Articles from the Week of November 29, 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

Being a good husband is like being a good stand-up comic — you need 10 years before you can even call yourself a beginner.

Jerry Seinfeld

I’m happily married, but I would say once a week, I catch my wife looking at me like, “I’m going to have to let you go.”

Jim Gaffigan

“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions."

Leonardo da Vinci

Great men are ordinary men with extra ordinary determination.

Abraham Lincoln

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

Les Brown

"Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it."

Agatha Christie

"Life is like a 10-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use."

Charles M. Schulz

It is impossible to bring more into your life if you are feeling ungrateful about what you have.

Rhonda Byrne, “The Secret”

The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.

B.B. King

For the best return on your money, pour your purse into your head.

Benjamin Franklin

We forgive because we know people make mistakes.

Unknown

Fascinating Facts

2 MILLION mph galaxy smash-up seen in unprecedented detail

Two galaxies collided with one another at 2 million miles per hour. Glad we weren’t anywhere in the vicinity!

Click here to read the full article

A rural doctor traverses mountainous terrain by donkey to visit far-flung patients

If you live in a rural, mountainous part of Argentina, you may only see a doctor once a year when he makes a perilous visit to visit these isolated people. He often brings supplies he can leave with them to use between visits, and serves as an official postman of sorts, bringing needed documents. The article includes a few pictures of this incredible doctor.

Click here to read the full article

Why Traffic Lights Could Have A 4th Color In The Future

Traffic lights might have a fourth light in the future—a white light. The white light would not communicate anything to cars, but infrared signals would tell autonomous vehicles what to do. The three standard lights, red, green and yellow, would continue to mean what they always have, but the white light would indicate to human drivers that the intersection had controls for driver-autonomous vehicles. It would cost communities and states millions of dollars to convert present traffic lights to the new system, so do not expect any changes soon.

Click here to read the full article

Counseling Articles

Oregon Cities Move to Ban Psychedelic Mushroom Compound 4 Years After Legalization

Several cities in Oregon have voted to permanently ban the use of psilocybin in licensed clinics and several other communities have made previous 2-year moratoriums permanent in light of the opium and fentanyl crisis in that state. Other states still allow psilocybin to be used in treating some mental disorders.

Click here to read the full article

Oregon Poised To Force Health Insurers To Cover Trans Genital Surgeries for Children—or Risk Losing Their Licenses

Even when Oregon seems to make some steps to recover from the progressive insanity of the past few years (see above article), it now seems bent to requiring health insurers to cover transgenital surgeries for children or risk losing their licenses, despite the fact that WPATH’s guidelines are based on less-than-solid medical evidence, and there is growing evidence to the contrary.

Click here to read the full article

2024’s Must-Read Books on Bipolar Disorder

I have not read these books, but one or more of them might be of interest for one of your clients to read.

Click here to read the full article

What Ever Happened to the Lady Jaguars?

The Jaguars were a basketball team at the Carroll Academy, a school for at-risk teens, back in 2012-13. This is a New York Times article, so you probably won’t be able to read it without a subscription. But the author of the article was able to reconnect with the girls and receive permission from seven of the nine of them to tell the story of their lives since that time. The majority of struggled with addictions and been in jail for various offenses, but many are now in recovery programs, some have completed their high school degrees or equivalency diplomas. Most of them take responsibility for the decisions they have made. A few of them are raising children and attempting to provide a stable home for their children. Gives a glimpse into their lives after foster care.

Click here to read the full article

Resentment: The Unhealthy Guest in the Human Heart

If you have one or more clients who have a habit of holding onto grudges or resentment, I encourage you to save this article to your computer and discuss it with them. And if you don’t have a client with this issue at this time, I encourage you to save it to your computer, because you will undoubtedly have such a client in the future.

The research in this article shows that holding onto resentment produces unhealthy medical consequences that can reduce lifespan, but it also decreases one’s quality of life in other ways, so it’s in the best interests of our clients to let go of resentments. It also includes a counseling process to help them do this.

Click here to read the full article

Contentious Conversations: How to Handle Sensitive Topics with Grace and Goodwill

With holidays approaching, we may sometimes become the recipient of contentious conversations even though we don’t initiate them Here are five suggestions from an etiquette expert that might help you or a client to defuse such situations should you experience one.

Click here to read the full article

Why New York's largest health system is turning to clergy for help

This article reinforces the idea that pastors and other spiritually-trained counselors can have a tremendous positive effect on people who are struggling emotionally. I think pastors have a helpful role to play, but I think this reinforces that professionally-trained counselors who can integrate Christian resources into their counseling when clients desire it can be a wonderful addition to the continuum of care available.

Click here to read the full article

America’s New Mental Health Crisis: Trump Derangement Syndrome

This isn’t in the DSM yet, but you may have one or more clients who come to you with this presenting problem, so treating this disorder might be a helpful addition to your practice.

Click here to read the full article

The most irritating story in the Bible

You may wonder what an article like this is doing in a compilation of articles for Christian counselors. If you read it you’ll see his point. Often those who try to lead Godly lives will experience blessings in their lives. But some, like the person in this story, even though a very Godly man, ended up being killed for his integrity. It’s a good reminder that the end reward for all of us may not happen in this life, but in the next one.

Click here to read the full article

Why Australia is Setting a Minimum Age of 16 for Creating a Social Media Account

This article is extremely worthwhile reading: I encourage you to read it and possibly share it with parents of teenagers you know. I think it provides some important background, especially for how our age of 13 in the U.S. came into being and why even the author of that bill thought 13 was too young and why 13 came to be settled on.

Click here to read the full article

A Neurodivergent Leadership Guide: How to Run a Business When You Have ADHD

Some folks with ADHD are very bright and have the potential to be excellent leaders. Here are some suggestions that can help them be the best leaders they can be.

Click here to read the full article

Appnesia: Having so many apps on your phone that you forget why you installed them or what they do.

Why Science Depends on Virtue

This Breakpoint article recounts how one neuropsychiatric researcher may have authored to coauthored nearly 100 articles over the years that contained false information and upon which treatments may have been developed and used. Such misinformation can tarnish the credibility of hundreds of ethical researchers and tarnish the respect people have for scientific study in general.

Click here to read the full article

Can kindness make you more beautiful? New psychology research says yes

Although people are first aware of how physically attractive other people were, a meta-analysis of ten studies involving over 4,000 people found that personal qualities moderated people’s view of other’s attractiveness, and those people who were viewed as more kind, helpful and friendly were also viewed as more attractive. So if you have a client who believes they’re unattractive of have only average attractiveness, tell them they can increase how attractive they appear to others by being kind.

Click here to read the full article

Wisconsin Activists Hold Primal Scream Event Following Trump’s Win

It’s been several years since primal scream was regularly practiced as a therapy, but apparently some disaffected voters in Wisconsin decided to resurrect it to process their dissatisfaction with the latest election results. Some participants reportedly capped their primal scream session by plunging into frigid Lake Michigan. I have no reports of whether the scream sessions produced therapeutic benefit or not.

Click here to read the full article

Thanksgiving and Squanto

Most of us have a very romanticized view of the first Thanksgiving. The true story of Squanto and the first Thanksgiving is truly remarkable and, if you have not heard it, probably more moving than any Thanksgiving story you have heard before.

Click here to read the full article

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Henry Virkler