The Short:

Amanda Allard is an Licensed Professional Counselor — Associate (LPC-A), Registered Art Therapist — Provisional (ATR-P), and Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor (LCDC) in the state of Texas. Her passion for making art and finding beauty in life led her on a path to helping individuals searching for meaning and exploring their identity, those with addictions, families suffering with addiction, codependency, and maladaptive attachments. Amanda creates art, finds ways to be in the Texas sunshine, and researches magic & monsters, and life with her partner and 9-year old daughter.

The Long:

Amanda is “Navy Brat,” born in Virginia Beach, lived all over, but considers her heart’s home to be Gainesville, Florida. She started at the University of Florida as an architecture student and ended up with degrees in History and Criminology & Law. She continued and earned a Master of Art in History of Science at UF. Amanda has been teaching history to all ages since 2007. In 2018, she returned to a first love of creating with her hands and earned the Master of Art Therapy (with an emphasis on Counseling) at Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods College, Indiana.

One of Amanda’s mantras is “survival is insufficient,” a central theme of Emily St. John Mandel’s novel Station Eleven. It reminds her of a core personal value: find beauty; make beauty. Amanda believes that humans need more than survival; it isn’t enough! We need beautiful and vibrant things even when, especially when, the world seems ugly, frightening, and difficult. Amanda wants to walk through this process with others and turn lives from “surviving” to full of awesome beauty, making more, and exploration.