Articles from the Week of February 21, 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
“Example, whether it be good or bad, has a powerful influence.”
George Washington
"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person."
Mignon McLaughlin
"Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."
Michael Jordan
Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.
George Washington
Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live.
Jim Rohn
There is no normal life that is free of pain. It's the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.
Fred Rogers
The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.
Louisa May Alcott
Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read."
Athenaeus
"If I can inspire young people to dedicate themselves to the good of mankind, I've accomplished something."
John Glenn
Fascinating Facts
The skinniest house in the U.S. is a historic “spite house.”
The world’s skinniest house has an interesting reason for being built. It was built out of spite, and even though it’s only 7½ feet wide, it’s apparently a functional house and one couple lived there for nearly 25 years!
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Can Horses Drink Beer?
Although it seems rather strange, some people give their horses beer on occasion. If you’re interested in learning more about this, check out this link.
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This City’s Sewer System Is Full of Alligators, but It’s Not New York
New York City has legends of alligators living in its sewer system, but apparently in some Florida cities like Cape Coral, this is more than legend. Cape Coral installed several cameras in their sewer system. They did see alligators, but also other animals, including raccoons, possums, rats, armadillos, tree frogs, and 12 species of birds. In all, 30 different species were identified. The raccoons were the most problematic because they made off with several cameras. So before your children consider exploring any drainage systems, you may want to tell them they may not be alone.
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Counseling Articles
1 in 10 Married Young Adults Are on Dating Sites
This was a fascinating statistic: 1 in 10 young married persons are still on active on dating websites. Many said they were still on the site to meet new friends, although this sounds suspicious.
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Why Children with ADHD Hate Bedtime: Solutions to ADHD Sleep Problems
Parents of children with ADHD talk about their struggles with bedtime. This article has a few good suggestions about how to deal with such struggles.
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How to Soothe the Autistic Nervous System
Some children with autism have a chronically hyperactive nervous system. This article has some suggestions for parents.
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Progressive members of UK Parliament petition to end prayer
Not a counseling article, but a sad commentary on the secularization that is occurring in Great Britain, where progressive members of the parliament have called for the end of prayer in the opening of the meetings, something that has been a practice for hundreds of years.
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Cannabis Is Behind Rising Cases of Nausea and Vomiting
There is now another reason for people to be cautious of recreational and medical cannabis. It’s technically called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) and causes nausea, vomiting and stomach pain, which can last for 15 hours at a time, and in rare circumstances, can become life threatening. Right now it is poorly understood and since it is just beginning to be known, not every doctor is even aware of its existence. But if you are working with clients who use recreational or medical marijuana, you may want to be aware of this new issue.
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Effective opioid addiction treatment exists; why is it underused?
There have been a few articles about this in the past week. This is shorter than the one in the New York Times, but you can access it. Buprenorphine was discovered several years ago, and it is a proven and effective treatment for opioid addiction. However, it is not widely used in the U.S. for a variety of reasons, including the stigma of addiction, cost, availability of physicians trained to administer it, etc. But it is important to be aware of this if you have clients or families suffering from this life-threatening addiction.
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America’s sex recession: Young adults aren’t having sex
An interesting look at the fact that many young men and women are having little or no sex today.
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6 Things I Didn’t Realize About Taking Antipsychotics
A woman with bipolar disorder identifies six effects of taking antipsychotics that are at least mildly-unpleasant side effects, so you might not want to give this article to a person while they’re considering whether to go on medication. However, she concludes her article by saying that despite these side effects, antipsychotics have enabled her to remain stable in her moods, so in the long run, they’ve been worth it.
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Tips for Parents of Adult Children with Bipolar Disorder Living at Home
Sometimes an adult child develops bipolar disorder and comes back to live with their parents. Some of these parents feel like their home has been hijacked. This author, who has served as a consultant to many such families, offers some helpful information for such parents.
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Eight ways to stop procrastinating
This is from a British newspaper (the Telegraph), so I’ll summarize its major points, because we probably all have times we procrastinate, and we have clients who do so:
- 1. Ask: “Why is this important to me?” It’s important to find some intrinsic motivation—why is completing this task important to me is important to getting started.
- 2. Break the task down into micro-goals.
- 3. Recognizing rewards and consequences: identifying rewards of completing the task or consequences of procrastinating can be helpful motivators.
- 4. Identify your primary task: sometimes we distract ourselves from an important task by engaging in other less-important tasks.
- 5. Perfectionism is the enemy of done: Sometimes good enough is just fine. And sometimes it’s good to delegate a task to someone more skilled in that area.
- 6. Use a timer: it’s amazing what we sometimes can get done in 15 minutes.
- 7. Say “I will do it” rather than “I need to.” Make it a choice rather than a required task.
- 8. Make it fun. Play music or listen to a podcast while you do it.
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Study Links ‘Love Addiction’ to Emotional Dependence
The title of this article might cause some counselors to ignore it because it seems to be stating an obvious truth that’s already well-recognized. However, it was an interesting study of young college students (80% women) and their relationships with romantic partners. You might find some things you could use with clients who are unhealthily emotionally dependent on their romantic partners.
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ADHD Reduces Life Expectancy by 7 to 9 Years: New Study
A large British study, which compared 30,000 people with ADHD with about 300,000 people without it, found that ADHD reduced the lifespan of the average woman with ADHD by about 9 years, and the average lifespan of a man with ADHD by about 7 years. This article discusses the possible reasons why, and also how people with ADHD could change some of the factors that lead to shortened lifespan.
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“How I Dismantle My RSD with Mindfulness”
Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is something that many women with ADHD wrestle with. This author gives four suggested steps she uses to master her RSD. I believe her suggestions could be helpful to anyone, male or female, who struggles with some form of RSD, so I recommend it to all counselors.
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Healthy Ways to Overcome Caregiver Burnout
If you are counseling with someone who is a caregiver here is an article that will help them see that their feelings are normal for caregivers, will give some suggestions, and also some resources for further reading.
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Note: Caregivers Support Group Starting at Jupiter Medical Center March 4
More information at https://mailchi.mp/jupitermed/dementia-caregivers-powerful-tools?e=351f843805
The Relationship between Social Psychology and Counseling Psychology
Social psychology studies the social influences that affect how human beings develop. It studies both the factors that help us develop healthily as well as those that can have negative effects on our mental health.
As a result, social psychology can have important insights for us as counselors. By understanding the processes that lead to unhealthy functioning it can give us important insights into how to best bring psychotherapy interventions into counseling to help bring healing to individuals. And by understanding the processes that lead to healthy functioning, we can help clients replace unhealthy habits with thought processes and behaviors that will lead to healthy functioning again. For those reasons I think someone who understands social psychology well and can explain those concepts clearly has much to offer us in the field of counseling. Because of that I am strongly encouraging every counselor to read the book described below.
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
One reviewer of this book wrote (I’ve slightly modified what he said): “Every single parent, teacher and counselor needs to stop what they are doing and read this book immediately.”
There has been a well-documented increase in mental health challenges (anxiety, depression, suicidal feelings and attempts, (primarily in females, but to a lesser extent in males) and disengagement from school, from college and from relationships (primarily in males, but to a lesser extent in some females). How do we understand the significant increases in mental health issues among our children and teens that have been occurring in Western countries in the last fifteen years?
The author does not just develop his own hypotheses: he has an encyclopedic grasp of the recent sociological research done in the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia, and brings that together in a way that will make sense to parents, teachers, and counselors alike (his book contains about 80 pages of reference articles at the end documenting the statements he makes).
Here is a sentence that summarizes his two major points: “My central claim in this book is that these two trends—overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.
Haidt backs up his statements with 80 pages of social psychology research studies, and I think anyone who reads his book will agree that his thesis makes a great deal of common and psychological sense.
But fortunately he doesn’t stop there. The last four chapters identify specific things that we can do to change these trends and bring healing to those who have been harmed by them. Parents often believe the situation is hopeless if all their children’s friends still are engaging in those very attractive (but harmfully addictive) behaviors, and they are right. To effectively change things we must engage in collective action (working together with others) (Chapter 9).
And in Chapter 10 he describes what governments and tech companies can do. Again, collective action is necessary, and one tech company is unlikely to change their policies if other companies are only going to scoop up all their child and teen consumers.
In Chapters 11 and 12 he discusses what schools and parents can do. His specific suggestions are not expensive and could be implemented by almost any school system. He cites school systems and countries that have tried these solutions and the results those changes have made.
So I would end with the recommendation the reviewer at the beginning made: “Every single parent, teacher and counselor needs to stop what they are doing and read this book immediately.” I believe if you do so you will find it will be one of the best investments of your time that you could make.
Sincerely,
Henry Virkler