Articles from the Week of July 7, 2023
Interesting Quotes
What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
Jane Goodall
“We meet no ordinary people in our lives.”
C. S. LEWIS
I learned that a friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.
Maya Angelou
The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.
Brian Tracy
Belonging starts with self-acceptance… Believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic.
Brené Brown
The wise know their weakness too well to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
And thus it was that an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe.
Walter Isaacson, "Einstein: His Life and Universe"
"When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in"
Haruki Murakami
A chip on the shoulder is too heavy a piece of baggage to carry through life.
John Hancock
That men should pray and fight for their own freedom, and yet keep others in slavery, is certainly acting a very inconsistent, as well as unjust and, perhaps, impious part; but the history of mankind is filled with instances of human improprieties.
John Jay
Fascinating Facts (from InterestingFacts.com unless otherwise noted)
Bowhead whales may live 200 years or longer. Their longevity appears to be due to their ability to repair their own DNA. (Source: Science News, July 1, 2023).
On July 3 The Telegraph (a British newspaper) reported that Google has developed a quantum computer that completed in an instant a calculation that would take the best supercomputers 47 years to do. Don’t expect to be purchasing one of these for your desk anytime soon.
When the planet Uranus was discovered it was first named “George.” In case you were wondering where that name came from, the astronomer who discovered the planet received his subsidy from King George of Great Britain (Source: NeedtoKnowFacts.com)
Abraham Lincoln, before he became President, was an accomplished wrestler. He participated in 300 contests in 12 years, and only lost one match.
The S. in Ulysses S. Grant stands for nothing. When Ulysses was being recommended by a congressman for acceptance to West Point his recommender assumed that his middle name was Simpson (after his mother’s maiden name), so abbreviated it as S. and the mistake remained throughout his life.
Counseling Articles
Why (and How) I Wait to Make Important Decisions
People with bipolar disorder are known for making impulsive decisions, and this person has developed a wise process for dealing with this tendency. Actually her suggestions would probably work well for anyone who tends to make decisions without thinking them through carefully, and then sometimes lives to regret them.
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Exposing the Exploitative Realities of Sugar Dating
Probably most of us have read of OnlyFans and the dangers there. There is a new phenomenon that is very likely a close cousin to prostitution called “Sugar Dating” and it has special rates for college students, some of whom might be pressed for cash and might be tempted by that need. For more information, read this article.
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A Parent’s Complete Guide to ADHD Medications
If you are working with a parent who has a child whom you suspect has ADHD, here is a free guide for them to download that will help them obtain a correct diagnosis, will help them understand why medication can be helpful, the various medications available, how to assess whether the first medication is treating their child’s ADHD effectively, and how to talk with their child’s doctor if they think it would be wise to consider a different medication.
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‘Landmark’ Trial Shows Opioids for Back, Neck Pain No Better Than Placebo
Opioids are often prescribed for people with back or neck pain. This large study using 157 primary care and E.R. departments in Australia followed people who either received a placebo or opioids for one year and found that opioids were no better than placebos for reducing pain, and opioid prescriptions increased the likelihood of patients developing opioid dependence. Hopefully this study will result in less people becoming hooked on opioids than before. This study was published in the Lancet, arguably the world’s most respected medical journal.
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The Dark Universe Is Waiting. What Will the Euclid Telescope Reveal?
You probably won’t be able to read this unless you have a subscription to the New York Times, and it’s not a counseling article, but I thought it was quite interesting to share a bit of its content. Over the past weekend the European Space Agency sent up the Euclid telescope from Cape Canaveral. It is expected to map billions of galaxies in the next six years. It will also map the dark matter and dark energy, which comprises 95% of the matter and energy in the universe.
This represents, I believe, a strong argument for the existence of a Creator God. Two of the foundational principles of secular science are that matter and energy are neither created or destroyed. And yet there is strong scientific evidence that the universe came into being about 14.5 billion years ago—before that nothing existed. Therefore there is no scientific explanation for how all the matter and energy in the billions of galaxies in the universe suddenly came into being out of nothing. A supernatural Creator who has powers and abilities far beyond anything we know of is a reasonable explanation for how our universe came into existence. [The content of this second paragraph is not in the New York Times article.]
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8 Strategies to Improve Memory Issues Tied to Bipolar Disorder
About 50% of people with bipolar disorder complain of “bipolar brain fog” which refers to an inability to concentrate on tasks, recall simple memories or specific words, or tune out distractions. Here are 8 practical suggestions for those who suffer from this phenomenon. I think these strategies could probably help others who sometimes suffer from one of these three problems, whether or not they have bipolar disorder.
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Boys experience depression differently than girls. Here’s why that matters
A recent survey found that 50% or more of teenage girls were experiencing significant depression. However, a new series of studies has found that a significant percentage of boys are also experiencing depression, but they express it differently, often through anger and irritability. Girls are more likely to internalize feelings, whereas boys are more likely to externalize them through angry acting-out. Thus depression tests are not as likely to recognize male depression because of the wording of traditional depression inventories uses depression-like questions. To try to remedy this a new inventory for teen boys has been developed—the Male Depression Risk Scale. Boys are also less likely to seek counseling than girls. Because of all these factors boys are more likely to complete suicide than girls even though the percentage of boys showing depression on traditional depression tests are less than the scores of girls. I think these findings suggest at least three things for counselors who work with teens: (1) boys who express significant anger and irritability may actually be experiencing depression, (2) we probably need to use different inventories to assess boys versus girls, and (3) there are probably many boys who would benefit from counseling who are being missed when we use the traditional assessment inventories.
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Michigan Residents Could Face 5-Year Prison Sentence, $10,000 Fine for Using Wrong Pronouns
This bill has already been passed in the Michigan House of Representatives, has been sent to the Senate where it is expected to pass, and then on to the Governor, who is expected to sign it. Be thankful we don’t live in Michigan!
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A Root Cause of Mental Illness: Harvard Professor
This Harvard professor asserts that the cause of mental illnesses is a biochemical one—something he calls mitochondrial dysfunction. Although this may seem like an overly-simplistic explanation to many of us, it’s probably worthwhile to understand this hypothesis and then see how future research on this either supports or doesn’t support it.
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Points to Consider When Asked to Write Emotional Support Animal Advocacy Letter
Reportedly, licensed counselors are one of the groups who are allowed to write emotional support animal advocacy letters for clients. This article is written for psychiatrists who are asked to write such letters, but it contains some helpful insights that might apply if you are asked to do so for a client.
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For Alzheimer’s patients, a new era of treatment brings hope and risk
This new drug, Leqembi, does not cure Alzheimer’s nor does it restore memories that have been lost, but it does slow the progression of the disease. Thus it probably will be used by those with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia. However, there are several risks, such as possible brain swelling or brain bleeds, cost, and the need to go to infusion centers once every two weeks. So, like the other drugs that have been approved for Alzheimer’s there are still many obstacles and each doctor and family will need to weigh risks against benefits. It has just received approval by the FDA, so hopefully Medicare will take care of some of the cost.
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Estimated Number of Deaths Prevented Through Increased Physical Activity Among US Adults
This study uses a lot of technical jargon, but a simple conclusion is that 110,000 deaths per year could be prevented if American adults aged 40 through 85 only exercised 10 minutes per day, and more deaths could be prevented if they exercised 20 or 30 minutes per day.
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The Hidden Side of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Driving Transgender Mental Health Problems and Suicide
Another article on the reasons many European countries are taking steps to caution the use of “gender-affirming care” that they once actively promoted.
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Are brain-boosting supplements effective or just a waste?
Brain-boosting supplements, called nootropics, regularly claim to improve mental clarity. One problem is that, unlike medications, they do not need to go through the FDA approval process. Here’s a brief article that tells what we know about their effectiveness at this time.
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The Intricate Interaction Between Expectations and Therapeutic Outcomes of Psychedelic Agents
This article talks about how expectations (either positive or negative ones) can affect a patient’s outcome when psychedelic agents are used. I think that’s probably true for most kinds of treatments, not just psychedelic agents. If a person has had negative outcomes with previous treatments or if they have a depressive mindset, that probably will affect their response to any treatment. I think that has implications for how we introduce a treatment. While we shouldn’t try to induce false hope, if we think a treatment is likely to produce benefit, spending some time encouraging a client to approach it with positive expectations may be time well spent.
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I hope you have a wonderful week or weekend!
Henry Virkler