Dialectical Behavior Therapies Center

04/22/2026

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-of-mind/202604/the-cost-of-being-the-person-everyone-likes

You're warm, agreeable, and easy to be around—yet privately furious, exhausted, and unknown. Here's what it's costing you.

04/21/2026

Planning can feel safe. It gives structure, direction, and a sense of control. But when life becomes all planning and no living, we miss the moments we were trying to organize for in the first place.
Inner balance isn’t choosing one or the other.
It’s planning your life and actually being in it.

What’s the difference?
Have you organized your house for company but then never invited anyone? Have you learned to cook a dish and never shared it? Bought an outfit for a party and never attended?

Planning: Thinking ahead, organizing, preparing
Living: Being present, experiencing, engaging
Planning creates stability.
Living creates meaning.

Too much planning can turn into anxiety, overthinking, and feeling like you’re always “behind.”
Too much living without structure can feel chaotic or disconnected from your goals.

You need direction and presence.

Signs you may be out of balance
You spend more time thinking about life than experiencing it
You feel anxious when things aren’t planned out
You’re always preparing for the next thing instead of enjoying the current one
Or… you avoid planning and feel overwhelmed later

How to build balance
Plan, then pause: Make the plan and then let yourself be in the moment
Schedule presence: Leave space in your day with no agenda
Check in with now: Ask, “Am I here right now, or already in the next thing?”
Let go of perfect timing: Not everything needs to be optimized
J
ournal prompts
Where do I over-plan instead of experience?
When do I feel most present in my life?
What would it look like to trust the moment a little more?

A reminder
You don’t need to have everything figured out to enjoy your life.
The plan matters, but so does the moment you’re in.
That’s inner balance.

04/17/2026

04/17/2026

Parenting is tough. If you're a parent of a 4 to 11 year old, this class is for you. Meeting on Mondays, 8 weeks.

04/17/2026

Sign up for GRIP, my free newsletter exploring what it's like to live, work, and love as an overcontrolled person.
https://karynhallphd.substack.com/p/why-just-relax-doesnt-work?r=8o9ir. See you there!

04/10/2026

04/10/2026

DBT-based parenting class starting soon—parents of kids from 4 to 11. Call 713-973-2800

03/31/2026

DBT Skills Class for Parents
When parents feel supported, kids thrive. Parenting big emotions can feel overwhelming—you don’t have to do it alone.

Join our DBT-informed 8-week parent class to learn practical, compassionate tools to help your child (and yourself!) navigate emotions, build resilience, and strengthen connection.

In this psychoeducational group, you’ll learn:
Emotion regulation skills
Mindfulness practices for everyday life
Tools to reduce meltdowns & power struggles
Ways to build a calmer, more connected home

This is a supportive space to grow, share, and feel understood.

Your investment is $75/session or $540/paid-in-full (includes a discount). This is a psychoeducational group and not covered by insurance.

Meeting type: Virtual
Age group: Parents of kids ages 4 to 11
Dates: Mondays, April 13-June 8 (not incl May 25)
Time: 12noon-1pm
Facilitator: Beth Reese, MEd, LPC (Beth@dbtcenterhouston.com)
To Register: Call 713-973-2800 or email administration@dbtcenterhouston.com (edited)

03/26/2026

The DBT Center o Houston is pleased to announce that Coleen Lim, LCSW has joined our team.

Get to know Coleen

Good therapy meets you where you are and helps you grow from there. I believe you deserve a life that makes room for all of who you are: the parts you’re proud of or comfortable with and the parts you’re still figuring out, or maybe not so comfortable with. In my experience, both hold something worth paying attention to. Our work is helping you find it.
My focus is on helping clients build genuine self-awareness and develop the tools to move through life with intention. Rather than reacting to whatever comes your way, I want to help you respond from a place of clarity, one that reflects your values, your needs, and your sense of who you are. That kind of grounded, purposeful living is what I work toward with every client I see.
Over the past eight years I have worked with children, adolescents, adults, and families in both residential and outpatient settings, supporting people through emotion dysregulation, OCD and anxiety disorders, depression, attachment difficulties, ADHD, and family systems challenges. I use Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) because these are among the most well-researched, effective approaches available, and I believe you deserve care that is built on what actually works.
I am not the kind of therapist who simply nods along. I will be an active partner in your growth, offering honest feedback, practical tools, and consistent support as you do the work.
I see clients in person as well as via telehealth throughout Texas, so wherever you are in the state, we can find a way to work together.
If you are looking for a life that feels more aligned with who you truly are, I would love to be part of that process. Change is possible. It takes honesty, some courage, and the right support. I am here for all of it.

To schedule an appointment with Coleen, call us at 713-973-2800 or email administration@houstondbtcenter.com

03/12/2026

About Grip
You're not too much. You're just holding on too tight.
If you've ever been told you're too rigid, too serious, or too hard on yourself — welcome. You're in the right place.
Grip is a weekly newsletter for high achievers who over-control themselves. The perfectionists. The over-thinkers. The people who can manage a crisis at work but can't let a small mistake go for three days.

AND the people who so worry about their performance that they stay stuck and frozen and can't get going.

Each issue is short and leaves you with one small, practical thing to try. Not a 12-step program. Not a habit overhaul. Just one thing to help you hold life a little more lightly.

Who writes this
I'm Karyn Hall, a psychologist based in Houston, Texas (and on beaches everywhere I can manage it).
I'm one of only three certified RO DBT therapists in the United States. RO DBT, Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a treatment specifically developed for over-controlled people, and it's the framework that runs through everything I write here. I'm also the author of Radically Open DBT for Eating Disorders, and I'm working on other RO DBT based books, so this isn't a sideline interest. I

I also know this territory personally. I'm not writing from a place of having figured it all out. I'm still on the journey, still catching myself gripping too hard, still practicing what I write about. That's part of why I started this.

Working with high-achieving clients over the years, I kept seeing the same thing: people who were exceptionally capable and genuinely exhausted. Not because they weren't trying hard enough, but because they were trying too hard, at everything, all the time.
They didn't need more discipline. They needed permission to ease up.

Every week, Grip lands in your inbox with:

One honest observation: a moment or pattern you'll immediately recognise
The insight behind it, what the psychology actually says, without the watered-down self-help version
One small practice, something real you can try this week

That's it. Short, honest, useful.

Grip is for you if:

You hold yourself to standards you'd never apply to anyone else
You find it hard to delegate, because no one will do it quite right
You replay conversations, decisions, and mistakes long after everyone else has moved on
You're high-functioning on the outside and quietly exhausted on the inside
You've tried to "just relax" and found that advice completely unhelpful

Free to read
Grip is free. Subscribe below and you'll get every issue straight to your inbox.

If it helps, tell someone else who might need it. That's the best way to grow this. Thanks for your help.
— Karyn
Houston, TX + beaches TBD

Psychologist & 1 of 3 certified RO DBT supervisors in the US. Author of Radically Open DBT for Eating Disorders. GRIP is weekly tools for high achievers who hold on too tight, perfectionistic, like me. Houston + beaches. Click to read GRIP on Substack. Launched 4 days ago.