Articles from the Week of January 31, 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
Good Quotes About Honesty
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
William Shakespeare
Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul.
Benjamin Franklin
He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
Thomas Paine
To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so, is something worse.
John Quincy Adams
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson
Still I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man.
George Washington
Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense.
Theodore Roosevelt
Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: “A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Fascinating Facts
Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest: A Home Away From Home
We’re all familiar with Thomas Jefferson’s famous home, Monticello, which 25 million people have visited, but during his lifetime he was besieged with visitors, so he also had a vacation home, Poplar Forest, 90 miles away, which is smaller, but still very beautiful, to which he could retreat.
Click here to read the full article
9 Types of Memories to Hold Closely
Not a counseling article nor written by a counselor, but an interesting and thought-inspiring article.
Click here to read the full article
Do Astronauts Do Laundry in Space?
If you’ve wondered how astronauts do their laundry in space, you may be very surprised with the answer.
Click here to read the full article
Counseling Articles
People with ADHD die up to 11 years younger, study finds
You won’t be able to read this article unless you have a subscription to the Telegraph, a British newspaper, so I’ll summarize the major point. Although some people with ADHD live normal lifespans, the average person with ADHD (both men and women) live up to 10 years less than those who do not have ADHD. The article suggests there may be several factors that account for this. People with ADHD may experience some life challenges, educationally and otherwise, that those who do not have ADHD do not experience. They are also more likely to be impulsive and engage in risky behavior. And they are also more likely to smoke or do other things that shorten their lifespan. And they may have more difficulty accessing professional help when they need it.
Click here to read the full article
Dangerous new sex trend is sweeping college campuses: Doctors warn young men are at risk of death
If you work with young men you should probably be aware of this dangerous new trend, “honey packets,” which are billed as sexual enhancers but may contain ingredients that have not been FDA approved and can raise blood pressure to lethal levels. If you work with someone who may be tempted to try these, please let them know of the dangers.
Click here to read the full article
The Devastating Legacy of Lies in Alzheimer’s Science
Mr. Piller is an investigative journalist for Science. This essay is adapted from his upcoming book, “Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s.”
This is one of the most important (and devastating) articles I have read in a long time. Unfortunately it’s in the New York Times, so you probably won’t be able to read it without a subscription. Because it’s so important, I’ll try to summarize some of its most important points.
Alzheimer's disease affects millions of Americans and since there is no prevention or significant treatment for it, is the focus of much research. Unfortunately, there has been much research, published in journals, that has been shown to be questionable or even fraudulent. Mr. Piller has spent several years doing research and is in the process of writing a book on the subject. He names names, so he is certain of the assertions he is making. For example, the well-known neuroscientist Dr. Eliezer Masliah, who has published 800 papers and was thought to be a premier Alzheimer’s researcher, has been shown to have doctored slides and photographs and engaged in other questionable ways of presenting his evidence.
The author asked a team of imaging experts to evaluate other papers that have been published and identified 600 questionable images in multiple articles.
The article tells how he spoke to one specialist in the field about his concerns, who initially thought fraud and lies were rare in Alzheimer’s research, who after reviewing the data, said he went through the stages of grief.
Alzheimer's is a terrible disease that causes tremendous harm to individuals and families and we desperately need good solutions, but we must be able to depend on the honesty of those who are giving us information about treatment. Let's pray that God will raise up such researchers!
Click here to read the full article
How to Keep a Clean House When Everyone Has ADHD
Those with ADHD are legendary for their ability to leave clutter, but what if everyone in the home has ADHD, Dad, Mom, and all the children. Here is the question posed to this consultant, and her thoughtful answer. Some of these ideas would be helpful if there were just one person with ADHD (or is habitually messy) but could certainly work for families where two or more members have ADHD.
Click here to read the full article
Bipolar Hypersexuality: Understanding and Managing This Symptom
57% of those with bipolar disorder struggle with periods of hypersexuality during the manic phase, and those struggles, if not correctly handled, can cause all sorts of serious problems. Here are some good suggestions for understanding and managing those symptoms.
Click here to read the full article
Autism Prevalence Is Climbing, but It's Not Due to Vaccines
The reality is that autism prevalence is climbing, but exactly what is causing that increase is not clear currently.
Copy the link below to read the full article
https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/autism/113925
The Danger of the COVID-19 Vaccines Can No Longer Be Ignored
This is not a counseling article but is an article of such significance to all of us that it shouldn’t be ignored. Even though many of us had the COVID vaccine and booster without incident, this article documents that there are many medical research studies that show that the COVID vaccines were harmful to many people and killed more people than the atomic bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima.
Click here to read the full article
Struggling With Bipolar Depression? Here’s the No-Sweat Secret to Exercise
Although this article’s title is for those with bipolar depression, I think the ideas in it could be useful for anyone with treatment-resistant depression. It explains why any physical activity, not just formal exercise, can reduce depression, and also includes several ways to get started having more physical activity that doesn’t include going to the gym. So I think this article could be useful to anyone who realizes they should be more physically active, whether or not they are depressed.
Click here to read the full article
Removing the Mask on Men’s Emotions and Bipolar Disorder
This author talks about growing up as a boy and becoming a man and being socialized into the masculine belief that men didn’t share their feelings, which eventually resulted in his psychiatric hospitalization, where he also learned he had bipolar disorder. I think his story could be helpful to any young man who is reluctant to share his feelings, whether or not he has bipolar disorder. The author is now a mental health counselor.
Click here to read the full article
How ADHD Warps Time Perception: Strategies to Stop Wasting and Start Managing Time
People with ADHD are notorious about their skills with time management. This article discusses the problems that cause them to have such problems and then offers specific suggestions about how to be a better time manager. If you work with ADHD clients, or even anyone with significant problems in managing time, this article could be helpful to download to your computer.
Click here to read the full article
Out of the Silent Universe
Many atheists believe there is no god, and many cultures believe that if there is a god, he is silent. Camus, a famous atheist from the 20th century, believed that all human attempts to answer the question of the meaning of life are futile. But fortunately our God is not silent. The most common phrase in the Bible is “Thus saith the Lord.” And this article tells the fascinating story of how Camus came to believe in God during the final years of his life.
Click here to read the full article
Exhausted Media Ask Trump to Take a Day Off
Fun headline from the Babylon Bee.
The Latest Version of a Humanoid Robot Available If You’re Willing to Pay the Price
Here’s a description of the latest version of an AI-powered humanoid robot. It only costs $175,000.
Click here to read the full article
How the Gender Fever Finally Broke
Abigail Shrier wrote a book a few years ago called Irreversible Damage, in which she describes how she believes the transgender revolution has done significant damage to our young people, convincing them that they could change genders, and encouraging thousands of young girls to have their breasts amputated. In this article, which will be controversial to some counselors, she describes the various steps by which she believes this movement was implemented, the strength of the research support for the transgender movement, and how she believes this acceptance of transgender policies is finally being questioned. See what you think of the points she makes. Argentinian President Javier Milei joined President Trump in the last few days in denouncing transgender ideology.
Click here to read the full article
Trial Indicates Cognitive Safety Advantage of Magnetic Seizure Therapy (MST) Over Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) for Severe Depression
For 80 years ECT has been a major treatment for severe depression. However, in the past it sometimes caused some memory impairment, which prevented some people from using it. Modern versions of ECT have reduced those cognitive effects to some degree.
MST and ECT both work by causing a brain seizure so it is done under general anesthesia. MST has now been shown to be equally effective as ECT in treating severe depression, but it appears to produce even fewer cognitive effects than ECT, so if you have clients with severe depression, you now have another treatment to recommend to them.
Click here to read the full article
100-year-old predictions about 2025
If you need a bit of levity to brighten your day, here are some predictions from 100 years ago about what life would be like in 2025. (For those women who read this column, I think Prediction 1 is completely wrong!)
Click here to read the full article
Dumping Cement into Sewage System, Columbia University Radicals Deploy Tactics They Studied Months Earlier at Event Hosted by Campus Org
Many years ago Columbia University was a highly respected university, but very visible events in the last two years have tarnished that reputation. And recent events in the past few months have continued that trend. If you counsel young people on choosing a college to go to, you may want to encourage them to consider other schools.
Click here to read the full article
The One Thing Happy Couples Do Every Night
This article contains several ideas that you probably already do, but the one suggestion that it suggests couples do every night is something you may not be doing. If you are married or do marriage counseling it’s probably worth considering.
Click here to read the full article
FDA approves painkiller designed to eliminate the risk of addiction associated with opioids
A new painkiller has been developed and approved by the FDA that doesn’t have the addictive potential of opioids and has a different mechanism (blocking pain at the source rather than in the brain). Downsides include that it’s not quite as effective in pain relief as opioids and its more expensive.
Click here to read the full article
Police Warn Public of Surge in 'Jugging'
I mentioned this several weeks ago, but because it’s becoming more common, it’s probably worth mentioning again. It involves criminals who loiter around ATMs, and when people withdraw a significant amount of money, they follow them and rob them before they get home.
Click here to read the full article
Have a wonderful weekend or week!
Henry Virkler
https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/autism/113925