Dr. Street Russell, Psy.D., HSPP
Licensed Psychologist | OCD & Anxiety Specialist | Co-Owner
Dr. Street Russell—known to his clients as Dr. Street—is a licensed psychologist and co-owner of River City OCD Clinic in Louisville, Kentucky. He specializes in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety, perfectionism, PTSD, and related concerns.
Dr. Street works with children, adolescents, and adults and primarily uses Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in his work with OCD and anxiety. His approach is collaborative, direct, values-focused, and grounded in the idea that effective therapy should help people participate more fully in their lives, not simply become better at managing symptoms inside the therapy room.
And because therapy involves two actual human beings sitting together, humor tends to find its way into the room too.
The goal isn't to eliminate every uncomfortable thought, feeling, urge, memory, or uncertainty. It's to help clients become less controlled by those experiences so they can make more room for the people, activities, relationships, and directions that matter to them.
Specialized treatment for OCD, anxiety, perfectionism, and PTSD using Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and other evidence-based approaches.
Specialties & Areas of Focus
OCD Treatment
Dr. Street treats OCD across a wide range of themes and presentations, including Contamination OCD, Harm-Related Obsessions, Religious Scrupulosity, relationship OCD, sexual and identity-related obsessions, Just-Right experiences, Sensorimotor and Hyperawareness concerns, Real Event and False Memory themes, and other presentations.
Regardless of the theme, treatment focuses less on proving whether an obsession is true or false and more on changing the cycle of compulsions, avoidance, reassurance seeking, rumination, and attempts to achieve certainty that can keep OCD going.
Anxiety & Perfectionism
Dr. Street also works with individuals experiencing social anxiety, generalized anxiety and chronic worry, panic, perfectionism, excessive self-criticism, indecision, and difficulty tolerating uncertainty.
Treatment often focuses on helping clients recognize when efforts to control anxiety have begun controlling their lives, and developing greater flexibility in responding to difficult thoughts and emotions.
Children, Adolescents & Families
Dr. Street works with children and adolescents experiencing OCD and anxiety and collaborates with parents when family involvement can support treatment.
For younger clients in particular, treatment may include helping parents recognize reassurance and family accommodation patterns while learning how to support courage, independence, and greater tolerance of uncertainty outside the therapy room.
PTSD & Trauma-Related Concerns
Dr. Street provides evidence-based treatment for PTSD and trauma-related concerns, including the use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) when appropriate.
Treatment focuses on helping individuals process the impact of traumatic experiences while reducing patterns of avoidance that may interfere with relationships, daily functioning, and valued areas of life.
What Therapy With Dr. Street Is Like
Direct, Collaborative, and Human
Dr. Street believes clients deserve to understand what they're working on and why.
Therapy is collaborative, but that doesn't mean simply agreeing with everything OCD or anxiety says, or spending session after session analyzing the same question from seventeen different angles.
Clients can expect curiosity, compassion, honesty, humor, and a willingness to identify patterns that may be keeping them stuck.
There may be difficult conversations.
There will probably also be jokes.
Sometimes those things happen in the same five minutes.
Dr. Street Teaches the "Passengers on a Bus" Metaphor - Interview
ERP Without Weaponizing Recovery
ERP creates opportunities to approach thoughts, situations, sensations, and uncertainties that OCD has taught someone to avoid while practicing different responses to the urge to perform compulsions.
But treatment itself can become another place where perfectionism and OCD show up.
Clients can become preoccupied with whether an exposure was difficult enough, whether they responded “correctly,” whether something counted as a compulsion, or whether they're recovering fast enough.
Dr. Street's approach emphasizes learning and flexibility rather than performing ERP perfectly.
Recovery shouldn't require certainty that you're recovering correctly.
ACT: Building a Life Bigger Than OCD
ACT adds another important question to treatment:
What do you want your behavior to stand for when your mind isn't cooperating?
Rather than making symptom reduction the admission price for living, ACT helps clients practice allowing difficult internal experiences to be present while continuing to make choices connected to personal values.
Anxiety may still show up.
OCD may still have an opinion.
Your brain may occasionally submit a 47-page report explaining why everything is so messed up.
It doesn't automatically get the deciding vote.
Dr. Street Discusses OCD Themes & Subtypes - Interview
Professional Background
Dr. Street earned his doctorate (Psy.D.) in Clinical Psychology from Spalding University's School of Professional Psychology in Louisville, Kentucky.
His professional work has included specialized treatment of OCD and anxiety, clinical teaching and supervision, professional consultation, community education, media appearances, and involvement in efforts to improve recognition of and access to evidence-based OCD treatment.
He has served in clinical faculty roles at Spalding University and has contributed to professional publications and educational programs.
Dr. Street is also involved with the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) and the Kentucky Psychological Association (KPA) and provides professional consultation to therapists seeking additional support with OCD assessment, case conceptualization, ERP, ACT, mental compulsions, reassurance seeking, family accommodation, and complex OCD presentations.
Beyond the Therapy Room
Credentials matter...
But they don't tell you whether you can imagine spending an hour every week talking to somebody.
Outside the therapy room, Dr. Street is a father of five, former stand-up comedian (no joke), former singer in a rock band, horror-movie fan, progressive-metal enthusiast, concert-goer, and owner of a steadily expanding collection of concert t-shirts that probably stopped qualifying as a “collection” several purchases ago.
He has volunteered internationally, including service work in Brazil, and has a longstanding interest in teaching, writing, psychology, and community education.
He is also an unapologetic Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Braves fan.
Nobody's perfect...
Dr. Street's own lived experience with OCD has also influenced the way he understands the disorder and the importance of specialized treatment, particularly the difference between intellectually understanding OCD and learning how to respond differently when it actually shows up.
Mostly, he tries to bring the same thing to therapy that he values elsewhere in life:
Humor, curiosity, compassion, authenticity, and a willingness to keep moving even when life gets messy.
Telehealth Across PSYPACT States
In addition to providing in-person treatment in Louisville, Kentucky, Dr. Street holds authorization through PSYPACT to provide telepsychology to eligible clients located in participating states.
PSYPACT can expand access to specialized OCD treatment for individuals who may not have an appropriately trained OCD specialist nearby.
Because participating jurisdictions and telepsychology requirements can change, eligibility is determined based on the client's location and applicable regulations at the time services are provided.
Interested in Working With Dr. Street?
Finding the right therapist isn't about finding someone who can promise that therapy will always feel comfortable, or someone who can finally answer every question OCD asks.
It's about finding someone who understands the problem, knows how to treat it, and can help you practice responding differently while moving toward the life you want to build.
Dr. Street provides specialized OCD and anxiety treatment in Louisville, Kentucky, along with eligible telehealth services through PSYPACT.
If you're not sure whether Dr. Street—or another River City clinician—is the right fit, you don't have to figure that out before contacting us.
We can help with that part.