Nancy Wallingford, MFT
I am passionate about my work as a psychotherapist, in which I have the honor of accompanying my clients as they journey through the process of self-exploration, discovery, and profound personal growth. As a psychotherapist, I have acquired extensive skills through education, training, and experience over many years. My work is informed by the latest research in the fields of psychotherapy, neuroscience, and mindfulness. In addition, I support and honor the inner wisdom of my clients as a vital aspect of the healing process. I view my clients as collaborators in the therapeutic process.
I have deeply meaningful relationships in my life, which I cherish and nurture. I love spending time in Nature and consider it an indispensable part of my health and well-being. I also maintain daily mindfulness practices, which influence my work as a therapist.
Before becoming a therapist, I was a teacher at the secondary school level. I was both a Spanish teacher and a Choral Music Director. I enjoyed teaching students not only the foreign language itself, but about the beauty and richness of the countries, cultures, and people where the language is spoken. In my choral groups, my students immersed themselves in the universal language of music. They experienced the deep joy of harmonizing and singing together as one body. Deep relationships between students developed, as well as the bonding experience of community.
In my graduate program in Counseling Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, the emphasis was in Depth Psychology. We studied the works of Carl G. Jung, myth, dreams, symbolism and metaphor, and viewed psychotherapy, not through a lens of pathology, but as supporting the unfolding of the soul’s path through life, with all its twists and turns. It is a kind, gentle, non-intrusive approach, where a person’s maladies are seen as human circumstances that challenge and disorient us, but can be passageways into a deeper way of understanding and being in the world.
I have personally worked for decades with Expressive Arts and have great passion for this powerfully-healing and transformative field. I offer clients the opportunity to explore Expressive Arts with me in sessions, if they are interested, as a way to deepen and enrich their experience and understanding of themselves and their lives.
My life has been a rich tapestry of experience. Through exploring both the shadow and the light, I have become a wiser, more whole person. I continue to learn and grow all the time. My own emotional, educational, and spiritual growth have helped me to become an extremely effective therapist and to better understand my clients.
License and Education
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, MFT #51404
MA Counseling Psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Emphasis in Depth Psychology
Master’s Thesis: Expressive Arts: Powerful Medicine for Wholeness and Healing, published 2009.
Professional Affiliations
CAMFT: California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
SV CAMFT: Sacramento Valley Chapter of CAMFT
nwallingford1@gmail.com
Sacramento, CA
(831) 566-7773