age in my life and still does, thank goodness, and has become my best friend,” she said.

The couple lived in San Luis Obispo, where Pierucci served as president of the Central Coast Psychological Association. They moved to The Sea Ranch in 2015, a small community three hours north of San Francisco, where they currently live.

“I thought, ‘you know, it's time to turn over a new leaf,’” she said. “We love it there. There's some wonderful people and it’s a great place to live.”

Pierucci now spends her time volunteering in her community and serving on local committees. While she is no longer a practicing psychologist, Pierucci is grateful for the career she has had and the support she received that helped her achieve her goals.

“My late husband Leo was a real champion for me. He supported me in the quest of my becoming a psychologist, and I am forever grateful to him for that,” she said. “Also my daughter, who I tried not to miss too much of what was going on in her life. There were times she wished I was home and not at school. I'm very grateful for her patience over the years.”

Pierucci established the Leo J. Pierucci Endowment Scholarship Fund at CSUB in honor of her husband, which has helped many students reach graduation.

“It's a wonderful thing, so generous,” George said. “I think they wanted to see students succeed who have come from backgrounds where they were not set up well to make the transition to (college).”

The scholarship wasn’t the only way Pierucci stayed connected with her alma mater. She remained active at CSUB after her graduation, giving back by joining the Alumni Association and at one point serving as its president. She is now a life member of the association.

While living in Bakersfield, Pierucci would also often support the university by attending campus events, whether it was a basketball game, a play or an alumni event.

“The faculty and the experiences I had at Cal State Bakersfield really were the building blocks of my adult life,” she said. “The professors helped me grow as a person, as a scholar in ways that I really never imagined I could. I’m very grateful for CSUB because it’s where I found myself and my career.”