Counseling News from the Week of April 3, 2026
Personal Note: To those of you who prayed for my surgery on Tuesday, thank you! It went well; I was released from the hospital on Wednesday and was able to resume my volunteer work at Jupiter Medical Center on Thursday.
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
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
"You can't just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change."
Sam Walton
“Doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.”
Fred Rogers
I always loved running ... it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs."
Jesse Owens
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
Mark Twain
“Love is the most vital and necessary tool we have for our future, for our bettering.”
AJA MONET
"Imagine we didn't know what water is. That's where we stand with dark energy."
Brian Greene
“It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.”
René Descartes
Fascinating Facts
Is that a big-enough Easter Egg?
In case you wanted something unique for your children for Easter, here is a 121-pound Easter egg.
Click here to read the full article
Counseling Articles
Supreme Court rules against Colorado ban on ‘conversion therapy’ for sexually confused kids
There are about 25 states that have rules on the books banning “conversion therapy, which has been defined as any counseling that seeks to help anyone move toward heterosexuality or away from transgenderism. A Christian counselor from Colorado had filed a lawsuit after a male struggling with transgender questions came to her for counseling. She claimed that the Colorado law violated her free speech rights by only allowing her to present one side of the issue. The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for sexual orientation and transgender issues violated the First Amendment. This ruling could mean that laws against conversion therapy regarding sexual issues in the other 24 states that have such laws will be deemed unconstitutional as well.
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Live Interview with Astronauts in Space
This is obviously not a counseling article, but it was pretty incredible yesterday to watch the Artemis II launch, and then to be able to watch an interview with the four astronauts from space.
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Below I’m including several articles discussing the issue of whether our current trend of delaying marriage and having children until one has completed their education and are established in a career is the wisest thing for young adults to do.
Wilcox Is Right: A Warning from a Woman Who Waited Too Long
Many young adults believe that it is important to complete their education before they marry and have children. Brad Wilcox wrote an article that I carried in an earlier newsletter called “Get Married Early.” This woman, in her late thirties, single and childless, now is recognizing that perhaps Wilcox’s advice was correct and she has waited too long.
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Twenty-something Marriage Deserves More Parental Support
It’s not only young adults who believe they should finish their college education before they marry and have children—they sometimes receive the same message from their parents. This article gives some thoughtful ideas about why parents might want to support young adults getting married and having children earlier.
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Does Getting Married Young Work for the Working Class?
This couple started studying young adults from the working class (those without college educations) to see whether early marriage worked for them. They didn’t articulate this in their article, but as I read it, it seems like the most important ingredients in successful early marriages of working-class individuals would be some understanding of the biblical basis for marriage relationships, and that the individuals have developed the personal characteristics that will make them trustworthy partners. It seems like these two qualities are important for successful early marriages, whether one is a working-class couple or a couple still involved in completing their education.
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Marry Young, Live Well: The Benefits of Marrying in Your 20s
Another article on the topic of whether it is wise to marry young. This couple, who married young at a time when it was uncommon to do so, talk about the benefits for college couples of marrying young.
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Stress Doesn’t Cause Cancer: So Why Do We All Think it Does?
Most of us believe that stress causes cancer. But a metanalysis of multiple studies that included nearly one-half million people found that not to be true. The factors most associated with the development of cancer were increased age and smoking.
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What to Consider Before Switching Antidepressants
This article is from the New York Times, so you may not be able to read it without a subscription, so I’ll summarize some of its major points. The first suggestion is that if the medication has been working well for a client before, consider asking one’s prescriber whether trying an increased dose might be worthwhile to try as an experiment.
Another idea is to add a second antidepressant to the one a client is already taking. A third option, rather than adding a second antidepressant, would be to add counseling and see if that would help.
A fourth option might be to add multiple medications, something considered in complex cases.
If none of those options seem appropriate, cross-tapering may be the best option. Cross-tapering usually involves gradually-reducing the original antidepressant while gradually increasing the dosage of a new medication, all under the guidance of someone experienced with those medications.
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How to Add More Disease-Free Years to Your Life
A number of studies have shown the benefits of getting good nutrition, sleeping relatively close to eight hours per night, and getting moderate amounts of physical exercise. The problem is that each of these ingredients requires significant increases to produce meaningful increase in disease-free years. This research used 60,000 individuals, using all three ingredients together, and found that when individuals increased all three, even modestly, it resulted in significant increases in disease-free years.
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Low-Tech Parenting Must Be a Big Tent
This article from Christianity Today talks about the problem of young people whose lives are described as technological poverty, i.e., children whose every free moment is captivated by screens in some form. So how are thoughtful parents going to successfully combat this trend? The author suggests that we become tech fallibilists, i.e. that we realize this is not something that is healthy for our children and that some sort of intervention is necessary, that we be courageous and bold about suggesting possible options to try, but also that we have grace and realize that what seems to be working for our children (or those whom we have tried it on) may not work for all children.
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Every Head Bowed, Every Eye Closed
I believe that Christianity Today may have a policy that allows you to read one article per week for free, and then you have to purchase a subscription if you want to read more. I’ve found that a digital annual subscription is a good investment. So this article, if you want to read it and others this coming year (if you’ve already read the article above, may require a subscription). Briefly the point of the author is that God wants to be approachable, but that we, when approaching Him, need to be mindful of His transcendence and His holiness, and so the way we approach Him in prayer should reflect those attitudes.
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Neuroscience Reveals What You Believe Can Change Your Body
This article may not tell you anything you haven’t heard before sometime in the last ten years, but I think it’s a good reminder of some of the things we can use in therapy to help our clients. I’d encourage all counselors to read it as a reminder of all the things we use in counseling to help our clients change.
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Grace Prevails as Widow Forgives in Tragic Faith Story
In a story that has swept the nation, a grieving widow of a teacher run down by one of his students chose to forgive rather than harbor resentment, and her model continues to impact those involved in the tragic accident.
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Sleep Health and Bipolar Disorder: 7 Steps to a Better Mood
Getting a good night’s sleep is often especially challenging for those with bipolar disorder. Tanya Hvilivitzky is a favorite bipolar disorder blogger who has lived with bipolar herself for many years. She stresses the importance of getting adequate sleep for maintaining mood stability and gives 7 hints for helping oneself get a good night’s sleep.
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The Mystery of Intuition: Where Gut Feelings Really Come From
Most of us have had hunches about something before we could consciously reason out why we felt a certain way. This article shares what psychologists have discovered about where intuition comes from.
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The Secret Hand of God
You’ve probably heard that the book of Esther in the OT is the only book where God’s name is never mentioned. If you remember the story well you need not read this recounting. But if you don’t remember all the details, this reminds us of how God providentially works behind the scenes to protect us, and that we may have been called to our present situation “for such a time as this.”
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Teens who made deepfake porn of classmates were just sentenced. Will it make a difference?
At a school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania two male students made 347 explicit deepfake pictures and videos of 60 girls, most of whom were classmates. They gathered the original images from social media, from pictures taken at parties, and even from Facetime. This has become a growing problem across the U.S. The victims, 90% of whom are female, testified of having panic attacks, no longer trusting males, some of whom they had considered good friends before the incident. The perpetrators were sentenced to two years’ probation and 60 hours of community service each.
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American Medical Association Still Supports Trans Procedures for Minors: Board
A few weeks ago in this newsletter I reported that the AMA, like the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, had recommended that medical procedures for transgender youth be postponed until they are 18. Now the Board of the AMA is saying that announcement was incorrect.
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Can the Keto Diet Cure SMI? It’s Complicated.
Recently HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy asserted that the ketogenic diet could cure SMI (serious mental illnesses) such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. While the ketogenic diet has been used for 100 years for those with epilepsy, Kennedy’s assertions caught many off-guard. Although some individuals with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder have shown some improvement in symptoms on the ketogenic diet, most psychiatrists would be reluctant to say it is a cure. See article for further details.
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The Illusion of Capacity
Some of us have found that when we feel anxious, being busy seems to be helpful. But experts warn that “defensive busyness” is not a true solution, although temporarily it might seem to be so. Read the article for a more nuanced discussion of this issue.
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Additional Verse Added to the song “America the Beautiful” by Recent Protesters
For beautiful, thy immigrant
Who hail from every land
By grace and work and diligence
Like gifts from God’s own hands
America, America by grace, shall that remain
To greet the poor, and reach the shore
With open arms again
Musk's brain implant to return voice to those with impaired speech
We often take the ability to communicate our thoughts and wishes to others for granted, without realizing the many processes that must occur for that to happen. Some of those processes include: the brain needs to produce sensory impulses that communicate our thoughts to the mouth, tongue and voice box. Some people have lost the ability to do this because of AML, stroke, or spinal injury, and thus can no longer communicate their thoughts. Elon Musk’s brain implant, Neuralink, which I described briefly in a previous newsletter, allows brain signals to be sent to the mouth, tongue and voice box, making it possible for the person to speak again in a voice that resembles their own.
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These Playgrounds Aren’t for Kids. They’re for Your Aging Parents
We have typically considered playgrounds as places for young children to enjoy. But there is now a growing movement in a few cities to build playgrounds specially designed for older citizens with low impact equipment and plenty of emphasis on developing new friendships.
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Canada’s New Hate Bill & the Future of Religious Liberty
Dr. Robert Pacienza, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, writes this article about Canada’s new Hate Bill. While we would agree that hate speech is not good, the way this proposed bill is framed, any biblically based doctrine that secular “authorities” would disagree with could be deemed harmful and hateful and be punished. Let’s see where this proposed legislation goes.
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10 Ways to Improve Your Child’s Attention Span
This article gives parents 10 suggestions to help their children with ADHD become more attentive.
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Happy Easter!
Henry Virkler