Counseling News from the Week of October 23, 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
"The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. It's our attempt to influence things, the universe internal to ourselves and external to us."
Mae Jemison
Sometimes we wish for things to change but are unwilling to do what it takes to make things better.
Joyce Meyer
“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Marcel Proust
Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin
Fascinating Facts
Man Returns Library Magazine From 1894 After 132 Years — So How Much Are the Late Fines?
In recent years this library has implemented a fine forgiveness program to encourage patrons to return overdue books, so he will not have to pay any late fines. The returned periodical will probably not be returned to the shelves but will be given its special place of remembrance at the library.
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Counseling Articles
From Disengaged to Selective: The Profiles of Young Adult Daters
There is a general consensus that young adults are involved in a “dating recession.” This research tries to identify subgroups within these young adults in order to understand them better. One group was categorized as “Unprepared, Disengaged.” They represent about 35% of young adults. They often have limited dating skills, date rarely if at all, and have the longest timeline before eventually getting married, if they ever do get married. The second group represents 45% of young adults. They are characterized as serious, selective adults. They date, but also rarely, because they see few options available of the opposite gender that appeal to them. Their marriage horizon is typically briefer than the unprepared, disengaged group. The remaining group are called “Active Daters” and as the name implies, they are actively looking for a marriage partner, and their marriage horizon is the shortest of the three groups.
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In Finland, Fertility Is Tilting to the Highly Educated
Worldwide, there is a concern about birthrates that are below the replacement rate (2.1 children per couple). The Scandinavian countries have some of the most complete birth profile information. Finland is thought to be representative of trends occurring within these Scandinavian countries. What this research found was that fertility was lowest among couples with lowest education, and highest where couples had the most education.
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Rethinking Eldercare: Why We Need Family More Than Ever
People are living longer than ever. However, many elderly cannot afford professional eldercare services. Japan serves as a warning to all countries. Many elderly die alone, and many are not discovered until days, months, and occasionally years, after passing away. The situation has become so common that it even has been given a name—kodokushi, which means “lonely or solitary death.”
The authors discuss the importance of strengthening family bonds, so that when aging adults are no longer able to live independently, hopefully family members will be able to step in and ensure that they receive adequate care, or family members provide the care themselves.
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Why Conservatives Should Root for Taylor Swift
The authors of this article suggest that conservatives should encourage Taylor Swift as a model to be emulated. She is a very famous, popular person among young people. But in contrast of most young adults, she has found a stable partner and married that person. Therefore she could be a highlighted by conservatives as a positive role model for romance, marriage, and family.
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5 Pieces of ADHD Advice Every Parent Should Hear
This brief article gives 5 excellent pieces of advice for parents of children with ADHD.
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Why Task Switching is Difficult for ADHD Brains — and 7 Ways to Smooth Transitions
This title gives an excellent preview of what the article is about. It explains why transitions from one activity or location to another are especially hard for children with ADHD, the various types of transitions that they sometimes need to make, and 7 suggestions for helping parents make transitions easier for children and teens with ADHD to master.
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Why Christian Wives Are Choosing to Take Their Husband’s Last Name
Research has found that women who take their husband’s last name have a 50% lower divorce rate than those who retain another last name. Although the reason for this has not be proven, many attribute this finding to a couple’s decision to leave, cleave and form a covenant relationship with each other.
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Why are so many kids suddenly cutting off their parents?
There are probably some situations where families are so unhealthy that it is necessary for children to end those relationships in order to be healthy. But some therapists, including myself, believe that the percentage of young people choosing this option is higher than it needs to be.
Differences of opinion between people are a constant in human relationships, and learning to resolve those differences is an important skill for every person to learn—in their families, in their marriages, in their relationships, and at work. I think as a culture we need to emphasize this and encourage people that in most cases its better to work on finding ways to resolve differences rather than ending our relationships with those persons. Every couple experiences frustrations with each other from time to time. Committing ourselves to work through those frustrations rather than letting them lead to divorce is important for us as adults but also for our children.
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Choosing Your AI: A Christian Consumer’s Guide
As the author of this article says, no one would recommend one type of vehicle for every family. Each family is different, and farmers need different types of vehicles than city dwellers. In the same way, now that we have several options of AI to choose from. We should evaluate what we wish to accomplish and the strengths of the various AI programs, and from that process we should choose which version of AI is best for our purposes. If you usually work with Word, the free version of Copilot that comes automatically with it may meet your needs without doing anything further. If you want to explore other options, this article gives you some things to consider.
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What Is Inattentive ADHD? ADD Symptoms, Causes, Treatment
ADHD: Inattentive Type is often a diagnosis that is missed by parents and teachers. ADHD: Hyperactive type is hard to miss and is usually diagnosed early. But for girls, ADHD Inattentive Type is often missed, and they may struggle for decades because of the problems it causes with their focusing. They may instead be considered lazy or undisciplined or unfocused. So if you are a teacher or parent, please stay alert for this possible diagnosis. By identifying it you may spare a young person years of unnecessary struggle.
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Start-Up Claims to Use A.I.-Created Viruses to Treat a Patient
This is from the New York Times so you can’t read it without a subscription, but the gist of the story is that, for the first time, a company has used an A.I.-created virus to treat a patient that had a deadly bacterial infection that hadn’t responded to other treatments. AI is now being used to develop treatments for cancer as well.
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Really Connecting with Your Teen
Sometimes parents may feel discouraged about trying to keep a relationship going with their teen when they get such little positive encouragement from their teen. Mark Gregston has some good practical advice for such parents.
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https://parentingtodaysteens.org/articles/really-connecting-with-your-teen-2/
Surprising Medications and Supplements That Could Trigger or Worsen Bipolar Disorder
If you work with bipolar patients, it may be helpful to alert them to this article in the event that they may be taking one or more of these medications or supplements that sometime trigger or worsen bipolar disorder.
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This is How [Women] Feel During Oral Intimacy
A 23-minute video narrated by a female mental health professional explaining the biology, neurology, and psychology of why women often feel more sexually fulfilled from oral intimacy (cunnilingus) than from sexual intercourse. I would recommend anyone who provides couples counseling or is married themselves take the time to listen to this video. It is very informative and will probably teach you several things you never knew about women’s sexual arousal during oral intimacy.
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Science is proving Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists wrong
This is an article from a British newspaper, the Telegraph, so you can’t read it without a subscription. But they do allow guests to read this article, so I’ve downloaded it and attached it to the Friday News for this week. Thus you can download it and save it to your computer if you have a client in the future who has questions about whether believing in God is supported by scientific evidence. I think if you read it you’ll find that there are increasing reasons why people are concluding that more scientific evidence supports the idea that this universe, and human beings, were created by an Intelligent Designer than there is evidence that this universe came into being from nothing.
I hope you enjoyed at least some of these articles. If you are married or counsel couples, I especially encourage you to watch the 23-minute video above.
Henry Virkler