Sports Psychology Therapists in Portland, OR

You spend countless hours practicing the physical skills necessary to be great at what you do. But do you invest in the mastering the mental side? Common performance struggles include performance anxiety, low confidence, inconsistent performances, and returning from injury. Let's collaborate to help you perform your best and to enjoy what you do.

I enjoy helping clients with Sports issues and feel that my foundation in classical yoga teaching can offer solutions to almost any related problem.

As a practitioner of traditional martial arts for 55 years, I have trained thousands of students reach their potential as athletes, competitors and teachers. It has been my privilege to have produced hundreds of black belts, who live all over the world. I have worked with team sport members and coaches, the women's Olympic ski team, martial artists of other systems, and have produced teachers, coaches and mentors to pass on this approach to the next generations. I have trained with some of the most well known teachers,competitors, musicians and movie actors as well as the average person and families to achieve a higher sense of accomplishment and purpose. I work with students from age 8 to older adults in their 80's or beyond.

Dr. Sari is beyond an expert in sports psychology and recognized as an award winning leader in sport & performance psychology. She works with athletes, coaches, teams and performers from every premiere sport. She works with World Champions, Olympians, elite athletes, and rising stars from nearly every sport imaginable.

Great athletes train their bodies — champions train their minds. Sports psychology unlocks the mental edge that separates talent from greatness. Pressure, fear, and self-doubt can sabotage performance, but mental mastery transforms them into fuel for focus and confidence. Through visualization, emotional control, and belief training, athletes learn to turn setbacks into comebacks and nerves into power. The goal isn’t just to win — it’s to perform with freedom, clarity, and joy. When your mind and heart align with your purpose, your potential becomes unstoppable. Every victory begins in the mind — and greatness follows where belief leads.

Portland has a strong therapy culture deeply intertwined with its progressive values, with high demand for therapists who specialize in LGBTQ+ identity, non-traditional relationship structures, trauma, and social-justice-informed approaches to mental health. The city's visible homelessness crisis and political tensions have contributed to significant community-level anxiety, and therapists here frequently address activist burnout, moral injury, and eco-anxiety alongside more traditional presenting concerns. Oregon Health & Science University provides major institutional mental health resources, complemented by a dense network of independent practitioners across the inner eastside, Hawthorne, and Northwest Portland. Oregon's relatively permissive telehealth laws make it particularly easy to access care from across the state.

Gender ID

	55%	Male
	45%	Female

Session Type

	55%	In Person and Online
	45%	Online Only

Top Treatment Approaches

45%	Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
45%	Gestalt Therapy
45%	Hypnotherapy
36%	Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
36%	Integrative Therapy
36%	Internal Family Systems (IFS)
36%	Psychodynamic Therapy

Ages Served

100%	Adult
82%	Young Adult
64%	Senior
36%	Teen
27%	Children

Client Focus

73%	Men
73%	Women
55%	Black / African American
55%	Christian
55%	Hispanic / Latino

Sports Psychology therapists in Portland, OR

Katie Steinert

Catherine Saunders

Peaceful Warrior Wellness Services, LLC / Dr.Steven Ruiz Bettencourt, Psy.D.,LPC, Cht, EMDR

Dr. Sari Shepphird

Marc Feinberg