Sara Sutphin, M.Ed., LPP
Licensed Psychological Practitioner | OCD & Anxiety Specialist | Co-Owner
Sara Sutphin, M.Ed., LPP is a licensed psychological practitioner and co-owner of River City OCD Clinic who specializes in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety, body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs), hoarding, perfectionism, and related concerns.
Sara has provided specialized treatment for OCD and related disorders since 2016 and has completed specialized training through the International OCD Foundation. Her approach draws primarily from Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Habit Reversal Training (HRT), and other evidence-based behavioral approaches.
Her style is practical, creative, collaborative, and decidedly human. Humor, music, mindfulness, and genuine connection tend to find their way into the therapy room alongside the harder work of learning to approach discomfort, uncertainty, and urges differently.
Because therapy can involve doing some pretty uncomfortable things on purpose. It doesn't also have to be miserable.
Specialized treatment for OCD, body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs), perfectionism, PTSD, and hoarding disorder using Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Habit Reversal Training, and other evidence-based approaches.
Specialties & Areas of Focus
OCD Treatment
Sara works with individuals experiencing a wide range of OCD symptoms and themes, including Contamination OCD, Harm OCD, Relationship OCD (ROCD), Religious Scrupulosity, Existential OCD, perfectionism and Just Right OCD, reassurance seeking, avoidance, and mental compulsions.
Using Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Sara helps clients gradually approach the situations, thoughts, sensations, and uncertainties that OCD has taught them to fear or avoid while learning to respond without relying on compulsions.
The goal isn't to prove that feared outcomes won't happen or to eliminate uncomfortable thoughts. It's to build the ability to experience uncertainty and discomfort without allowing OCD to make the decisions.
Hoarding Disorder
Hoarding disorder is another particular area of interest for Sara, and she leads River City OCD Clinic's Hoarding Treatment & Support Group in Louisville.
Hoarding treatment often involves much more than deciding what should stay and what should go. Emotional attachment, avoidance, indecision, perfectionism, responsibility, grief, identity, and difficulty tolerating uncertainty can all become part of the process.
Sara approaches this work collaboratively and without shame, helping clients understand the patterns that maintain hoarding difficulties while gradually building skills for making decisions, tolerating distress, and changing behavior.
Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs)
Sara also specializes in body-focused repetitive behaviors such as hair pulling (trichotillomania) and skin picking (excoriation).
Treatment may incorporate Habit Reversal Training (HRT), awareness training, behavioral strategies, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help clients better understand the patterns surrounding their behavior and develop more flexible responses to urges.
Rather than approaching BFRBs through shame or simply telling someone to "stop," treatment focuses on understanding what keeps the behavior going and building practical skills for responding differently.
Anxiety, Perfectionism & Related Concerns
Sara also works with panic disorder, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, perfectionism, PTSD, and other anxiety-related concerns.
Although the specific symptoms may differ, anxiety often creates the same basic bargain:
Avoid this. Control that. Figure this out first. Wait until you feel ready.
Sara helps clients recognize when those strategies have begun shrinking their lives and practice making choices based less on what anxiety demands and more on what actually matters to them.
What Therapy With Sara Sutphin Is Like
Practical, Creative, and Human
Sara believes effective therapy requires more than knowing the right treatment protocol.
It also requires trust, curiosity, flexibility, and a genuine relationship between therapist and client.
That means sessions may include serious conversations, difficult exposures, mindfulness exercises, humor, music references, and occasionally whatever creative strategy helps a concept finally click.
The work is evidence-based.
The humans doing it are still allowed to have personalities.
Sara Sutphin Teaches Local Host About Intrusive Thoughts
ERP Without Making Recovery Another Rulebook
OCD is remarkably good at taking almost anything—including therapy—and turning it into another set of rules.
Did I do the exposure correctly? Was I anxious enough? Did I accidentally reassure myself? Am I accepting uncertainty the right way?
Sara works to prevent treatment itself from becoming another place where clients chase certainty or perfection.
ERP provides opportunities to practice approaching uncertainty and resisting compulsive responses, but recovery isn't about performing therapy perfectly.
It's about becoming increasingly willing and able to live your life even when your mind doesn't provide the certainty, comfort, or confidence you'd prefer.
ACT: Making Room for Discomfort While Moving Toward What Matters
Sara incorporates Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) throughout her work.
ACT focuses less on winning arguments with difficult thoughts and more on changing the relationship we have with them.
Clients learn to notice thoughts and emotions without automatically treating them as instructions, make room for uncomfortable internal experiences, clarify what matters to them, and choose behaviors that move in those directions.
As Sara describes her approach:
"OCD and anxiety recovery is not about eliminating thoughts or feelings, but about changing how individuals respond to them. I help my clients identify their values, incorporate humor into their recovery process, and prioritize genuine connection in therapy to give them the best chance for success."
Sara Sutphin & Sara Wallace Discuss OCD Treatment on TV
Professional Background
Sara earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from Mary Baldwin College in 1994 and her master's degree in counseling psychology from the University of Louisville in 2006.
Her professional experience has included providing treatment to individuals in the prison system and working with individuals who experienced traumatic brain injuries before eventually focusing much of her clinical career on OCD and related disorders.
Sara has provided specialized OCD treatment since 2016 and has received specialized training through the International OCD Foundation.
She is a member of the Kentucky Psychological Association and holds authority to practice via telehealth throughout Kentucky.
Sara is also co-owner of River City OCD Clinic, where she provides individual treatment and helps develop specialized programming for OCD and related conditions.
Beyond the Therapy Room
Sara grew up in Arkansas and Mississippi and studied abroad at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
She loves music—particularly music from the 1980s—and at one point sang at Carnegie Hall with her high school choir.
She's also a huge sports fan, including college basketball and football, NFL football, and Major League Baseball. Her loyalties include University of Louisville sports and the Atlanta Braves.
Sara has two grown children, an impressive collection of plants at home and in her office, and a long-haired tortoiseshell cat named Cotton.
She is also a self-described wannabe storm chaser and meteorologist.
So depending on the day, therapy may include ERP, ACT, an '80s music reference, discussion of the Cards or Braves, and an unsolicited assessment of an approaching weather system.
Sara on Group Therapy for OCD & Anxiety
Sara has spoken with Great Day Live about the role group therapy can play in treatment for OCD and anxiety.
Group therapy can provide opportunities to practice skills, learn from other people facing similar challenges, and discover that difficult thoughts, feelings, and experiences don't have to be navigated entirely alone.
Interested in Working With Sara Sutphin?
Sara provides specialized treatment for OCD, anxiety, BFRBs, hoarding, perfectionism, and related concerns through River City OCD Clinic in Louisville, Kentucky.
She provides in-person therapy at our Louisville office as well as telehealth throughout Kentucky when appropriate.
You don't need to know exactly what diagnosis fits before reaching out.
Part of our job is helping you understand what's happening, what may be keeping it going, and what kind of treatment is most likely to help.