Articles from the Week of May 17, 2024
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
“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
Reportedly said by Abraham Lincoln
If you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror.
Shane Koyczan
To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.
Marie Kondo
Having kids — the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings — is the biggest job anyone can embark on.
Maria Shriver
The majority of my diet is made up of the foods that my kid didn't finish.
Carrie Underwood
Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.
Ruth Gordon
Life becomes easier and more beautiful when we can see the good in other people.
Roy T. Bennett
“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
J.K. Rowling
Fascinating Facts
Woman was living inside rooftop grocery store sign with computer and coffee maker for a year
In case you haven’t already read this story, it is an amazing story of creativity by this homeless woman that you might enjoy learning about.
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Elephants are matriarchal.
“The leader of each herd . . . tends to be the oldest and largest female around. She has a lot of responsibility — a herd can consist of anywhere from eight to 100 elephants and include many calves that the entire group looks after.” (Source: InterestingFacts.com)
Myths about the Oregon Trail
It’s often thought that the trek was made easier by the covered wagons that carried settlers westward, but that’s only partially true. Those wagons weren’t actually for people, who walked most or all of the trail’s 2,000 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. They were for the supplies that hopeful settlers deemed necessary for the trek, pulled by mules and oxen. Indeed, people who were ferried by wagons had a habit of falling out, as the vehicles didn’t have springs and thus bounced around a lot; some folks were even run over by other wagons or trampled by beasts of burden after falling. As for those walking, many of the children didn’t have shoes.
So while we often romanticize that months-long journey, it was above all else a brutal quest that many did not survive. The danger had little to do with Indigenous peoples. Tribes such as the Pawnee and Shoshone were more likely to be trail guides or trading partners than hostile combatants, and fatigue and disease caused the vast majority of settlers’ deaths. When they circled the wagons at night, it wasn’t to keep Indigenous peoples out — it was to keep animals in. (Source: HistoryFacts.com)
World Tiniest Nation Is a One-Acre Sea Fortress That Has Its Own Constitution and National Anthem
The story of this tiny nation sounds like something out of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/bright/world-tiniest-nation-is-a-one-acre-sea-fortress-that-has-its-own-constitution-and-national-anthem-5644376?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2024-05-14&src_cmp=gv-2024-05-14&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAafQiZxgAzNPo7bwC8GZWBlzKKDqhgOlBDeXg2FJDefU%3D&utm_content=9
Counseling Articles
Babette Rothschild on What’s Missing in Trauma Work
Babbette Rothschild has been doing trauma work and writing about it for several decades and is considered one of the world’s experts on the subject. But this interview (found in the Psychotherapy Networker) gives some wise cautions about how therapists might be overusing trauma therapy when other methods might be preferable.
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After Dobbs, Americans are turning to permanent contraception
After Dobbs, there have been a significant increase in both men and women getting permanent contraception, men through vasectomies and women through tubal ligation. The increase in women has been more than for men. In a different article in Breakpoint, in the months following these decisions, there has also been an increase in reversals of these procedures.
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Michigan Town Board Meeting Gets Tense After Minister of Satanic Temple Delivers Satanic Invocation
This is clearly not a counseling-related article, but it is so astonishing that this happened in our country that I included it. It is at least encouraging that several in the crowd began singing hymns in response.
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Wanted: ADHD Research on Women & Girls
There is growing recognition that women and girls have been seriously overlooked in the research and treatments for ADHD. Probably one primary reason is that females more often have the inattentive type and so do not cause the significant disruptions in school and family that the more hyperactive boys cause. This article identifies several of the major areas where ADHD in girls and women have not been adequately researched. For those of you who are considering doctoral programs that require a research dissertation there are several excellent possibilities identified in this article. And for therapists in the field who don’t feel called to do research themselves, I think this article encourages us to be motivated to read all the research that does come out, because I think we’ve often not been addressing some of the needs of women and girls with ADHD.
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A Survival Guide for Parents with ADHD: Strategies from Preschool to High School
Raising children for any parent is sometimes stressful and draining, but for the parent who has ADHD themselves, those issues are often magnified. This article has some excellent ideas for parents of young children and then for older children/teens. If you are counseling a parent who has ADHD themselves (which means one or more of their children is likely to have ADHD) this is an article that could be very helpful.
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One Dose of LSD-Based Medication Yields Rapid, Durable Response for GAD
In Phase 2 studies, one dose of an LSD-type medication brought rapid, durable (at least through the 12 weeks of the study), significant reduction in anxiety scores and in some cases remission, to a large number of the people in the placebo-controlled study, for people with severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Phase 3 studies are scheduled to begin later this year.
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Antidepressants and Dementia Risk: Reassuring Data
Since depressed individuals, especially older depressed individuals, might share some of the symptoms of major depression and dementia, some have questioned whether long-term use of antidepressants might somehow increase the likelihood of developing dementia. This well-designed multi-year study confirmed there was no association between either short-term or more long-term use of antidepressants and the likelihood of developing dementia.
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Mandatory DMV Reporting Tied to Dementia Underdiagnosis
We all want our roads to be safe, and dementia reduces a person’s ability to drive safely. For that reason four states require physicians to report to DMV when a patient has dementia. DMV then has the person do a driving test where they are evaluated for their ability to drive safely. Fourteen states require patients to self-report (I wonder how many do). This study examined what occurred in those states that require physicians to mandatorily report those patients whom they diagnose as having dementia. It was found in those states that the number of doctors diagnosing patients with dementia was significantly lower.
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Dementia Mortality in Women Reduced by Olive Oil Consumption
Women who have at least some olive oil in their diet have a lower rate of dementia-related mortality than those women who consume little or no olive oil (notice this was a study of dementia-related mortality, not all-cause mortality). For men that same decreased rate of dementia-related mortality did not occur. For women that association held up regardless of the healthiness of the rest of their diet.
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Survey: Virtually All Healthcare Providers Meet Criteria for Nomophobia
Virtually all healthcare providers (the study was done on physicians, but probably includes you) suffer from nomophobia. In came you’re not familiar with the term, nomophobia refers to fear of being without your mobile phone. According to the study, 64.2% of health care providers meet criteria for moderate nomophobia, 19.8% for severe, and 15.6% for mild.
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Many Different Diets Appear Effective with Autism Symptoms
If you talk with parents or specialists in autism you are likely to get widely differing responses, from those parents who say their child does much better if they avoid certain foods, to those specialists who swear by certain diets and those who say that the important thing is a balanced diet. This article gives views on both sides. One possible option since the field is so split on the issue: encourage each family to carefully observe their child’s response to various foods, and then encourage the family to develop a balanced diet that avoids those foods that causes their child to have increased symptoms.
Click here to read the whole article
A mystery illness stole their kids’ personalities. These moms fought for answers.
Several years ago a mysterious illness began affecting some 1 to 5% of children with Down Syndrome. Many of these children lost their ability to talk, move or take care of themselves. Some became catatonic or suffered from hallucinations or depersonalization. At first it was diagnosed as early-onset dementia. Gradually the illness was given the name Down syndrome regression disorder, or DSRD. Eventually some treatments were developed that help reduce the regression for many. I included this information in case it happens to one of your clients or to a child in their family.
This article is in the Washington Post, which usually you can’t access without a subscription, but for some reason I was able to access it, even though I don’t have a subscription. If you want to try to access it, the web address is below.
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Screams before Silence
This is a series of interviews with people who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. It also includes interviews by those who escaped, some who were rescuers, by medical personnel who treated those who survived, medical personnel who processed those who did not survive and even by a couple of Hamas terrorists who have been captured. The video is 56 minutes long, and probably will be the most grueling 56 minutes you will ever experience if you choose to watch it. There are no explicit pictures out of respect for those who died but the verbal descriptions of what they experienced are agonizing to read. It is a sobering reminder of how cruel human nature can become. I would not recommend that anyone who has experienced sexual violence would watch it unless they have thoroughly processed their own experience. The major interviewer said that her motivation for creating the video was to give a voice to the many men and women who no longer have a voice.
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Brain Worms Like RFK Jr.'s: Here's What to Know
Presidential hopeful RFK Jr. caused quite a stir recently when he claimed that a worm had gotten into his brain and eaten part of it. Is such a thing possible? Could it happen to you? If you’re interested in the answers to these two questions, read the following article from Medpage Today.
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High-Potency Cannabis Tied to Impaired Brain Development, Psychosis, CUD
THC concentrations in cannabis used to average 2 to 4%. Now they average 15 to 24%. This researcher at the recent national American Psychiatric Association meeting said that there is evidence that a significant percentage of adolescents who use cannabis regularly now are showing signs of impaired brain development, sometimes developing psychosis, and developing cannabis use disorder. This finding has implications for the government’s current proposal to change the ranking of cannabis from a Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 and also the push by some to legalize recreational pot use.
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ECT and Bipolar Symptoms
Sometimes when bipolar symptoms do not respond to medication and therapy, psychiatrists recommend ECT. Some people with bipolar disorder have had good experiences with ECT, others less good or even negative experiences. Modern ECT has improved from older ECT, and often results in less memory loss. This article includes experiences from many people and includes the full range of experiences.
Now that rTMS (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation) has become available and has demonstrated equal effectiveness to ECT for severe unipolar depression it might be wise to try it with bipolar disorder.
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Vaping May Damage the Outer Coating of the Eye, Impair Vision
As if e-cigarettes did not cause enough damage, another danger has just been identified—damage to the eye, causing impaired vision.
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‘Serious And Risky’: DCNF Reporters Describe Findings from Sweeping Expose on Major Trans Health Organization
WPATH is the acronym for what is considered the world’s foremost transgender medical organization. If you read this brief article about some of the training videos given to doctors who perform sex-change procedures, I think it will cause you to have additional cautious thoughts about the wisdom of these procedures.
Click here to read the whole article
Have a wonderful week or weekend!
Henry Virkler
