Sara Tinker, LCSW
Licensed in Tennessee · 26 years in practice
Sara Tinker is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 26 years of experience.
License and registration
- LCSW, Tennessee
- 1046 · expires April 2028
- NPI
- 1578905204 · national provider identifier
- Years in practice
- 26
- Languages
- English
Details are as listed on the therapist's public professional profile. You can check any license with the state board and any NPI with the national registry.
About Sara
Sara Tinker is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 26 years of experience. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, relationship problems, trauma, and struggles with self-esteem. Her approach is warm and direct, aiming to make therapy practical and understandable for busy parents and worried caregivers.
Sara draws on several therapeutic styles to match what each person needs. She uses Attachment-Based ideas to look at how early relationships shape current patterns.
Background and approach
She uses Client-Centered methods to make sessions collaborative and respectful. She also incorporates skills from Dialectical Behavior Therapy to teach emotion regulation and coping tools. Her background includes long experience in community mental health, adolescent programs, and independent practice work in Tennessee.
Over the years she has worked with people facing addiction, grief, chronic illness, and family strains. That experience informs how she helps with communication, boundaries, and day-to-day coping. Sara believes the relationship in therapy matters more than labels.
In sessions she listens, asks clear questions, and helps people try manageable changes between meetings. She emphasizes building on strengths and small steps toward better functioning. Practical concerns are addressed plainly.
She can support parenting stress, sleep problems, intimacy-related issues, and compassion fatigue. People who want a therapist who balances empathy with concrete skills often find her style helpful.
Focus areas and approaches
Everything Sara lists on their public professional profile, in their own terms.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
- Self esteem
- Depression
- Addictions
- LGBT
- Family conflicts
- Grief
- Intimacy-related issues
- Sleeping disorders
- Parenting issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Coping with life changes
- Compassion fatigue
- Abandonment
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Postpartum depression
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Approaches Sara names
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
Naming an approach is not evidence of training in it. This directory copies what each therapist lists and does not check training records.
Online support
How attachment and skills-based work translate to online therapy
Sara often draws on Attachment-Based Therapy to look at how early relationships shape current patterns. This approach helps when recurring trust, intimacy, or abandonment issues interfere with daily life. She also uses Client-Centered Therapy to keep sessions focused on the person's priorities and to ensure conversations feel collaborative and respectful. Finally, Dialectical Behavior Therapy offers concrete skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and improved communication when feelings become overwhelming.Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work together. The therapist will discuss goals, try methods, and adjust based on what helps most. That collaborative process lets people test new ways of relating and coping without committing to one rigid plan.
Online formats - video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging - make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life. Video is useful for deeper conversation and visual cues, phone calls can work when bandwidth is low, live chat is helpful for brief check-ins, and messaging supports ongoing reflection between sessions. These options offer flexibility for appointments during work breaks, while traveling, or when quick support is needed.
We will earn a commission if you sign up through our link, at no cost to you. It does not change what you pay or the order of the listings.
Questions people ask
What kinds of problems does she help with?
Sara works with a wide range of concerns including stress, anxiety, depression, trauma and abuse, relationship and intimacy issues, sleep problems, parenting strain, grief, addiction, and compassion fatigue.
How would you describe her therapy style?
Her style is warm and interactive with a mix of listening and practical skills teaching. She combines attachment-focused thinking, client-centered collaboration, and DBT skills to help people cope day to day.
What training and experience does she have?
Sara has 26 years of clinical experience across community mental health, adolescent programs, and independent practice work, with a long history of helping people through trauma, addiction, chronic illness, and family challenges.
Where is she based and what are her credentials?
She practices in Tennessee and holds the credential LCSW, which stands for Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
Can I work with her if I live outside the United States?
Sessions are offered in English and she does not accept international clients at this time.
What session formats are available?
She offers video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to fit different schedules and needs.
How does payment and cost work?
Cost varies with location and therapist availability; sessions use a subscription model that can be canceled at any time.
How do I begin therapy with her?
Start by selecting the Start Therapy button, complete the short matching questionnaire, and then schedule sessions based on the therapist's availability.
More therapists in Tennessee
See allBetty Burns
LCSW
Compassionate social worker focused on real-life change
- Relationship
- Trauma and abuse
- ADHD
Bradley Clayton
LCSW
Calm, practical support for daily struggles
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Grief
Is this your profile?
Ask us to correct details or take the page down.
Contact us