Counseling News from the Week of September 25, 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.

Interesting Quotes

"You should be unique, you should be confident, and that's how people remember who you are. You have to be willing to share who you are and your story."

Vanessa Williams

So often in life, things that you consider to be an impediment turn out to be great good fortune.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

"If wrinkles must be written on our brow, let them not be written on our heart. The spirit should not grow old."

James Garfield

“He who doesn’t know how to be a servant should never be allowed to be a master.”

Anton Chekhov

I recently heard someone say, “When I wake up I earnestly pray that God gets in my head before I do.” And honestly, that’s the best thing I’ve heard.

Anonymous

"A good song takes on more meaning as the years pass by."

Bruce Springsteen

 “I would rather discover a single fact, even a small one, than debate the great issues at length without discovering anything at all.”

Galileo Galilei

Fascinating Facts

Are Dinosaurs in the Bible?

While not a counseling-related topic, we do see evidence for the existence of dinosaurs in the geological data, so some Christians, especially young Christians, have wondered how dinosaurs fit into the chronology of the Bible. This article, written by the staff at Reasons to Believe¸ provide some plausible answers that are compatible both science and the biblical data. Even if you’re not interested in the topic yourself, you may want to save this article for children or clients who might ask you about it in the future.

Click here to read the full article

Counseling Articles

Responding to Doomsday Predictions that AI models could destroy all humans in 10 years

AI and data centers have become a major political issue for the midterms, and there is evidence that Communist Chinese chatbots are sending billions of emails to Americans with misinformation that is causing people to turn against data centers and AI.

Some American politicians do not want to rein in the development of AI for fear that Communist China could take the lead in developing this technology. (Other politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, want to totally stop the development of AI.) The issue of the potential dangers of the newest versions of AI (something called “recursive AI,” which can continue improving itself) has raised enough concern that the leaders of Anthropic, OpenAI and Google are meeting to discuss AI safety. And congressional leaders are trying to develop legislation that would allow AI companies to develop their products but still provide some safety guardrails.

I would encourage everyone to watch Life, Liberty and Lavin programs from this past Saturday and Sunday evening. On Saturday evening Mark discussed approximately 10 of the doomsday scenarios that have developed in the last 50 years, including Rachel Carson’s warnings in her book Silent Spring¸the dangers of DDT (ignoring the fact that it has saved millions of lives by virtually eradicating malaria from many parts of the globe), global cooling (where we would all be killed by an upcoming Ice Age), then global warning, and many others, none of which have come to pass.

On Sunday night Lavin covered the many advances AI has already made and probably will make in the coming years. AI has already produced some medical breakthroughs, and research is being done by AI on many diseases thought to be incurable, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinsonism. AI can often produce simulations that test out new treatments much faster and less expensively than could be done in the field. And AI can develop treatments for rare diseases that would be financially impossible for profit-driven companies to develop. It is predicted that AI will be able to create treatments to prevent or treat all cancers in the next five years!

The second half of Sunday’s program discusses actions Congress can take so that they do not stifle the growth of AI but at the same time provide safeguards. Probably having the companies themselves and Congress pass well-designed legislation that would allow AI companies to develop new programs and at the same time have safeguards (the proposal to place new programs in “sandboxes” and have all companies test them for safety is probably a more trustworthy solution than depending on Communist China honor any promises they make.)

If you have Christian clients worried about this issue, you can remind them that God watches over this world and is sovereign over everything He allows to happen. If you have secular clients, the information in Lavin’s Saturday and Sunday evening programs should provide a good antidote for their anxiety.

Broken families on every street traced back to road paved with licentious liberty

An article describing how the decline in moral standards is degrading every citizen’s (both adult and children’s) lives.

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A Teen Autopsy Marks the Arrival of a Deadly Drug in San Francisco

This article is primarily for substance abuse counselors but could be of interest to all counselors. It is from the New York Times, so you won’t be able to read it without a subscription, so here’s a summary. A new drug, cyclorphine, has now entered the market. It is more powerful than fentanyl. People who become addicted to fentanyl eventually want something stronger, so they may turn to drugs laced with cyclorphine.

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3 Ways to Let Your Teen Be Imperfect

Parents don’t typically say that they want their teens to be perfect, but teens often believe their parents expect them to be so. Mark Gregston gives some good advice about how parents can persuade their teens that they accept themselves and their children as imperfect human beings.

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New Study Challenges Claim That Laws Restricting Transgender Medicine Increase Teen Suicide

For many years parents who had reservations about letting their children have gender change treatment were told they had a choice between a dead daughter and a transgender male. Most parents, understandably, chose to allow their child to undergo “gender-affirming care.” But a new group decided to investigate the research done by the Trevor Group, who had concluded that withholding “gender-affirming care” from children and teens would result in increased suicides. Their research showed that the Trevor groups’ research was questionable, and when new research studies were done based on more solid statistics, the earlier conclusions that withholding such treatments would result in increased suicides were not justified.

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Brain is two separate organs, scientists find

This is from the Telegraph, a British newspaper, which you can’t read without a subscription, so I’ll summarize its major points. The first part of the article accepts evolutionary theory as true, (despite the recent studies which question the validity of Darwin’s theory), saying that the hindbrain (versus the midbrain and forebrain) developed separately during evolution and then began to function together flawlessly. The hindbrain governs our physical body and functioning, and the midbrain and forebrain allow for higher mental processes. For medical research purposes, the article proposes that medical research has been limited by not recognizing the difference between the two brains. This may be the primary benefit of the article—realizing that medical treatments that work on the hindbrain may not work on the midbrain and forebrain.

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SCOTUS Strikes Down Blue State Law with 8-1 Ruling

The Supreme Court just made a major ruling that should encourage Christian counselors. In an 8-1 decision it concluded that Colorado’s law against “conversion therapy” was not only unconstitutional (because it violated free-speech provisions of the Constitution). The Court also directed lower courts to carefully review laws that tried to restrict free speech in order to protect “politically correct” views that may contradict religious teaching.

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Single Mothers Are Getting Older

Single motherhood has been slowly decreasing over time, but an interesting statistic emerged in the last couple of years. Single motherhood for women aged 35 and above surpassed the number of single mothers aged 15 to 19. The article discusses this but does not try to hypothesize the reason for this shift.

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Tribalism Will Triumph: The Politics of Fertility

You might have wondered, based on this title, what this article was about. It discussed the fact that secular and liberal societies tend to have fewer children, whereas more “tribal” societies (societies that emphasize loyalty of one’s family) tend to have larger families. There is a middle path, which it calls “enlightened tribalism” where people with at least moderate education are also encouraging children, although not as many children as in traditional tribal communities.

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Fathers Are Not Mothers—They Are Unique and Irreplaceable

This follows up on some of the ideas in an article in last week’s Friday News about the psychologist who is devoting her life to studying the importance of fathers and the impact fatherhood has on men. This author says some things that complement this previous researcher’s studies. Research has shown that men are spending more hours per week with their children, and that involved fathers contribute to the well-being of both their sons and daughters. And men are not simply second mothers; they provide a unique and irreplaceable role in their children’s lives.

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Older Americans Need AI Safeguards, Too

Unfortunately, we’ve all heard horror stories about senior citizens who have been scammed out of thousands of dollars by persons saying their child has been kidnapped or in an accident and needs immediate financial assistance, or by persons selling medical products that are worthless. Because seniors may be lonely and more trusting, they can be easy prey.

Fortunately there are now some companies that have developed ethical and helpful products for seniors, such as programs that call seniors each day and check in with them or provide other services. See article for details.

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The First Forge of the Self

This article talks about the fact that the family is often the place where we learn truths (or untruths) about ourselves. (Sometimes other people, e.g., a demanding coach, may also play a role, a role that some people may not appreciate fully until years later.) But the healthiest family is one that nurtures the child’s ability to develop an expanding view of themselves that incorporates their personal interests and preferences.

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Canada’s MAID Nightmare Gets Even Worse

Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program (MAID) is getting international attention when an 83-year-old Ontario woman, who refused MAID because she said it conflicted with her religious beliefs, was euthanized against her expressed wishes. The woman was in poor health and was in a care home, but she was fully cognitively competent and was not suicidal.

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Hospitals Shutter Youth Gender Clinics in Deal with Trump Administration

This is from the New York Times, so I’ll summarize its major points. Six of the remaining major hospitals providing gender transition services have agreed to end their programs, pay fees for their reported violations of billing practices and consumer fraud. And some have agreed to pay for “detransition treatment” to children and teens who wish to detransition. The Trump administration has asserted that the potential harms of gender transition for young people outweigh any benefits and that hospitals have overbilled for transition treatments to make a profit. Some other hospitals voluntarily ended their programs even before this agreement was reached. Apparently each hospital decided that the likelihood of costly and years-long litigation was not worth the benefit of keeping their programs going.

Some transgender groups have protested the closing of these services and have criticized the hospitals for capitulating to political pressure. Those taking the opposite position argue that the medical and psychological downsides of having children and teens transition to the opposite gender outweigh the possible benefits. Obviously counselors who work with children and teens will want to weigh the arguments on both sides of this issue and pray for God’s wisdom in this matter.

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 7 squatters took his mom's house. Here's how he fought back.

Apparently the laws in some states are such that vacant houses can be taken over by squatters. This happen to this man’s mother’s vacant home. He researched the law and developed a low-cost way to successfully and legally evict the squatters within 48 hours. Listen to this 22-minute video that describes how he accomplished this—a method that could possibly work in almost any state.

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How to Manage Bipolar Irritability

People with bipolar disorder often experience irritability prior to, along with, or after their mood episodes, and this irritability can take a toll on their relationships. Fortunately, through a combination of medication adjustment and therapy, it can be managed. See article for helpful suggestions.

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How Not to Drive a Wedge Between You and Your Teen

In this article Mark Gregston identifies two ways that parents sometimes unintentionally create wedges between themselves and their teens and then goes on to suggest ways for parents to build bridges to their teen.

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How 20 Minutes of Journaling Affects Your Brain

This is another interesting video from Makai Elias Calles. In this video he discusses several benefits that come when people journal about their experiences. When journaling about traumatic events, it does not feel pleasant at the time, but later objective measures of health showed that those journaling experiences helped. It appears that writing out such journaling by hand has benefits that exceed writing about one’s journaling on a computer.  EEG studies while people wrote about their journaling experiences by hand activated more parts of the brain than when typing about their experiences on a computer. There are an incredible number of insights in this 17-minute video, and many that could be used in counseling. I highly recommend you take the time to watch it.

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I hope you enjoyed these articles. Have a wonderful week!

Henry Virkler