Articles from the Week of October 25, 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
It’s better to look ahead and prepare, than to look back and regret.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee (track and field star)
There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.
Susan Cain
Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.
Robert Waldinger (director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a 75-year research study of human healthiness)
We’re always in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.
Karl Rahner
Fascinating Facts
Mosquitoes cause the most human deaths of any animal
“Based on the number of human deaths per year, the deadliest animal is not a creature that humans usually find scary, such as a lion or a snake. Mosquitos are by far the deadliest creature in the world when it comes to annual human deaths, causing around one million deaths per year, compared to 100,000 deaths from snakes and 250 from lions. Perhaps surprisingly, dogs are the third deadliest animal to humans. Dogs are responsible for around 30,000 human deaths per year, with the vast majority of these resulting from rabies that the dog transmits.” (Source: Statistica)
Counseling Articles
A Former University President Describes Life with Dementia
According to research, one of the things people fear the most is developing dementia. Rebecca Chopp, a former president of two colleges had a mother and two grandmothers who developed Alzheimer’s Disease. Although she tried to do everything right, exercising, eating healthily, remaining mentally active, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 67. She has written a book, Still Me: Accepting Alzheimer’s Without Losing Yourself that should be an encouragement to anyone newly diagnosed. We commonly believe that after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s a rapid downhill progression is inevitable, with people unable to recognize even their closest relatives and unable to care for themselves in a couple years. But Dr. Chopp says that with modern treatments this is no longer inevitable. Three years after her diagnosis she started writing a book on her life after diagnosis and completed it during the fourth year. Now in her fifth year after diagnosis she still lives a moderately active and purposeful life, hiking, training her new pet, a dog, learning to paint, and interacting with friends and family. I encourage you to read this article and possibly buy her book--for all of us, if we live long enough, will either face mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s ourselves or will have clients or loved ones who face this challenge. I have read the complete book this week, and if I were younger and were still counseling, I think I would consider making one of my specialties working with people who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers. I would encourage you to read the book and pray about whether this would be a ministry God would have for you.
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‘Silent Phase’ of Alzheimer’s Begins Decades Before Symptoms, NIH Study Suggests
Some might think that since we have no known cure for Alzheimer's yet (only medications that slow the advance of the disease), no one would want to know they were going to develop Alzheimer’s in 20 years, but I think this is a misunderstanding of the implications of this research. By understanding the precursors of Alzheimer’s it gives us the ability to try to develop prevention during these early stages. So understanding what is happening in the brain 20 years before Alzheimer's manifests gives us much hope for developing treatments for the future.
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Shocking Reversal: Plastic Surgeons Withdraw Support for Gender Affirming Surgeries
In a truly shocking about-face, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons has publicly reversed its stance and no longer supports performing plastic surgery for transgender teens. This action was taken despite the fact that plastic surgery for transgender teens is a very lucrative endeavor. The discussions that led to the ASPS reversing its stance were held behind closed doors, but this decision represents a very significant step when plastic surgeons no longer support these procedures.
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MDMA Is Off the Table, So What’s Next for PTSD?
It was hoped by some that MDMA (the psychedelic drug midomafetamine with assisted therapy) would receive FDA approval for treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. Even though MDMA was not approved there are treatments that have been shown to be effective for treating PTSD such as cognitive processing therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, and prolonged exposure, although there is hope that other treatments will be shown to be effective as well. But as of now, MDMA is not on that list.
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As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms
This is a re-run of an article in the New York Times, a newspaper not known for taking conservative positions, but the article, if you can read it, documents the serious results of making recreational marijuana increasingly available. If you have any questions about how you will vote on the amendment to make recreational marijuana legal in Florida, please read this article and pray about how you should vote.
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From Blindness to 360 Degree Vision–What 4,000 Near Death Cases Bring to Light
Raymond Moody was one of the first to introduce us to near-death experiences (NDEs) some 50 years ago with his book Life after Life, and the study of this topic has continued since that time. This interesting article gives us an update on this topic. Just one example was a woman who was blind from birth, but who had a clear vision of herself in the surgical suite and saw her wedding ring for the first time.
One thing that the article does not explain for evangelical Christians is that there are very few examples of people who have negative experiences, even though Scripture warns us that eternity is not a pleasant experience for all. In another book a Dr. Rawlings, a cardiologist, recounts the story of a patient who died and when they revived him he cried out in terror “Please keep going (on the resuscitation efforts). I’m in hell!”
A few days later Dr. Rawlings asked the patient about his experience and he had no recollection of being in Hell. So it’s possible that the reason we hear relatively few negative recollections of Near Death Experiences is that these are so traumatic that they are repressed out of conscious awareness.
The article, written by a person who is both an M.D. and Ph.D., explains why most of “explanations” of NDEs are unsatisfactory from a medical standpoint.
This article, if you are interested in the topic, just continues to add to our awareness of this topic. For those of us who have embraced the Christian faith, we know that the best is still to come!
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Is the World Ready for a Religious Comeback?
This is a New York Times so you may not be able to read it without a subscription, so I’ll quote a paragraph from it to give you a sense of the article. “the world seems primed for religious arguments in the same way it was primed for the new atheists 20 years ago. But the question is whether the religious can reclaim real cultural ground — especially in the heart of secularism, the Western intelligentsia — as opposed to just stirring up a vague nostalgia for belief.
“It’s one thing to get nonbelievers to offer kind words for “cultural” Christianity or endorse the sociological utility of churchgoing. The challenge is to go further, to persuade anxious moderns that religion is more than merely pragmatically useful, more than just a wistful hope — that a religious framework actually makes much more sense of reality than the allegedly hardheaded materialist alternative.”
So what I think Ross Douthat is saying is that after two decades of living life without a belief in God, at least some people in our culture may be willing to invite God back into their lives. The question is whether believers will be able to convince them to do so.
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Experts Warn Against the Viral Trend 'Raw Dogging' On a Plane
The newest viral trend is called “raw dogging”—a new trend where people, usually men, on airline flights go completely without on-board entertainment, food, and activity and stare off into space for the duration of the flight. Supposedly unhealthy. Just included so you’d know the latest terminology.
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Pastor Faces Daughter’s Unplanned Pregnancy with Courage and Compassion
A beautiful story of how one pastor is sharing his family’s story with his congregation.
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Brain stimulation at home helps to treat depression
Here’s another article that explains simply what transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is (it’s a non-invasive treatment where a cap is worn three to five times a week for 30 minutes and provides very low electrical stimulation to the brain). It is helpful for some people with depression who haven’t responded to medication or counseling alone (these treatments usually continue along with tDCS). Although it doesn’t work with everyone with depression, it helps some people.
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How Schools Across America Are Struggling With AI Deepfakes
According to this article, young girls are not the only ones being targeted by deepfakes—teachers are now the targets, and even an occasional school administrator. Fortunately legislators are attempting to develop legislation to combat this problem. And at the end of this article are some resources for individuals and schools to use.
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How atheists have made me a better Christian
The author of this article also took apologetics from Norm Geisler, who was one of the chairs for my master’s thesis. She tells of some of the insights from his class, which I think are worthwhile for us to consider.
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The Decline of Dating Apps
This article discusses why dating apps are increasingly falling out of favor with both men and women. If you have clients who have had negative experiences with them this article can confirm that they are not alone.
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Boy, 14, fell in love with ‘Game of Thrones’ chatbot — then killed himself after AI app told him to ‘come home’ to ‘her’: mom
A fourteen-year-old boy in Orlando allegedly “fell in love” with a chatbot and then committed suicide when his chatbot told him to come to her, according to the mother who is suing the chatbot creator.
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Can A.I. Be Blamed for a Teen’s Suicide?
This article is from the New York Times, so may not be available to you without a subscription. But it is interesting. This young man was diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder, and as he developed a “relationship” with very attractive Dany, a chatbot, he retreated more and more from actual relationships, often “talking” with her several times a day. All their chats included the message displayed above all their chats, reminding him that “everything Characters say is made up!” However, some attorneys have argued that software producers are liable for defects in their products that cause actual damage to humans. It will be interesting to see where this lawsuit goes.
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Why Standing Desks Aren’t the Cure and What Actually Works
A few years ago standing desks were thought to be healthier than sitting at a standard desk. It’s now been concluded that standing at a desk for more than two hours produces its own medical problems.
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Kamala Harris says no to ‘religious exemptions’ in national abortion law if elected
In a recent interview Kamala Harris said no to religious exemptions for a national abortion law if elected. This means that there would be no exemptions for Christian hospitals and doctors who believe that it is wrong to perform abortions, and no exemptions for Christian organizations to not include abortion coverage in their insurance.
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UN report finally shows what is glaringly obvious: Trans athletes in women’s sports is a major problem
We have often been told that trans athletes are playing a minor role in women’s sports. This U.N. report found that women athletes have lost almost 900 medals in 29 sports, showing that if we want to be fair to female athletes, something must be done to correct this situation.
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9 Ways Trump Is Exactly Like Hitler
Candidate Kamala Harris has claimed that President Trump is much like Adolph Hitler. Here is the Babylon Bee’s spoof on 9 ways Trump is exactly like him.
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Doctor withheld results of puberty-blocker study for political reasons: report
Parents of children who say they are born in the wrong-sex body have often been told by gender “experts” that failure to give them gender-affirming care could lead to their children experiencing serious mental health problems or even suicide. To test this hypothesis the National Institutes of Health funded a large study of gender-dysphoric children who were given puberty-blocking hormones for two years. The head of the study concluded at the end of two years that there were no differences in mental health between the group given hormones and those who did not receive them but explained this by saying both groups were healthy to begin with. However, this contrasts with her earlier statements that said that at least ¼ of the children at the beginning of the study were experiencing mental health struggles.
When asked why she failed to publish the results of her study, the director of the study, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who is a transgender advocate, said that the reason was that she feared the results would be weaponized by those who opposed transgender treatments. Critics of her decision say that the results of scientific studies should be published so that medical and psychological treatments can be based on a full understanding of the science validating them.
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Human brain can process certain sentences in ‘blink of an eye’, says study
Previous theories postulated that we understand essays by understanding the meaning of one word at a time. This research concluded that our human brains understood the syntax structure of sentences and could process the meaning of a sentence in the “blink of an eye.”
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I hope you’ve enjoyed these articles and have a wonderful week or weekend!
Henry Virkler