Counseling News from the Week of March 27, 2026
Explanation: Although I scan the Internet primarily for counseling articles, in the process I run across quotes and interesting facts that I sometimes include in these first two sections. If you’re just interested in the counseling articles, you can skip these first two sections and go directly to the section called Counseling Articles. HV
Interesting Quotes
“The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom—these are the pillars of society.”
Henrik Ibsen, "The Pillars of Society"
"When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg paraphrased advice from her mother-in-law
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance."
James Madison
“You can shut Him [Christ] up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
C. S. Lewis
"How many times have you noticed that it’s the little quiet moments in the midst of life that seem to give the rest extra-special meaning?"
Fred "Mister" Rogers
“I don’t think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”
John D. Rockefeller
"Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever."
Erich Fromm, from "The Art of Loving"
“God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.”
Daniel Webster
Fascinating Facts
“A.I. is driving one of the strangest changes in the history of computer programming; instead of writing code, software developers are instead spending much of their time talking to chatbots, who are writing and testing the code themselves.”
Quote from the New York Times Magazine
The World’s Happiest and Unhappiest Countries
This survey contacted about 1,000 people in each country in the world. For the ninth straight year, Finland’s citizens won the award as the happiest country. Other Nordic countries also scored high. Teen girls in all countries, including the U.S., who spent a lot of time on social media often scored lower as a group. Afghanistan received the lowest happiness scores. The U.S. was about in the middle range of nations on scores of happiness.
Click here to read the full article
Counseling Articles
Forgiving Others Is Good for You, Study of 200K People Finds — Learn How to Start the Process
In a study across 23 countries that included 200,000 people, researchers found that forgiveness was associated with better psychological and social well-being, including higher optimism, a stronger sense of life purpose, and greater relationship satisfaction. Those who forgave more readily also tended to feel more grateful and more motivated to promote good in the world.
Researchers also discovered that “forgiveness can be cultivated, strengthening people’s capacity to practice forgiveness more consistently (when safe and appropriate) may benefit well-being.”
A friend of mine from 35-years ago, Dr. Everett Worthington, developed a model to help people practice forgiveness called the REACH model. Here is a description of the five steps of the model:
Recall the hurt: Think about what happened and how it felt, then accept that you’ve been wronged, and decide to take steps to forgive anyway.
Empathize with the offender: Understanding where the other person is coming from may help kick-start the healing process. Try conducting an imaginary conversation during which you speak to yourself from the offender’s perspective.
View forgiveness as an Altruistic gift: Reflect on a time when someone generously forgave you for a wrongdoing — then, explore the idea of giving your offender that same gift.
Commit: Once you’ve truly arrived at forgiveness, write down your decision to commit to it, even if it’s as simple as “I chose to forgive ____.”
Hold onto forgiveness: When you’re doubting yourself, read your note to remember your choice to forgive.
A free booklet on the REACH model can be downloaded here: https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum8886/files/2025-04/HFH_REACH%20WB_ALL_Digital_1-Page_Spreads_Final_April_28_2025__0.pdf
Click here to read the full article on why forgiveness is good for you
When Families Fracture
It’s not uncommon for dysfunctional families to fracture, but sometimes what appeared to be relatively healthy families have children who dissociate from their parents, sometimes much to the consternation of their parents. This article talks about some of the reasons children might do this.
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No Pills or Needles, Just Paper: How Deadly Drugs Are Changing
This is from the New York Times, so you won’t be able to read it without a subscription. But here is a summary. “Lab-made drugs soaked into the pages of letters, books and even legal documents are being smuggled behind bars, killing inmates and frustrating investigators.” The article doesn’t cover whether this kind of substance abuse is threat is occurring in the general population yet.
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Where Are the Adults in the Room?
This author discusses the fact that in the last decade as adolescents have faced the changes in their bodies and the anxieties associated with those changes, various societal trends have come and gone. Today a social trend among adolescents is changing one’s gender. She asks where the adults in the room are who would tell adolescents that the anxieties they are experiencing are temporary and will resolve and not make to permanent changes to their body until that resolution has resolved itself. It seems important to educate parents so they do not approve of such trends.
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A Family’s Five-fold Blessing of Down Syndrome
Sometimes a family’s first response when a child is born with Down’s Syndrome is sympathy. But here is a story of a family who has experienced a child who died early in childhood and five children who were born with Down Syndrome. The unique thing is that they have embraced this as an opportunity to develop compassion.
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Stay-at-Home Parents Need Real Support, Not Platitudes
Stay-at-Home parents are usually mothers, but occasionally there are some dads in this group. Some of them work in addition to being full-time stay-at-home parents. This article talks about the stresses these moms and dads face.
[Sorry. I forgot to copy this hypertext link.]
Don't Forget the Fathers: How Pregnancy Centers Champion Family Formation
This article talks about an issue that many of us have not thought about: how pregnancy centers can speak to and support fathers.
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Learning From Section 230: No Immunity for AI
Section 230 was initially implemented to address the issue of whether software would be responsible for the uses their software is put to. One constraint was the First Amendment. However, Generative AI has introduced new challenges that trouble many citizens, particularly women and parents. This article discusses the complexities of trying to address this issue. The two jury trials where the jury decided against Meta and Facebook this week will probably unleash thousands of lawsuits against software companies in the coming months.
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The Pain of Profound Autism
I think we all agree that neurodiversity can be good, and some neurodiverse individuals have exceptional gifts. But there are also neurodiverse individuals who have profound deficits. This article describes examples of several of those individuals and the struggles their families endure.
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Billy Hallowell investigates angels, demons in apologetics-focused doc: ‘The supernatural is all over the Bible’
Many modern-day individuals question the reality of the supernatural, including the reality of angels and demons. This three-part series attempts to interview theologians, medical personnel and other scientific researchers to answer this question.
Click here to read the full article
Rethinking Cannabis Use Among Youth
Some young people use cannabis with some frequency and seem relatively unaffected, whereas other teens do the same but experience significant decrements in their academic and social lives. One reason is that the percentage of THC is pot has increased over the years from 5% to now about 20%, and this may have different effects depending on the healthiness of a specific adolescent’s brain. This article in a psychiatric journal explains more about this. The evidence suggests adolescents (and their parents) should be cautious about adolescents using marijuana.
Click here to read the full article
Barriers to behavioral treatment for ADHD - Parents' Perspectives
Many parents of children with ADHD get medication for their children but not behavioral treatment, even though the research says these two together can be very powerful. This article by David Rabiner summarizes the three barriers to getting behavior therapy in addition to medication. Dr. Rabiner' s summary does hticle does have the hypertext link to the original journal article, but you have to purchase the full article to read it, and Dr. Rabiner’ s summary is quite good and thorough by itself.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that behavior therapy should be the initial treatment for young children with ADHD, and that it should often be used in conjunction with medication for children 6 and older. Along with medication treatment, it is considered to have a strong base of research support. However, recent studies suggest that fewer than half of children diagnosed with ADHD have behavior therapy as part of their treatment plan.
“Why is that? The authors of the studied reviewed below (Taylor, B.J. et al. (2026). Parent perspectives on barriers to behavioral health services for children with ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10870547251412660 ) sought to understand this by conducting focus groups with parents to identify barriers they experienced in obtaining behavioral treatment for their child with ADHD.
“Three primary types of barriers emerged from the focus group discussions: (1) misconceptions and stigma, (2) financial and time constraints, and (3) inconsistent treatment messaging and lack of provider coordination.
“Misconceptions and stigma centered on parents' feelings that ADHD is frequently misunderstood, often leading them to feel stigmatized and judged. One parent described the experience as isolating: “People just think your kid is badly behaved, like you’re not disciplining them right. They don’t see it as a real condition.”
“Parents reported that this discouraged them from seeking help or delayed their willingness to pursue treatment. One participant noted, “If you medicate, people say you’re taking the easy way out. If you don’t, they say you’re neglecting your child’s needs.” Thus, concerns related to stigma interfered with treatment seeking in general, and not just to behavioral treatment.
“Misconceptions and misunderstandings about behavioral therapy was also a barrier, with parents expressing uncertainty about what behavioral therapy involved or whether it would be effective. One parent explained, “I didn’t even know what behavioral therapy really meant at first—was it just someone talking to my kid? I didn’t realize how much it involves parents too.” Clearly, such questions would inhibit many parents seeking out this approach for their child,
“Financial and time-related barriers were also important. Behavioral therapy generally requires regular sessions and parent participation over weeks or months. Parents described the difficulty of balancing therapy appointments with work schedules and other responsibilities. One participant explained, “The sessions were always during work hours. I had to choose between keeping my job and getting my child the help they needed.”
“For many families, these logistical barriers made medication a more accessible and immediate solution. As one parent put it, “The pediatrician could prescribe something right away, but therapy? That could take months to even get started.”
“Cost was also a major obstacle, particularly when insurance coverage was limited or nonexistent. One parent shared, “We were told behavioral therapy was the best option, but then we found out it wasn’t covered. We just couldn’t afford it.” Even when services were available, costs related to transportation, childcare for siblings, and missed work made participation challenging..
“The third theme to emerge involved problems with treatment messaging and coordination among providers. Parents discussed receiving conflicting advice from different professionals, leading to confusion and frustration. “Our doctor said, ‘Let’s start meds,’ but the psychologist said, ‘No, you should try therapy first.’ We didn’t know who to listen to.” This inconsistency could leave parents feeling confused and unsupported.
“Parents also highlighted how limited communication between schools, pediatricians, and therapists often required them to act as the primary coordinators of care. One parent expressed this burden clearly: “I felt like the middleman all the time—telling the teacher what the doctor said, telling the doctor what the therapist said. No one was talking to each other.” This could be a draining experience which made it challenging to engage consistently in behavioral treatment, which takes time and energy.
“The findings have important implications for parents and healthcare professionals.
“When parents are aware that the challenges they experience are experienced by many other parents, it can help mitigate the feeling that "something is wrong with them". Hopefully, it can encourage them to pursue appropriate support to deal with these concerns in productive ways.
“While the structural barriers to obtaining effective behavior treatment for their child, i.e., cost, availability, poor communication between providers, can be daunting, recognizing these challenges can encourage efforts to develop plans for addressing them.” [End of Dr. Rabiner’s summary.]
All Truth Is God’s Truth
What is the relationship between scientific discovery and biblical revelation? This brief article contains some excellent insights. The end includes a pitch for donations to a worthwhile group, but if you just focus on the insights in the first few paragraphs I think you’ll find it worth your time.
Click here to read the full article
Explanation for Why Friday Mailing Is a Day Early This Week
I’m going to be attending the “Institute of Faith and Culture” at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church this Friday and Saturday, so will not be able to post the Friday News tomorrow. So I will be posting it Thursday night.
As a second personal note, I’ll be having some surgery this Tuesday, so you can pray for safe recovery if you wish. Any important news that comes in Friday and during my time in the hospital will, God-willing, be posted in next week’s newsletter.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Henry Virkler