Christy Lock LCSW

08/10/2025

I paid $400 dollars a week for my therapy. That is $1,600 a month. I’m flying to Mexico for an all inclusive wellness retreat. Looking back, I would have much preferred to engage in life, than sit on a couch for fifty minutes. If you are a former client of mine, I pray you are having fun, engaging in life, and living the life you want. Please send me a text every few years, to keep me posted. I still pray for all of you.

This retreat costs 1,300 or eight days. What could you have done with the money you are using to talk about your problems? How might you find joy? How could you heal. For me, I am focusing on the basics: healthy eating, meditation, mindfulness, exercise, nature, and being around positive people.

08/13/2023

Does your younger teen have difficulty pausing before responding. Or maybe, they have strained and turbulent relationships with teachers, peers, and family members. We are offering dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills courses for younger teen (12 -14) and teens (15 - 17) starting this September in the West Houston and greater Memorial area. Beginning a new school year with new coping skills could change an entire school year.

Most problematic behaviors are used to cope with stressful life situations or to solve problems. These behaviors may have worked or provided temporary relief for your child, and many times these behaviors are no longer effective. DBT assumes that we are all doing the best we can, and we can do better.

Our DBT in-person courses consist of nine 1.5-hour sessions. Skills help students explore new ways of responding to stress:
• Mindfulness: the practice of living in the present moment without judgement
• Distress tolerance: how to tolerate difficult situations, without change
• Interpersonal effectiveness: how to ask for what you need and to say no while maintaining self-respect
• Emotion regulation: how to change painful emotions
We use a variety of methods to engage and teach these skills in fun and interactive ways. Students can expect skill instruction, application, and experiential learning. Games, group activities, and technology are used to create varying opportunities to integrate skills. Students are expected to apply skills in their environment, with their family, with their friends, and with their teachers. Our goal is to create a non-judgmental environment where students become curious about the skills and want to use them because they find them useful.
Let’s connect if your younger teen could benefit from a skills training course. When people know better, they do better. I would be honored to work with your younger teen.

08/13/2023

Does your teen have difficulty pausing before responding. Or maybe, they have strained and turbulent relationships. We are offering dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills courses for younger teen (12 -14) and teens (15 - 17) starting this September in the West Houston and greater Memorial area. Beginning a new school year with new coping skills could change teens entire school year.

Most problematic behaviors are used to cope with stressful life situations or to solve problems. These behaviors may have worked or provided temporary relief for your students, and many times these behaviors are no longer effective. DBT assumes that we are all doing the best we can, and we can do better.

Our DBT in-person courses consist of nine 1.5-hour sessions. Skills help students explore new ways of responding to stress:

• Mindfulness: the practice of living in the present moment without judgement
• Distress tolerance: how to tolerate difficult situations, without change
• Interpersonal effectiveness: how to ask for what you need and to say no while maintaining self-respect
• Emotion regulation: how to change painful emotions

We use a variety of methods to engage and teach these skills in fun and interactive ways. Students can expect skill instruction, application, and experiential learning. Games, group activities, and technology are used to create varying opportunities to integrate skills. Students are expected to apply skills in their environment, with their family, with their friends, and with their teachers. Our goal is to create a non-judgmental environment where students become curious about the skills and want to use them because they find them useful.

Let’s connect if your teen could benefit from a skills training course. When adolescents know better, they do better. I would be honored to work with your teen.

08/10/2023

08/10/2023

08/10/2023

DBT Daily: Introducing Cay Cay (not a client) and the TIP Skill:

Cay Cay's here to demonstrate the TIP skill, a technique in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) that helps us better manage a crisis.

This skill changes our Temperature and includes Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing, and Paired Muscle Relaxation and can be used to quickly regulate emotions when feeling overwhelmed or distressed or you are at skills break point.

Interestingly, studies have shown that TIP skills can work as effectively as psychotropic medications.

Here's how the first skill in TIP works:
Change your body temperature by either submerging your face in a bowl of cold water or taking a cold shower.
Alternatively, you could use frozen lemons or an ice pack by holding them on your face, neck, and pressure points.
The Dive Theory supports this technique, suggesting that modifying physical sensations can help to change our emotional state.

By changing our physical sensations, we can regulate our emotions and enhance our ability to cope with distressing situations.

DBT skills classes starting this September in West Houston!

Remember, be well and be skillful!