Counseling News from the Week of July 24, 2026
Special Note: Apparently many writers and researchers are taking summer breaks, so this week’s Friday News is shorter than most. Hope you enjoy what is covered this week.
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
If your peace depends on everything going right, that’s not peace, that’s control. Learning to be steady in uncertainty, that’s real growth.
Author unknown
"There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart."
Jane Austen, from "Emma"
“Things that are holy are revealed only to men who are holy.”
Hippocrates, "The Law"
"There’s no shame in failing. The only shame is not giving things your best shot."
Robin William
Fascinating Facts
How Dangerous is Quicksand?
Although movies have convinced us that quicksand can quickly swallow us alive, that is not true. Quicksand is quite rare, and usually occurs around swampy areas of the world, and if you by accident stumble into a patch of quicksand there are ways to safely extricate yourself, although struggling (the typical common response) could end your life. The 15 second explanation below will describe how to do that safely. There is a longer dramatic video (5 minutes) which gives more detail, but the 15-second explanation will give you all the details you need to be safe.
Click here to read the full article
Should You Rinse Your Dishes Before Putting Them in the Dishwasher?
Although many people think it is good to rinse your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, this article says that while you should scrape off any food particles before putting them in the dishwasher, that actually rinsing them may cause your dishwasher’s sensor to adjust the water and washing cycle and not clean them as well as if you did not rinse them first. Seems counterintuitive, but you can read the article and decide for yourself. If you only run your dishwasher a couple times a week, as many couples do whose children have grown and left the home, you may want to continue rinsing your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.
Click here to read the full article
That is Hot!
It’s so hot in Japan that the weather agency coined a new word— kokushobi, or “cruel heat day.”
Counseling Articles
Family and Nothing Else: Relationships and Purpose for Working-Class Men
This article was done as part of a project called “Nobody to call” which looked at the lives of working-class men. The researchers found that many of these working-class men had no surviving relatives. It was their wives and their children that gave them support and a purpose for living.
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Wine Moms Switched to Weed, But Their Wounds Haven't Changed
Young mothers often experience significant anxiety, sometimes caused by the stress of raising a young child, sometimes also caused by the need to go back to work too soon after the birth of a child, and sometimes by the lack of a supportive husband. In an earlier generation many of these moms used wine to help bring their anxiety down. Now many use marijuana to accomplish something similar. But the young child needs a parent who is tuned into their needs, not partially zoned out. This therapist encourages us all that it’s important to recognize the needs of these young mothers to be held and supported.
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'Can’t Buy Me Love': Materialism and Marriage
Recent studies have shown that both young men and young women are saying that having a lot of money is the most important thing in life. This is causing many young people to delay or even not consider marriage. And having more money has been shown not to improve life but often makes it more complicated.
We have to work with both young men and young women to help them see that relationships, marriage and children, rather than money, are the keys to happiness.
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What Do Men Want in a Wife? Evidence from a Matchmaking App
Keeper.ai is a dating site specifically for men and women who want a committed relationship rather than casual encounters. It is interesting that women complete this questionnaire about five times more frequently than men, which probably says something important about what young men are looking for than young women (it would be interesting to know whether, as males mature, the gender differences continue to be as different). Of those men who do complete this matchmaking app, men's top 10 desired characteristics—based on their own description of what they are looking for in a marriage partner—are quite similar to women’s (see article after this one). Ranked from most frequently to least frequently mentioned, these characteristics are 1) values, 2) relationship dynamic, 3) communication style, 4) sense of humor, 5) intelligence, 6) physical health, 7) lifestyle, 8) ambition, 9) intimacy, and 10) interest.
One difference between men and women is that women included “hygiene” as one of the top 10 criteria, whereas men included “interests” in its place. But for most criteria they were similar.
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What Women on a Matchmaking Site are Looking for in a Husband
As mentioned above, the criteria men and women listed in looking for a long-term relationship were similar. Women also were interested in a man’s ability to provide financially for his family. They are less interested in the man being dark and handsome, but most women would prefer a mate who is at least as tall as she is, or preferably a few inches taller.
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Is porn use grounds for divorce in a Christian marriage?
If you do any marriage counseling, you probably have faced or will face this question. This discussion, from the Christian Post, gives a thoughtful discussion of both sides of this issue.
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The Demographic Dead End: 2026 State of Fertility Report
This comprehensive report tells us some things we already knew, such as the fact that America’s fertility rate is below the replacement rate, as is true for most western nations. What it does add is several recommendations about reforms governments could take to encourage young couples to have more children.
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Young Benjamin Franklin: The Goodness of Nature’s Design
Benjamin Franklin had a complicated relationship with orthodox Christianity. Early in his life he made some statements that rankled traditional Christians, but in later life he appears to have moderated his views. He conducted some famous scientific experiments for his time, and his friendship with George Whitefield apparently softened his views about Christian evangelism. One thing that remained constant throughout his life was that he always believed that the universe was created by a Divine Designer.
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The Dark, Logical Conclusion of Atheism That Elites Won’t Admit
This 10-minute video by Eric Metaxas talks about three authors who advocated atheism—Sigmund Freud, Margaret Mead, and Alfred Kinsey—all of whom have been discredited for various reasons, even though college textbooks today continue to promote these ideas as if they have been validated and present them as currently being accepted. He then goes on to share some of the discoveries that affirm the position that the universe was divinely created.
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Three Research Insights on Resilient Families
We know that all families experience struggles and conflicts. It is important for families to have coping methods that help them be resilient in the face of these struggles and conflicts. This article gives a summary of what research says are the contributing factors to being a resilient family.
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Kids Learn to Bully at Home — A Child Psychologist Explains How Parents Can Model Better Tactics
We know that bullying typically has serious negative effects on children’s ability to maintain friends. But this child psychologist says that parents sometimes model bullying behavior at home, and their children follow their example. See what you think.
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A Unique Simulation Builds Empathy by Allowing People to Experience Dementia Symptoms
When a loved one develops dementia, it is common for family members to become impatient with them for some of the behavior dementia causes them to do. This simulation helps both professionals and family members to experience dementia symptoms themselves, and through that experience build empathy. For those of us who are getting older and finding we can’t remember some things, the anxiety we experience may be a good reminder of how frightening it would be to lose even more of our abilities to function cognitively.
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Ketogenic Diet, in a First Randomized Trial, Correlates with Symptom Improvement in Schizophrenia & Bipolar Disorder with Psychosis
For those who have not read a lot about ketogenic diets, ketogenic diets are high in fat, moderate in protein, and very low in carbohydrates. They are designed to induce a state of ketosis in the body. Ketosis is a metabolic state in which the body burns stored fat for fuel instead of glucose.
While this study was small, it was a randomized trial and found that having schizophrenia and bipolar patients who were experiencing psychotic symptoms on ketogenic diets for four months resulted in reduction in psychotic and other cognitive symptoms. Promising early research!
Click here to read the full article
I hope you have an enjoyable (and not too hot) weekend!
Henry Virkler