Sara Kenney, PsyD

Dr. Sara Kenney is a native of Grand Forks, ND. She spent her teen years in Benicia, CA. Dr. Kenney attended Minnesota School of Professional Psychology and received a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on children and family. She completed her Predoctoral Internship at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fresno, CA. Upon completing grad school, Dr. Kenney returned to North Dakota and was proud to be a member of the National Health Service Corps. Dr. Kenney worked in Devils Lake for twelve years, where she spent most of those in private practice. She was trained in EMDR for trauma over 15 years ago. In Devils Lake she was actively involved in the community, becoming the Chair of the Lake Region Suicide Prevention Committee and was a member of the Lake Region Sexual Assault Response Team (SART). She was named one of the "40 Under 40" by Prairie Business Magazine in 2014. In 2015, she moved to Bismarck and worked at CHI St. Alexius Medical Center and Sanford Health. Feeling drawn back to the personal touch of private practice, Dr. Kenney reopened Blooming Prairie in the fall of 2024. During her career, Dr. Kenney has practiced in a wide range of settings and had the opportunity to provide services in many areas. She provides individual and group therapy in addition to diagnostic psychological assessments. She has provided consultation and clinical services in public and Tribal schools and Head Start programs. She has also provided assessment and therapy in residential addiction treatment and with adolescent federal inmates. After her own children were born, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders became a passion for her, especially noting how underserved North Dakota was in the early 2000s. She spent over a decade as the North Dakota volunteer for Postpartum Support International. She was also the Upper Midwest Volunteer Coordinator for this organization for many years. She was proud to help start universal screening for all new moms delivering at CHI St. Alexius Health upon moving to Bismarck. Another specialty area for Dr. Kenney has been working with individuals with chronic pain and chronic illness. She has worked in pain clinics and believes in the importance of comprehensive pain management. She finds working with individuals with functional neurological disorder, IBS, migraine, and other common but misunderstood conditions rewarding. She is an advocate for the use of the biopsychosocial model in the understanding and treatment of chronic pain. She enjoys the opportunity to help patients learn to live a more fulfilling and satisfying life, in spite of chronic pain. There is, of course, also hope that together the intensity of the chronic pain will lessen. Dr. Kenney has a personal and professional interest in Hypermobile Spectrum Disorder/Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Hypermobile Type (hEDS). You can follow her professional tips, on "Navigating Hypermobility and hEDS" on Facebook. Dr. Kenney will soon be adding clinical hypnosis as a treatment option for chronic pain. Dr. Kenney also has had a love of horses for most of her life. Her father, always a farm kid at heart, told her that if she went to college in North Dakota, he would buy her a horse. She went to school in MN, but never forgot her wish of owning her own horse. She was able to become involved in the equine-services field upon moving to Bismarck. She was happy to get certified in Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy in 2021. You can find out more about her work in this area with the non-profit organization, Hope Reins at HopeReinsND.com. If interested in Equine Assisted Therapy, you can request an appointment here. Blooming Prairie is happy to partner with Hope Reins to provide this service.