Counseling News from the Week of May 22, 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
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”
John F. Kennedy
"One man can make a difference and every man should try."
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
"You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute."
Tina Fey
"Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics."
Jane Addams
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
Albert Camus
Fascinating Facts: I omitted the articles from this section in order to comply with Wild Apricot’s word limits.
Counseling Articles
Antidepressants in Pregnancy: What a New Study Found
An earlier study had found a mild association between women taking antidepressants during pregnancy and their offspring developing autism or ADHD, and so the FDA was warning pregnant women not to take antidepressants for fear of increasing the risk that their children would develop ADHD or autism. However, when maternal mental health was taken into consideration, this association disappeared. Therefore it appears that it is safe for women who need them to take antidepressants while pregnant.
Click here to read the full article
Largest U.S. Children's Hospital to Set Up a 'Detransition Clinic' for Trans Youth
The U.S.s largest children’s hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital, which has been providing “gender-affirming care,” has now agreed to provide free detransition care to children and teens who believe they were harmed by the “gender-affirming care” they previously received.
Click here to read the full article
Colorado Supreme Court Orders Hospital to Restart Care for Transgender Minors
The situation is very different in Colorado. Colorado’s Supreme Court, heavily Democratic, ordered Colorado’s Children’s Hospital, which had stopped “gender-affirming care” because of concerns about Trump Administration policies, to restart those programs. Expect this issue to eventually be taken up by Supreme Court.
Click here to read the full article
What Your Brain Looks Like When You Hate Someone
An interesting article about how our brain actually shows up differently on brain scans when we hate someone. Two lovers often overlook each other’s flaws, but when we hate someone, it causes the brain to manufacture reasons to not like them.
Clearly this and many different research articles support the idea that when we think and feel the way God intended for us, our relationships but even our brains function more healthily.
Click here to read the full article
How AI Is Polluting the Publishing Industry
While not a counseling article, this issue could be affecting all of us in the future, including those who write books and those who recommend them to clients. Generative AI is now being used to write complete books, and some of them are nearly indistinguishable from humanly-written ones. And copyright issues are becoming legal ones: if a book is totally written by AI it has no copyright protections. But it a person adds some personal changes to what was written, it may have such protections. For more about AI and publishing see the two articles below.
Click here to read the full article
Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I.
This is from the New York Times, so you may not be able to read it without a subscription. Stephen Rosenbaum, a well-known author, recently “wrote” a book called “The Future of Truth.” He openly admitted he had used OpenAI to compose portions of the book. When reviewed, it appears that OpenAI clearly fabricated several quotations totally out of thin air. Rosenbaum took responsibility for the fabricated quotes, but this raises questions about whether we can trust the accuracy of things asserted in modern books to be true, if even some of our most respected authors writing books about “The Future of Truth” may be duped into believing things they have written when these are clearly fabricated.
Click here to read the full article
By 20 to 1, Americans Want the White House to Safety Test AI
In several surveys, Americans are in support of the government Safety Testing AI model by 20 to 1, and this includes adult Americans across the age span. I think it is clear that we all can ultimately benefit from AI, but safeguards for children, adults and families must be built into those systems.
Click here to read the full article
The Concerns About and Yet the Potential of AI
Although these previous three articles all mentioned concerns we have about AI, AI has many potential benefits, hundreds of which have not even been verbalized at this point. Just two I heard about on Fox News in the last two days (sources not available, but the first was from the 9 to 11 a.m. program on Wednesday, 5/20, and the second was from Brett Baier’s 6-7 p.m. program on Thursday, 5/21).
While many have complained about the employees that AI could displace, it also could create small businesses that would not otherwise exist. For example, most small businesses could not exist without the funding to support several people. Now with AI, a single person with an innovative idea will be able to start a company.
And bee colonies throughout the world are collapsing for unknown reasons. With the use of AI, researchers in Florida were able to decrease this collapse by 70%.
Things I Was Taught Not to Do in Therapy—That I Do
5 Therapists' Stories About Going Against the Grain
These five experienced therapists tell of instances when they’ve done something in therapy that at least one of their psychotherapy teachers told them not to do, and the results of that decision. I think all of these therapists would encourage you to follow most of what you’ve learned about therapy from your teachers, but that there may be occasional times when it may be helpful to do something different.
Click here to read the full article
The Angry Therapist
Transparency as a Therapeutic Tool
This therapist has always been a unique bird—he calls himself “casual” rather than “clinical,” but he has developed a large following because his honesty has always been attractive to many clients. While I don’t think many of us would adopt his counseling methods wholesale, there are probably some things we can learn from him.
Click here to read the full article
“You Have Borderline Personality Disorder”
Sharing a Difficult Diagnosis with a Client
Sometimes it is helpful to a client when we share a diagnosis with them, because it may help them understand what they are going through and perhaps give them a heightened sense of control over what they’re experiencing. But this is not always the case, and sometimes client’s learn of their diagnosis from a billing receipt, even one that was sent by another doctor, as when we’ve referred them for medication. Occasionally, when the client believes the diagnosis is stigmatizing, such as borderline personality disorder, they have be quite angry. Listen to how this therapist worked through this experience successfully with a client who was initially quite upset.
Click here to read the full article
The Currency of Connection: Moving Beyond the Money Fight to Marital Unity
For decades, one of the most common things couples fight about is finances. Despite this fact, few couples talk about how they will bring their finances together before they marry.
This author has some good insights about why fights over finances occur, and what the best solution is. See if you agree with her.
Click here to read the full article
Ready to Parent: Helping Couples Overcome the Fear of Parenthood
This article talks about the fact that many young couples would like to start a family but are convinced by social media and culture to put off having children until later. This article also tells about an online, self-paced course called ParenthoodReady that couple can take to help them decide about when to have children.
Click here to read the full article
Cue the fireworks: America's 250th opens with prayer and a fight
Susan Page’s USA Today article on Sunday’s 250th birthday celebration accurately captures the controversies within American culture today, and is relevant for counselors, even though it wasn’t a counseling article. The speeches reflected the fact that the U.S., the worlds’ longest surviving constitutional democracy, was founded by leaders who were deeply influenced by Christian thinking, and this thinking was engraved in the words of the Declaration of Independence. Even today, 2/3 of Americans identify themselves as Protestant Christians, although a lower percentage are active in their faith.
But there is a vocal minority who are arguing against this characterization and assert that we have always been a secular society. But history is on the side of the group who say our founders were deeply influenced by the Christian faith.
I think from a counseling perspective, when we are counseling we need to recognize that our clients are a diverse group. But I think there is also the collision between the two mindsets—view that the biblical view of morality and the way to interact with people the better one, or the one that believes the secular one is better. Helping our clients think about this issue for their own lives, perhaps through the use of Socratic questions, will be important.
Click here to read the full article
N.Y.U. Students Object to Speaker Who Calls Their Generation Coddled
This is from the New York Times, so you won’t be able to read it without a subscription, so I’ll summarize it briefly. Jonathan Haidt, a now world-famous social psychologist, has been writing for years about how it’s important for college students to be exposed to ideas different than their own, and to learn to be able to evaluate what is good and bad about each idea. He criticizes much of what has occurred in university education as university students being “coddled.”
So even though he is one of the most famous teachers at his university, New York University, some of the students there objected to him being the speaker at their graduation. While America was founded on the idea that freedom of thought and freedom of religion was foundational to a healthy nation, we as counselors need to be aware that there are some of our clients (especially our younger clients) who believe very differently.
Click here to read the full article
Does God still speak through dreams and visions?
This is a question many Christians have had in recent years. We have heard of people from different religions throughout the world who believe Jesus spoke to them. The Bible does talk of God speaking to people through dreams and visions in biblical times, and some interpret the passage which teaches that God does not change as applying to the possibility that He continues to speak through dreams and visions. I think all of us realize that not all dreams are from God. However, I think it is probably unwise to make absolute statements about whether God never speaks to people this way anymore.
Click here to read the full article
What Flavored Vapes Do to Your Body
A few weeks ago I carried an article in this newsletter on the medical dangers of vapes, which initially were touted as healthier than smoking, but now, because people inhale vapes deeply, have been shown to be equally or more harmful than smoking. And now flavored vapes, marketed in colorful packaging, are being widely promoted. But it seems that some of the chemicals in flavored vapes are quite harmful. If you have clients who are attracted to them, you may want to share this information with them.
Click here to read the full article
An Exploratory Study of Functional Outcome in Stimulant Treatment of ADHD in Adults
Clearer title: Does stimulant treatment improve the work performance of adults with ADHD? (I don’t know why journals use the titles they do)
We know that treatment with stimulants for children with ADHD often results in symptomatic improvements, but does not always result in performance improvements, although there is a general correlation between these two. The question is whether treatments with stimulants might have similar results in adults with ADHD. This research found that treatment with stimulants did result in symptomatic improvements in adults, and after a period of time on stimulants did result in performance improvements in work performance for about 2/3 of adults. For about 1/3 of adults there were not significant improvements.
Click here to read the full article
Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson, The First Lady of Pro-Life
This Breakpoint article recounts the inspiring story of Dr. Mildred Jefferson, a courageous black female pioneer in many ways, whose interview convinced Ronald Reagan that abortion indeed ended a human life, and caused him to write a letter to her admitting that he had made a mistake when he signed California’s abortion bill years earlier.
Click here to read the full article
Distinctive Effects of a Second Pregnancy on the Brain and the Mother’s Mental Health
Brain scan research reveals that there are changes in the brain in women who have had no children, and between women’s first pregnancy and their second. As an encouragement, women who have two children have younger-looking brains than those brains of women who have had no children or just one child. It seems that some of these brain changes are related to helping the mother bond with her children once they are born.
Click here to read the full article
h’ve read 1,000 self-help books so you don’t have to. Here’s what really works
This author says she has read 1,000 self-help books and summarizes what she believes really works. Since none of us probably has the time to read 1,000 self-help books, we’ll probably have to depend somewhat on her analysis. This is from the British paper, the Guardian, so I’ll summarize her major points:
- 1. You have more control over your mind than you think.
- 2. Everyone feels fear, and that’s not to be avoided.
- 3. Men are not from Mars and women are not really from Venus (We can learn to understand each other and establish secure connections between each other.)
- 4. It’s the tiny actions repeated consistently that create the most change.
- 5. If you drink alcohol, think about why you do (The author’s life was almost derailed until she learned to handle her drinking.).
- 6. Don’t bully yourself into changing.
- 7. A clean home really does help calm the mind.
- Click here to read the full article
I hope you have a wonderful week!
Henry Virkler