Licensed Professional Counselor | Coach | Practice Owner | Survivor of the System
I Built This Because the Field Almost Broke Me Too.
I am Anna Gonzalez-Hardy, LPC — a licensed professional counselor, clinical supervisor, practice owner, and someone who has spent over a decade navigating every corner of behavioral health that most clinicians never see.
I have worked in psychiatric hospitals, substance use programs, criminal justice health homes, women's residential facilities, and insurance companies — reviewing the very criteria they use to decide whether your work gets paid for or clawed back. I have supervised clinical teams, trained interns, built a solo private practice, and expanded it. I have been licensed in two states and held certifications in DBT and clinical supervision. I have sat in many seats this field has to offer.
And across all of it, I watched the same thing happen over and over again — to myself and to the providers around me. We gave everything. And the system took it.
What Nobody Prepares You For
They do not prepare you in graduate school for what it actually feels like to carry the weight of your clients' lives while also managing documentation standards, billing compliance, licensing requirements, supervision hours, continuing education, ethical obligations, and the quiet terror that one complaint or one late note could undo years of good work.
They do not tell you that you will be praised with more responsibility instead of more pay. That you will work well beyond 40 hours a week and be expected to show up fully for your clients, your colleagues, your families, and yourself — or what is left. That the companies and organizations profiting from your work will make you compete with each other for wages that do not reflect what you are actually worth.
They do not tell you that you can do everything right and still feel like you are failing.
I have lupus. I have navigated personal loss, relationship changes, and health challenges — all while maintaining a practice and showing up for clients who needed me. I have experienced things in this field that most clinicians never encounter in an entire career. And I did most of it without adequate support.
That is exactly why YOU-thentic Elevation exists.
What I Know That Most Consultants Do Not
I am not coming to this work from a business background. I am coming from the inside.
I know what it feels like to sit across from a client in crisis after a 10-hour day. I know what it costs to hold space for trauma when you are also carrying your own. I know the difference between a note that is clinically sound and one that is a liability — because I have reviewed thousands of them from both sides of the table.
I know that this field is full of people who chose it because they genuinely care. And I know that caring alone was never designed to be enough — not without the tools, the knowledge, and the boundaries to sustain it.
YOU-thentic Elevation is built on that knowledge — clinical, professional, personal, and systemic. It is coaching designed by someone who has navigated the many layers of this work and refused to let it be the end of the story.
Credentials and Background
Anna holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and a Master of Science in Criminal Justice — along with licensure as both a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, and several professional certifications in clinical practice and supervision.
Her experience spans psychiatric hospital settings, substance use and co-occurring disorders, criminal justice behavioral health, women's residential programming, clinical supervision, solo and group private practice, and insurance utilization management and behavioral health case management.
