Articles from the Weeks of August 1-16, 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
Nobody is right for anyone. Actually, what makes somebody right is commitment. Then when you’re committed to each other and you have true dialogue, [you] allow the other to impact upon you and they allow you to impact on them … It’s like two stones rubbing together until suddenly they fit.
Philippa Perry
[Love is] not just about who you find, it’s also about who you’re going to be. Love is not a state of enthusiasm. It’s a verb. It implies action, demonstration, ritual, practices, communication, expression.
Esther Perel
Do not mistake desire for love. Desire leaves home in a frantic search for one gratification after another. Love is at home with itself.
Vernon Howard
Expecting someone to fill in a hole that’s within you? That’s expecting too much of any one person. That’s not your friend’s job or your partner’s job. That’s your job.
Ayisha Malik
True, solid love [can] withstand difficulty. It can withstand you being human and being flawed and being unhappy or having a problem with your partner. I wish I had known that love doesn’t disappear when you aren’t quiet and perfect.
Roxane Gay
If you tell me, “I care about my partner,” then my second question is, “How do you show it?” The fact that you feel it isn’t enough.
Esther Perel
"I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful."
Bob Hope
“One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is shut their eyes to facts.”
C. S. Lewis
Fascinating Facts
This Volcano in Antarctica Spews Gold Pieces Every Day—And How Can You Get Some?
Although there is a volcano in Antarctica that spews the equivalent of $6800.00 worth of gold fragments every day, retrieving any of that gold means taking considerable risks. The volcanic spues are condensed in the surrounding water at about 1,000 degrees Celsius, but if you are not scalded by the volcanic eruption, you also have to avoid being frozen to death by the -71 degrees Fahrenheit temperature of Antarctica’s environment. So you may want to pause before you resign your present job to become a gold prospector.
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Extensive and Costly Study Finds Outer Space Is Very, Very Dark
This is not very fascinating but does cause you to wonder who approved this study. Apparently it cost more than three billion dollars and four years of study to conclude that outer space is “very, very dark.” Normally I have great respect for Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, but I’m told that they’re considering another study next year to see if outer space is really, really cold. What about taking those three billion dollars to study what causes human consciousness, which we still have no adequate explanation for?
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Counseling Articles
Don’t Mess with a Mama defending her baby
Last week Mary and I went on an Alaska cruise—it was wonderful! One day we took an excursion to view humpback and orca whales. I asked our guide what was behind the recent phenomenon of orcas disabling and occasionally even sinking boats. She explained that one baby orca was killed by a ship’s propellor. That mother was so angry that she learned how to destroy propellors and then taught other orcas how to do so. Apparently some adolescent orcas are amusing themselves by using what they’ve learned from her.
How to make amends when an adult child cuts off contact with a parent
Usually the Washington Post won’t allow someone to access their articles without a subscription, but for some reason they did this time. If you can access the article it’s worth reading.
Sometimes parents who believed they were good parents are shocked when their child totally cuts off all contact with them. Many times they thought they had a good relationship and that they sacrificed many things for their child. This psychologist empathizes with such parents and gives some thoughtful advice about what such parents can do.
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How Exercise Promotes Longevity
If you, or a client needs some motivation to exercise, this article provides some good reasons. People who exercise have a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. Exercising improves cognition, mood and reduces inflammation. And living a sedentary life has been shown to be worse for your body than heart disease, diabetes, or smoking. This article includes a summary of what research has discovered about why exercising is so good for us. So if you or a client needs some encouragement to exercise, share this article with them. One well-designed research study found that even those who started exercising in their 70s benefited.
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FDA Rejects MDMA-Assisted Therapy for PTSD
For the recent past some therapists have been hoping that a new experimental treatment (MDMA, the psychedelic also known as Ecstasy or Molly) might be helpful for those with PTSD. If this had been approved, it would have been the first psychedelic to have been approved to treat a mental disorder. The FDA recently concluded that data submitted to this point do not substantiate either it’s efficacy or it’s safety for clients with PTSD. It left open the possibility of further Phase III trials, but there are significant medical concerns that need to be overcome. See article for further details. [This information is not in this article, but in a New York Times article which you will not be able to access. The journal Psychopharmacology has retracted three articles on MDMA, saying there were unethical practices at the site where the research that produced those articles occurred.]
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11 Things to Say When Someone Dies Besides ‘I’m Sorry
Sometimes we’re at a loss of what to say to grieving relatives other than the common “I’m sorry.” This article gives several thoughtful additional things one can say. When the person was a believer and the person you’re talking with is also a believer there also are also some additional ways not included in the article.
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The Growing Role of Music Therapy in Health Care
This may be something that would help some of your clients. For some of you this article might be a good way to consider adding this to the other counseling methods you offer to your clients.
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Polyamory, Sexual Jealousy, and Violence
Polyamory seems to be becoming more popular, regularly talked about and accepted as an alternative to monogamy. A Pew research poll last year found that a majority of those under 30 believed that open marriages were acceptable. Although you probably won’t agree with everything in this article, the author does make the point that even though couples say that they’re okay with it, throughout history it has been shown to increase the likelihood of domestic violence. If you have a couple who is considering polyamory this article may give you some background information that will be helpful.
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Sexual immorality isn’t freedom, it’s slavery
Although some of our politicians and political candidates are saying that sexual freedom and the right to abortion sets both women and men free, this author argues that such freedoms actually result in slavery.
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Children Who Were Raised by Animals
Obviously not a counseling article, but one I found so interesting that I thought some of you might want to read it.
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Electroconvulsive Therapy Works, Now Scientists Believe They Know How
ECT has been available for nearly 100 years, but until these two research studies, we didn’t know how it worked. It seems to work by affecting a brain process called “aperiodic activity,” and changes are found in aperiodic activity with both ECT and Magnetic Seizure Therapy (MST), which are both used for patients with treatment-resistant depression. For more details see the article.
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Cognitive Breakdown: The New Memory Condition Primary Care Needs to Know
Here is a new memory condition affecting some older people and often thought to be Alzheimer’s but is not. Although the article is quite technical and as a result may be confusing to some, one of the important insights in this article for us as counselors is that this doctor says that he believes that there are other illnesses still to be discovered that cause memory impairment in the elderly that are not Alzheimer’s.
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What You Should Know About the Deep Web
Not a counseling article, but something we probably should be aware of. We’ve all heard of the dark web and its association with nefarious activities. But it’s different from the deep web. This article explains the difference between the two.
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Switzerland Unleashes ‘Death Pods,’ Allowing Citizens to End Their Lives at the Press of a Button!
In a movement that is likely to spur a lot of controversy, Switzerland has approved a new method of ending one’s life, a pod one climbs into that allows anyone claiming to be of sound mind to end their life at the touch of a button. For further details, see the article.
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The New Way Auto Thieves Are Getting into Your Car
Another non-counseling article, this is the newest way that tech-savvy thieves are using to steal cars, especially newer cars with key fobs that many of us thought made them more secure. The article explains how thieves do this, and it will probably be months or even a year or longer before a theft-deterrence system is developed. One way of minimizing such thefts until some deterrence is developed is mentioned in the article.
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Actress Marilu Henner Says Rare Condition Allows Her to Remember ‘Almost Every Single Day’ of Her Life
Actress Marilu Henner, who some of you may recognize if you’ve watched the Aurora Teagarden series on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries (she plays the mother in that series), has something called “Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory” or HSAM, that allows her to recall almost every day of her life with quite a few specific details, including what she wore that day. She believes the condition is a blessing to her, although apparently her husbands have not always felt the same way. She attributes the fact that she has had three marriages to her HSAM.
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Kratom: Opioid-Like Herb with Health and Addiction Risks, Doctors Voice Concerns
Some of your clients may take this herbal as a supplement. It is commonly used to reduce chronic pain, depression, or opioid withdrawal. Since it is an herbal supplement it does not require a doctor’s prescription. However, there are some medical concerns and it can be addicting, so if you have clients who are using it you may want to be aware of this information.
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Cannabis Overuse Linked to Increased Risk for Head and Neck Cancers
Those who overuse cannabis face a tripled risk of developing one of the head or neck cancers-- oral, oropharyngeal, nasopharyngeal, laryngeal, hypopharyngeal, and salivary gland malignancies. This was based on a large study of 4 million people in the U.S. As cannabis use for medical and recreational purposes expands, the concern is that then number of people with these cancers will increase.
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How (and How Not) to Talk with Your Kids about Sexuality
If you’re counseling with parents who ask you how to talk with their children about sex, this could be a helpful article to share with them.
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VP Nominee Tim Walz Supports the Right to Infanticide
Although I purposely try to avoid political issues in this compilation of counseling articles, this article discusses the fact that it is now becoming commonplace in neonatal intensive care units nationally to not provide medical care to children born prematurely, especially if they have a disability, unless the parent demands it, even though with present technology, 67% of those born after 22 weeks of gestation can be saved. So we as a culture are moving further and further away from the concept of trying to preserve the lives of the very young. You might wonder about the charge of infanticide. This author makes the point that when we fail to provide medical care for a child who could be saved this should be considered infanticide.
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Have a wonderful week or weekend!
Henry Virkler