Articles from the Week of January 17, 2025
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
If you have to buy stuff to store your stuff, you may have too much stuff.
Courtney Carver
A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.
Andre Maurois
“No affair, however exciting, is ever as fulfilling as a good marriage.”
Anonymous
"When you hold on to anger and unforgiveness, you can't move forward."
Mary J. Blige
“Where there is devotional music, God with his grace is always present.”
Johann Sebastian Bach
I always say, if you're married for 50 years, and 10 of them are horrible, you’re doing really good!
Michelle Obama
Overthinking: the art of creating problems that weren’t even there
Author unknown
"Work often becomes a substitute for living. But I think the most successful artists, and the happiest people, find a fullness in both areas."
Faye Dunaway
Fascinating Facts
If You Have a Dog You Would Like to Understand
Some dogs bark enthusiastically, but we have no idea what they are barking about. If you have a dog that does this I just read about something that might be of interest to you. It's a new technology that tries to help people understand what their dog's barks mean. Apparently the researchers studied 10,000 dog barks to try to understand what the barks meant, and now have programmed them into a dog collar to help dog owners understand what their dogs are trying to communicate. I don’t have details about how to order it, but Amazon probably has it.
Do Our Dogs Have Something to Tell the World?
Following up on the above topic, the New York Times this week had the following article, which you can’t read without a subscription, but it also goes into people who have been getting buttons with words on them, and training their dogs to communicate by putting their paws on them (e.g., “Outside” for when they’d like to go outside, “Play”, etc.) Since dogs supposedly have the intelligence of a 2½ year old it is believed that they could put together simple sentences. The most amusing one I read was composed by a dog after the owner did something he or she did not like, when he communicated: “Love you. No”
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He's Italian. She's American. Their delightful love story has won the hearts of millions.
Not a counseling article, but something else you might find amusing. This is the story of an American and Italian who fell in love, married, and their fun stories of trying to blend their lives and cultures. They sometimes have difficulties because of language differences, cultural differences and belief differences, but their story illustrates the sometimes-humorous process of learning to blend two lives.
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How Do Igloos Keep People Warm?
If you’ve ever wondered how people manage to survive in the Arctic, where temperatures often plunge to -65% F, this article on igloos provides some fascinating information. Igloos often keep temperatures within 40 to 60 degrees higher than surrounding temperatures through two simple processes that you probably learned about in high school science class—convection and conduction.
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Counseling Articles
He Dialed 911 to Save His Baby. Then His Children Were Taken Away.
Unfortunately, this article is in the New York Times, so you won’t be able to read it without a subscription, but please read this summary, because it’s probably the most important topic for counselors to know about in this week’s compilation of topics. It tells the story of a father who called 911 when his child became ill and then doctors detected a subdural hematoma and accused him of child abuse. When his wife said her husband did not abuse the children her children faced the possibility of being removed from the home because she was not ensuring that it was a safe place.
What you should know is that subdural hematomas can be caused by things other than abuse, which has now caused the American Academy of Pediatrics to propose a name change from Shaken Baby Syndrome” to “Abusive Head Trauma” to recognize that many things (e.g., falls, etc.) can cause subdural hematomas. Several court cases against parents in various states have been overturned considering these findings. So if you have couples who are accused of child abuse whom you believe are not abusers, be aware of this issue and encourage them to enlist a good attorney who has experience in this area.
If you wish to, please continue to pray for this family, for their case is still under review and they face the possibility that the father could be imprisoned for 12 years if convicted of child abuse.
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Recovery Ministries Try to Help Portland Get Clean
As you probably know, Oregon decriminalized drug abuse several years ago, believing the laws unfairly penalized some groups of people. Unfortunately, the result was an enormous increase in drug use and drug deaths, and recently the state has voted to recriminalize use of certain drugs. However, drug abuse continues at very high rates. This article from Christianity Today describes how Christians are attempting to minister in this situation.
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Coffee Drinking Tied to Better Survival, but Timing Matters
Those who drank coffee moderately (one to two cups per day) and drank it during the morning had lower all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality. However, those who drank coffee all day did not experience this benefit. The article (from Medpage Today) explains the possible reasons why.
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Mom brain is real
This new research is fascinating, and for those of us who are believers, just one more evidence of the wonderful ways God works in human lives to prepare us for life ahead. This article describes what research says about how mother’s brains change to prepare them for motherhood. Although there are many specifics that have not been articulated, just one more example of God’s grace to us.
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Reuters: Enslaved on OnlyFans: Women describe lives of isolation, torment and sexual servitude
Some of your clients may subscribe to OnlyFans, which is a major purveyor of pornography. Although it claims that all of its actors are doing so of their own consent, this in-depth report by Reuters demonstrates at least some of these women are imprisoned and doing what they do under duress.
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The Blessings (and Trials) of Parenting with ADHD
It is challenging to parent a child with ADHD, but it is doubly challenging if the parent also has ADHD. But as these parents share, having ADHD yourself can provide benefits when parenting your child who also has ADHD. See article for these surprising insights.
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10 Ways to Help Tame Your Soft Addictions
Soft addictions are not like hard addictions such as alcohol or drug abuse, but rather are habits that may be healthy (sometimes even necessary) in moderation but can become unhealthy when done in excess (e.g., shopping, spending, etc.). This article discusses them and gives ways to help people moderate soft addictions.
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Gambling Disorder on the Rise, but Often Overlooked
This article is written for physicians, but I think most counselors could benefit from reading it. Like physicians, we probably don’t routinely ask about this in our intakes. And, as the article suggests, most clients will underestimate the degree to which it is a problem if we ask. The article also has helpful comments about personality factors that predispose a person to gambling, treatment options, including a discussion of the treatment goal of harm reduction versus abstinence.
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Stimulant Users Are Caught in Fatal 'Fourth Wave' of Opioid Epidemic
If you are working with clients struggling with drug addiction, you may have heard of the “fourth wave” epidemic, which is when cocaine and a methamphetamine is mixed with fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger and often leads to fatal overdoses. Some users believe they can detect whether there is fentanyl in the drug they have purchased, but the only way to do this is by purchasing test strips, which cost $2.00 for a pack of two, or sometimes are given away free as part of harm-reduction programs.
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Marriage: America’s Keystone Institution
American culture appears to believe that education and money are the two most important factors in human flourishing. However, the author of this article argues that research indicates that the most important factor for human flourishing—for men, women, and children—is marriage.
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Evidence Mounting That Connects Cannabis to Youth Depression and Suicide
There is growing evidence that cannabis use leads to youth depression and suicide, and that this is dose-dependent, i.e., the more cannabis consumed, the more likely it is to cause depression and suicide. Although these facts are available, a growing number of states are legalizing recreational use of marijuana, and we know that legalization increases the likelihood of it being used by teens.
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Centuries of good and evil: The lottery turns 456 years old
There is another temptation that is particularly concerning for teen boys and young men—online gambling, which often starts with lottery tickets but can easily lead to online gambling and addiction. The Washington Post article is more in depth on the teen gambling dangers, but you have to purchase a subscription to the Post to access it. But if you work with teens, especially male teens or young men, you may want to ask about whether this is part of their life and then work with them if it is becoming problematic (it quickly can become so for some individuals).
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Excellent Resource on Counseling Those with Gender Identity Disorder/Gender Dysphoria
This one and one-half hour video includes comments from two world-famous experts on Gender Dysphoria, excellent narration by Dr. Julie Hamilton, and comments from several people who experienced gender-dysphoria/gender identity disorder as children or teens. It is available for viewing free at https://www.genderidentity101.com/
The Downsides of Romantic Fantasies
If you have a client with unrealistic beliefs about romance and marriage, this article might be helpful to have them read and discuss with you.
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Website for Parents of Desistors
A website dedicated to supporting parents of children and teens who are desisting and returning to living as their natal gender is now available at
Click here to go to the website
The Staying Power of the Traditional Wedding Vow
An important reminder of the importance of the marriage vow—a commitment to stay together and work things out rather than leave a marriage. Also a discussion of the relationship between communication skills training and marriage vows: communication skills training helps reduce conflict, but our vow to remain together and work things out is foundational to why we work through conflicts.
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Happy Martin Luther King’s day!
Henry Virkler