Background & Clinical Work
Amanda Sovik-Johnston, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist with over twenty-five years of experience working with youth, families, and high-achieving athletes. She earned her Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate degrees from the University of Virginia, and has built her career at the intersection of clinical excellence and human performance.
In 2014, Amanda founded Active & Connected Family Therapy — now a ten-location group practice across Virginia with a team of deeply committed clinicians working every day to strengthen the mental health of individuals and families. She has served as adjunct faculty at UVA's Clinical and School Psychology Department, co-authored the curriculum for the Young Women Leaders Program, and co-founded Charlottesville Families in Action.
Athletes, And Then Pickleball
Amanda's clinical work has taken her deep into the world of competitive sport. She has worked with Olympians, NCAA record holders, and serious recreational athletes across a range of sports — helping them navigate the mental demands of high-level competition, identity, pressure, and the relational dynamics that inevitably surface when performance is on the line.
What she found, across every level of sport, is that the mental game isn't a luxury — it's the differentiator. And that the athletes who do this work don't just compete better. They live better. That insight is at the core of everything she brings to The Connected Competitor.
For most of her life, Amanda's athletic identity was simple: she was a swimmer. A serious one. She was deeply committed to the process — the early mornings, the incremental gains, the discipline of working toward something that demanded everything — and eventually became a USMS Masters National Champion in the 200 Butterfly.
Then someone handed her a pickleball paddle.
She hasn't been back in the water since.
Pickleball gave her something she didn't expect: a completely new competitive edge to work. A new community. New partners. New pressure moments. And, honestly, a whole new set of mental performance challenges to work through — this time from the inside. She brings to every coaching session not just clinical expertise, but the lived experience of someone who knows exactly what it feels like to second-guess a shot, overthink a third ball, and want desperately to play the way she knows she can.
Philosophy & Approach
At the heart of everything Amanda builds is a simple conviction: human beings perform at their best with connection. Connection to themselves. To the people they compete with. To the reasons they play. When those connections are strong, performance follows. When they break down — under pressure, in conflict, in the noise of competition — everything else breaks down with them.
The Connected Competitor exists because Amanda believes the players who do this work will not only compete better, but enjoy the game more deeply and for longer. That's worth building something for.
She lives and plays in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband and three sons.