Articles from the Week of March 22, 2024
Interesting Quotes
Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.
Michael J. Fox
You either take what has been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person, or you allow it to tear you down. The choice does not belong to fate, it belongs to you.
Josh Shipp
If we can stay with the anger long enough, we will see it change into something else — hurt, sadness, some other feeling — or even dissolve. What had seemed so solid breaks down, is transformed. The key lies in staying with the experience through all its changes.
Tara Bennett-Goleman
You know you’re getting older when your favorite late-night show is the six o’clock news.
Garfield
Fascinating Facts
What President Funded his Political Career from His Poker Winnings?
Reportedly, Richard Nixon was such a successful poker player that he funded his first political campaign from his poker winnings. (Source: HistoryFacts.com)
Rats Get into Marijuana at New Orleans Police Station and It's as Wild as it Sounds
This is not a counseling article, obviously, but I thought some of you might enjoy the humor.
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Charles Darwin ate owls, iguanas, and armadillos.
While a student at Cambridge University Darwin was the head of a student group called the Glutton Club, which distinguished itself by eating foods not normally eaten. It apparently ended after they tried to eat an owl, which apparently was extremely unappetizing. According to historical records he continued his unusual eating habits throughout his professional career (Source: HistoryFacts.com).
Counseling Articles
What Younger Couples Want to Know from Couples Who've Been Married 40-Plus Years
What helps couples stay together for many years? This research gives the answer from couples whose marriages have continued for 40-plus years.
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Over the Long Term, Antipsychotic Medicine Stabilized Functional Connectivity in Depressed Patients with Psychosis
If you have clients with serious depression that causes them to have psychotic symptoms, you could encourage them to talk with their psychiatrist about this new finding.
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Service Dog Helps Man Navigate Life with Schizophrenia
Here is something I had not heard of before. This service dog has been trained to help a person with schizophrenia to distinguish between visual hallucinations and reality. Take a moment to learn how the dog actually does this.
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Speaking without vocal cords, thanks to a new AI-assisted wearable device
If you have a client or friend who has lost the ability to speak, a new invention may allow them to regain the ability to speak. A one-inch patch worn on the skin outside the larynx can translate the muscle movements, using AI-powered technology, into intelligible speech with 95% accuracy.
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Playing with dogs helps people concentrate and relax, brain recordings show
Research from South Korea, using brain scans while people interacted with dogs, found that “walking the dog made the participants feel more relaxed, brushing her improved concentration, and playing with her yielded both of these effects. “ This finding might prove useful with some of your clients.
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The Shaky Foundation of Childhood Gender Transition
Articles following the release of the WPATH files continue to show the shaky foundation of the science on which “gender-affirming treatment” is based. This article by a pediatrician in Calgary is a thoughtful reflection on the situation.
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End the Phone-Based Childhood Now
This article is written by a social psychologist and reviews the changes in the frequency of mental health challenges and the lowering or academic skills since the advent of smartphones. As these children now enter adulthood, The study also shows the changes in how these young adults respond to the challenges of early adulthood. Although culture is complex and some conclusions are hard to prove definitely, this social psychologist attributes the changes since 1990 to the switch from flip phones to smartphones, and then the advent of social media on-line, where young people’s social lives moved largely from real-life interactions to their lives becoming largely online. He offers some suggestions for parents that I think are worthwhile considering. I encourage you to read this article and then decide whether it is something you would like to recommend to some of the parents with whom you counsel. See also the following article which shows that the majority of parents agree with his suggestions, so even if children complain that their parents are being unfair in not letting them have access to social media, the parents can reply that both scientific studies and the majority of parents believe it is healthiest for children to have real relationships rather than the artificial relationships created by social media before they are sixteen.
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Poll shows majority supports banning kids from social media and smartphones
A recent poll by Grinnell College found that about 55% of respondents favor banning social media until age 16, and similar percentages favor banning smartphones in schools.
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Supermajorities Oppose ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors, Against Biological Males Playing Female Sports, Poll Finds
Sometimes because they have large public platforms, citizens who don’t think it is wise to start children on puberty blockers, then cross-sex hormones, and then even sex-change surgeries wonder if they are being overly-resistant. “A new poll finds that by a margin of nearly 3 to 1, respondents don’t think that it should be legal to provide minors with puberty blockers, drugs, and/or surgery to transition from one sex to the other. And by an even bigger margin, better than 7 to 1, respondents said that biological males who “identify” as female should not be permitted to compete in girls’ and women’s sports.” So let’s not be reluctant to make our voices heard.
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Magnetic Seizure Therapy Found as Effective as ECT
In the largest study of its kind it was found that magnetic seizure therapy was as effective as ECT for creating lasting antidepressant effects and caused fewer side effects (less memory loss and shorter time to reorient oneself) than ECT.
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Substance Use in Pregnancy Ups Risk of ADHD For Child
More and more young women are using cannabis recreationally and continue to use it while pregnant. A study involving more than 11,000 women found that children whose mothers used alcohol, tobacco, and/or cannabis while pregnant were two to four times more likely to have ADHD symptoms than those whose mothers did not use these substances.
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Infertility Carries High Psychological Burden, Often Inadequately Addressed
Struggles with infertility often causes deep emotional burdens. If you are a counselor working with women, please make sure to give them adequate time to address those burdens.
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JK Rowling vows to defy ‘ludicrous’ new hate crime laws
Beloved author JK Rowling is unwilling to call transgender women “women” even though by not doing so she may face new laws that say she is guilty of a hate crime. You probably won’t be able to read this article unless you have a subscription to the British newspaper the Telegraph.
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Christian actress ordered to pay $350K after being fired over Bible verse social media post
In a ruling that could apply to all believers, this actress has been fined $350,000.00 for quoting some Bible verses that she believes show God’s assessment of homosexuality. Clearly Christians need to be careful about what they say about controversial issues, but some will say that this actress showed no hatred toward anyone but was simply stating what she believed God had said about this issue.
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A Sobering Statistic
This past week I went to a conference where I learned, according to Barna, that 72% of youth raised in the church will walk away from their faith in their freshman year of college. I think that all of our churches need to pray about what to do so that our young people are better prepared to stand firm in their faith during their college years.
‘Woke’ people more likely to be unhappy, anxious and depressed, new study suggests
This study in Finland found that woke people are more likely to be unhappy, anxious, and depressed. Women were twice as likely to be “woke” as men. Published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, the authors speculate that these findings were likely to also be true in other Western populations outside Finland.
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Relationships and the Bipolar Trap
Another excellent blog by Julie Fast. Folks with bipolar disorder often have trouble maintaining marriages or even friendships. This blog describes how this breakdown typically occurs and offers suggestions on how to keep this from happening.
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In Havana syndrome patients, NIH scientists find no physical trace of harm
A few years ago diplomats and some of their family members in Cuba, China, Austria, and the United States complained of odd sounds or sensing pressure before suddenly developing symptoms including vertigo, loss of balance, and ear pain. This became known as the “Havana Syndrome.” Two governmental studies have been done comparing the brains of those who complained of those symptoms versus other people who did not complain of the symptoms, and no differences have been found. So without answering the question of whether they were subjected to some electromagnetic pulses (the predominant theory of the time), there seems to be no detectable lasting brain damage, although there are a few criticisms of the studies (see article for full details).
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This 'Clean' Eating Disorder Is on the Rise
Many people try to eat healthily, and this is a good thing. But some people become obsessed with only eating certain foods and avoiding others, something called “orthorexia.” While this diagnosis is not in the DSM-5, if it continues, it could be a candidate for the next revision of the DSM.
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Female Friendly Porn–What It Is and Why It’s Still Harmful
Most porn is degrading and misogynistic which is why some people recommend “female-friendly porn” which allegedly is more relationship-oriented and more focused on both people receiving pleasure. Pornhub says that 1/3 of their visitors are females, but other research has found that women experience twice as much shame about their porn-watching as men do, so your female clients may not share this issue with you even though it is an problem for them. This is a good article by Kristen Jenson on why “female friendly porn” is still harmful to those who watch it.
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What I Learned About Springtime Mania and How to Manage It
Many people with bipolar disorder identify something called “springtime mania” as something to be aware of and to develop ways to guard against it disrupting their lives. There are several articles by various authors on how to best do this. Probably a good plan is to pay attention to one’s personal triggers and then develop a plan based on that.
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Parental Report of Remission in ADHD: Results from a Community-Based, Nationally Representative Sample
A large national sample of parents who had children who were previously identified as having ADHD found the following: (1) the rates of remission were lower than in previously-reported studies, (2) the average age when remission was reported was age 14, (3) remission was more frequent when there was a comorbid diagnosis, (4) remission was higher when ADHD symptoms were lower, (5) parents of girls were more likely to report remission, and (6) remission was more likely when children received behavioral or medication treatment.
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Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental Health Outcomes
Sweden keeps some of the most complete birth records of any country, so it is not surprising that this study of 25,000 monozygotic and dizygotic twins was done in Sweden. These adult twins (twins between the ages of 18 and 47 years old) were compared on ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and psychiatric diagnoses. It was found that those adults who had experienced one or more ACEs (defined as family violence, emotional abuse or neglect, physical neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, rape, or hate crime), were more likely to have one or more psychiatric disorders, and this was dose-dependent (i.e., experiencing more ACEs were associated with having more psychiatric disorders). Although this is what has been suspected for many years, this large study confirmed what we have long expected.
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Roma Downey series 'The Baxters' brings family dynamics, faith to forefront of major streaming service
This series, starring Roma Downey, of “Touched by An Angel” fame, will start showing next week.
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Hoping you have a happy week or weekend,
Henry Virkler
