Member Highlight — Julia Zabasky, LMFT

Shelley Horner, LMFT

I had the pleasure of meeting Shelley Horner on a Saturday afternoon for a coffee. Shelley has been in private practice for twenty two years. I learned that she has coined the term, “I’m Shelley Horner counseling in my corner, my office is on the corner of Mulholland drive and Mulholland highway.

Shelley is professional, dynamic, and compassionate. Her inspiration to help others started at home with her father who was a spiritual counselor and an articulate speaker. She also found herself drawn to the arts and loved acting in plays. According to Shelley, her mother was sometimes sad and Shelley’s many theatrical talents cheered her mother up. In her acting career, she starred in a drive-in movie, appeared in many Japanese commercials and starred as the hairdresser in the play, Steel Magnolias.

In college, Shelley was inspired while taking a psychology class. She felt that she connected more with psychology than acting as she was able to directly express herself and help people. Shelley studied at UC Santa Barbra and doubled majored in School Counseling and as an MFT.

Her first job was as a middle school counselor. Shelley completed her hours. During this time she got married and had a son, who is now 20 and doing a semester abroad, studying in Madrid. Shelley and her husband plan to travel and visit him in Spain.

In her practice, Shelley’s passion is working with teens, children, and supporting parents, as well as working with adults who are depressed. Shelley helps clients with childhood trauma and one of her favorite authors is Bessel Van der Kolk. He wrote The Body Keeps the Score. Shelley is candid in sharing her strengths, which are being nurturing and compassionate; she explained that she traces her clients’ wounds, which helps in repairing past trauma, especially “not being seen,” in other words, “not noticed and given attention” as a child. She stated that she is able to “provide consistency and support and help people who have not been parented well and feel lonely.”

Shelley utilizes Louis Hay’s affirmations in her practice. She explains that this is important for adults who may have dysfunctional patterns and girls with poor body images.

Shelley likes to use Dr. Daniel Seigel “Wheel of Awareness,” which helps with serenity, calmness, and centeredness, and connects to various aspects of life, which may be distracting and upsetting.

An interesting fact . . . Shelley has a Tibetan bell in her office, which she enjoys, and received as a gift from a world traveler who brought it back from Tibet. According to Shelley, her child clients really like and resonate with the yoga sitting position and this is a fun technique. Shelley also uses the bell at the start of each parenting group to practice mindfulness meditation.

The best advice Shelley ever received for her practice was, “make sure you are aware of how you are doing so that you can practice self-care.” She feels that this is important to practice and helps with checking in with herself so that she can be fully present for her clients. She tends to challenge herself and take on a lot of projects. Her self-care includes journaling, mindfulness, deep breathing, Zumba, and reading.

Shelley also does presentations for employees through Employee Assistance Programs and topics include: communication and wellness. Shelley shared that she is able to utilize her acting talents to capture the attention of the audience. She is passionate about presentations on emotional intelligence. Shelley enjoys meeting people at SFV-CAMFT, networking, and learning new things!

If you would like to contact her, call her at 818.345.8022 or take a look at her website, http://www.shelleyhorner.com/.