About Dr.j

Dr. Julie L. Wiernik is a Licensed Clinical Sport and Performance Psychologist and owner of the Texas Center for Sport Psychology. Her practice is centrally located in Castle Hills. She grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida where she played multiple sports during her childhood. During her high school years, she competed on two state championship teams in both volleyball and basketball during her junior year and played 4 years as a varsity softball starter. Her softball talent earned her an athletic scholarship to play NCAA softball at the University of North Florida where she was a four-year starter primarily as a shortstop. During her time at UNF, Dr. Wiernik obtained leadership awards, and scholarships, and was nominated for the prestigious Rhodes Scholar award based on excellence in academics and athletics.  Her love and passion of sports helped inspire her to eventually choose a career as a clinical sport, and performance psychologist.

In college, she went on to earn All-Conference and All-Region honors as a shortstop while becoming an Academic All-American and graduating with Magna Cum Laude honors with a major in physical/health education and psychology. Additionally, Dr. Wiernik played competitive flag football competing as the quarterback at the University of North Florida. In 1996, her team from UNF played in the Nike Flag Football Championships in New Orleans where she earned All-America honors as the best female quarterback in the country. During the latter part of her undergraduate education and athletic career, Dr. Wiernik learned the importance of mental toughness as a softball player and how important the mental game is for truly being a top performer. This epiphany led her to go into sports psychology and inspired her vision to help all athletes and performers reach their potential. She pursued a graduate degree and then achieved her doctorate degree in clinical psychology. Dr. Wiernik trained in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area working with diverse populations in forensic, hospital, university, and outpatient mental health settings. Her experience in the field of mental health is vast and contributes to her specialty which now consists of clinical sport, performance, and health psychology.  Dr. Wiernik works with adolescents, adults, and families. As a sport and performance psychologist, she helps all types of youth and professional athletes and performers execute at their highest level through mental skills training. There are very few sports performance consultants who have training both in clinical psychology and performance enhancement. Dr. Wiernik is also a certified consultant with the Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), the only credentialed worldwide certification program for sport psychology consultants. Also, Dr. Wiernik is a member of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Sport Psychology and Mental Training Registry. This extensive training gives Dr. Wiernik a vast array of tools and expertise that can help athletes and performers with issues relating not to just performance, such as coping with injury, career transitions, family concerns/communication, and athlete/personal identity development.

Dr. Wiernik wants to express that consulting with a sport and performance psychologist simply means an individual is being coached and trained on how to think and cope more effectively with emotions on and off the athletic field/performance setting.  Seeking a sports psychologist means that you will do whatever it takes to improve as an athlete, performer, and person. She works very hard to ensure that the individual feels comfortable and that the experience is non-threatening, rewarding, inspirational, and growth-oriented. Due to her positive psychology model, she approaches individuals with a “coach” mentality that offers the person a tailored regimen for growth. Ultimately, fun and relaxation bring out the best in people in all disciplines and in all areas.

We need to do a better job of normalizing mental health.  There is still a stigma about seeking mental health services. I want to emphasize that all people can grow and improve. Many athletes wished they would have had mental skills training at an earlier age rather than later. Physical and mental skills need to be taught, trained and honed on an ongoing basis for skills to be instinctive and automatic. Please contact Dr. Wiernik for any questions you may have.