Sara Wallace, MA, LPA
Licensed Psychological Associate | OCD & Anxiety Specialist | Outreach Coordinator
Sara Wallace, MA, LPA is a licensed psychological associate at River City OCD Clinic in Louisville, Kentucky. She specializes in working with adolescents and adults experiencing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety, perfectionism, PTSD, and related concerns. Sara also brings extensive experience in eating disorder treatment and provides consultation and level-of-care assessment for individuals and families seeking guidance about eating disorder concerns.
Sara's approach is collaborative, compassionate, and practical. She believes good therapy should provide genuine support while also helping people recognize and change the patterns that keep them stuck.
That sometimes means learning new skills. Sometimes it means approaching something anxiety has taught you to avoid. And sometimes it means discovering that a thought, emotion, urge, or uncomfortable experience can be present without having to dictate what happens next.
Sara draws from several evidence-based approaches, including Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Family-Based Therapy (FBT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Rather than forcing every client into the same therapeutic mold, she works collaboratively to understand the person, the problem, and what treatment needs to accomplish.
Specialized treatment for OCD, anxiety, perfectionism, PTSD, and related concerns, along with eating disorder consultation and level-of-care assessment, using evidence-based approaches including Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Family-Based Therapy (FBT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Specialties & Areas of Focus
OCD Treatment
Sara works with adolescents and adults experiencing a wide range of OCD themes and presentations, including Contamination OCD, Harm OCD, Moral Scrupulosity, intrusive thoughts, reassurance seeking, avoidance, mental compulsions, and other OCD-related concerns.
Using Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Sara helps clients gradually approach the thoughts, situations, sensations, and uncertainties that OCD has taught them to fear while reducing the compulsive responses that keep the cycle going.
The goal isn't to make every intrusive thought disappear or finally obtain enough certainty to feel safe.
It's learning that uncertainty and discomfort can be present without OCD getting to make every decision.
Anxiety, Panic & Perfectionism
Sara works with clients experiencing panic disorder, anxiety disorders, perfectionism, PTSD, and other anxiety-related concerns.
Anxiety is remarkably good at convincing people that avoidance is protection.
Perfectionism can add another layer:
Do it correctly. Don't make a mistake. Think about it a little longer. Make sure first. Wait until you're ready.
Unfortunately, waiting for complete confidence or certainty can gradually make life smaller.
Sara helps clients develop practical skills for responding differently to difficult thoughts and emotions while building greater willingness to move toward meaningful activities even when discomfort comes along for the ride.
Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs)
Sara also works with body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs), including 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 understand patterns and triggers, increase awareness of mood and sensory fluctuations, develop more useful behavioral responses, and reduce the shame and self-criticism that can become attached to these behaviors.
Eating Disorder Consultation & Level-of-Care Assessment
Sara has extensive experience treating eating disorders across multiple levels of care. At River City OCD Clinic, she uses that background primarily to provide consultation and level-of-care assessment for adolescents and adults experiencing eating disorder symptoms or concerns.
The purpose of this service is to help clients and families better understand what may be happening, clarify diagnostic concerns, evaluate the severity and impact of symptoms, and determine what type of treatment and level of care may be most appropriate.
Eating disorders often require more than individual outpatient psychotherapy. Depending on the nature and severity of symptoms, effective treatment may involve a multidisciplinary team that includes a therapist, medication provider, registered dietitian, primary care physician, or a more intensive eating disorder treatment program.
Following an assessment, Sara can help clients and families understand their options and identify appropriate next steps. For individuals whose needs are appropriate for routine outpatient or maintenance care, ongoing work with Sara may sometimes be an option. When more specialized, multidisciplinary, or intensive treatment is indicated, she can provide recommendations and help guide the referral process.
An assessment with Sara does not automatically mean that ongoing eating disorder treatment will be provided through River City OCD Clinic. The goal is to help determine what care is most appropriate, not to keep someone at an outpatient level of care when their needs would be better served elsewhere.
What Therapy With Sara Wallace Is Like
Supportive Doesn't Have to Mean Comfortable
Sara believes therapy should feel supportive and encouraging, but support doesn't always mean helping someone escape discomfort.
As Sara describes her approach:
"I enjoy collaboration in my work with clients while staying grounded in what actually works. I believe treatment should feel supportive and encouraging while still helping individuals face the patterns that keep them stuck."
That balance is particularly important when treating OCD and anxiety.
A therapist can be compassionate without helping anxiety avoid everything it fears. And treatment can challenge long-standing patterns without becoming cold, rigid, or adversarial.
Sara works to create both: a relationship in which clients feel understood and treatment that still goes somewhere.
Building Skills That Work Outside the Therapy Room
Sara has extensive training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), including completion of an intensive six-month training program through the Linehan Institute.
DBT emphasizes practical skills for navigating difficult emotions, tolerating distress, improving relationships, and responding more intentionally when emotions are intense.
Sara brings that practical orientation into her broader clinical work as well.
Therapy isn't particularly useful if everything makes perfect sense while you're sitting in the therapist's office and then disappears the moment real life happens.
The goal is to develop skills and new patterns of responding that clients can actually carry with them.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Sara also incorporates Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) into her work.
ACT helps clients notice difficult thoughts and emotions without automatically treating them as commands, warnings, or problems that must be eliminated before life can continue.
Rather than asking "How do I get rid of this feeling?", treatment can begin asking "What matters to me, and how do I want to respond while this feeling is here?"
That shift can be especially valuable when anxiety, OCD, perfectionism, or other difficulties have turned emotional control into a full-time job.
Sara Wallace Shares Her Approach to OCD & Anxiety Treatment on TV
Experience Across Levels of Care
Sara has worked across a wide range of mental health treatment settings, including inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient care.
She completed her graduate internship at a residential substance use treatment center in Tennessee and later worked as a primary therapist in a women's DBT program. She also has experience treating substance use disorders.
That background has allowed Sara to work with people experiencing concerns of varying complexity and severity and has shaped her appreciation for matching treatment intensity to clinical need. This experience is particularly valuable in her eating disorder consultation work, where determining the appropriate level of care can be just as important as identifying the symptoms themselves.
She regularly collaborates with other mental health professionals when referrals, coordination, or additional treatment resources are needed.
Professional Background
Sara earned her Master's degree in Clinical Psychology from Western Kentucky University in 2017 after completing her undergraduate education at Murray State University.
Her professional training and experience include:
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Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
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Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
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Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
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Family-Based Therapy (FBT)
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
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Eating disorder assessment and treatment across levels of care
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OCD and anxiety treatment
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Substance use disorder treatment
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Experience across inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient levels of care
Sara has presented research at regional, state, and national levels and regularly attends the Kentucky Psychological Association annual conference for continuing education.
At River City OCD Clinic, Sara also serves as Outreach Coordinator, collaborating with other professionals and organizations to strengthen referral relationships, improve community awareness, and connect people with appropriate treatment resources.
Sara provides clinical services under the supervision of Dr. Street Russell, Psy.D., HSPP.
Beyond the Therapy Room
Sara grew up in Western Kentucky and has also lived in South Florida, where her professional experiences included working with Native American clients.
Outside of therapy, there are several reliable ways to get Sara's attention.
Diet Coke. Ice cream. Broadway musicals.
She has seen Wicked nearly ten times, which at this point is probably less of an interest and more of a longitudinal research project.
Sara is also a mom and can regularly be counted on to talk about her daughter, Penelope.
Whether she's collaborating with another professional, working with a client through something difficult, or making yet another entirely defensible decision to see Wicked, Sara brings warmth, curiosity, humor, and genuine connection to the things that matter to her.
OCD Outreach & Community Education
In addition to her clinical work, Sara serves as River City OCD Clinic's Outreach Coordinator.
She works to build relationships with therapists, physicians, schools, community organizations, and other professionals so that people experiencing OCD and related conditions have a better chance of finding specialized treatment.
Helping people recognize OCD matters because many individuals spend years experiencing symptoms without realizing that what they're dealing with has a name, or that effective treatment exists.
Sara has also appeared on Great Day Live to discuss OCD outreach and community awareness.
Work With Sara Wallace
Sara provides specialized treatment for OCD, anxiety, panic, perfectionism, PTSD, BFRBs, and related concerns through River City OCD Clinic in Louisville, Kentucky. She also provides eating disorder consultation and level-of-care assessment for individuals and families seeking guidance about diagnosis, treatment needs, and appropriate next steps.
She works with adolescents and adults and provides services in person at our Louisville office and via telehealth throughout Kentucky.
If eating disorder symptoms are the primary concern, an initial consultation or assessment can help determine whether routine outpatient care is appropriate or whether treatment would be better provided by a multidisciplinary team or a specialized eating disorder program.
You don't need to determine exactly what diagnosis fits or what level of treatment is needed before reaching out.
That's part of what assessment is for.