Lacy Nacif Elalaoui, LMSW, is a sport social work consultant and virtual psychotherapist licensed in New York and Texas and physically based in Austin, Texas. She provides online psychotherapy to New York–based clients and partners with athletes, teams, and support systems to center wellbeing, healthy relationships, and sustainable sport cultures.

Lacy has experience throughout mental health, including work in case management, educational and life skills coaching with teens and young adults in foster care, and clinical practice supporting people navigating anxiety, depression, trauma, and life transitions. She has supported athletes in both clinical roles—providing individual therapy—and non-clinical roles—designing workshops, consultations, and psychoeducational spaces focused on the broader systems around sport.

Her roots in sport go back to early childhood. Lacy began gymnastics at age two and started competing by six before transitioning to her varsity high school cheerleading squad. After a career-ending injury, she stepped away from competing but stayed deeply connected to sport as a coach in both gymnastics and cheerleading, as well as through an internship with the University of Alabama Athletic Marketing Department during college.

In graduate school, Lacy earned a certificate from the Alliance of Social Workers in Sports, integrating her clinical training with her lifelong connection to athletics. Since then, she has worked with athletes at multiple stages of their journeys—from high school and collegiate sport to life after competition—offering clinical support in her role as a therapist and non-clinical support through education, workshops, and consultations. She has also worked with performers in acting, styling, and music, helping them navigate the unique pressures of performance-driven environments.

Across all of her roles, Lacy is committed to seeing athletes and performers as whole people—not just as competitors or professionals—and to partnering with organizations to build cultures rooted in psychological safety, relational health, and long-term wellbeing. Her consulting work is intentionally non-clinical, focusing on education, skill-building, and culture change, while her therapy practice remains a separate space where she provides clinical care to New York–based clients through her group practice.

Lacy is a member of the Alliance of Social Workers in Sports.

Lacy is currently completing mentored experience hours toward CMPC certification under the supervision of an AASP-approved mentor.