Counseling News from the Week of December 5,2025

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

“Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.”

ABIGAIL ADAMS

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”

Victor Hugo, "William Shakespeare"

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

James Baldwin

“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.”

René Descartes

"In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do."

Gianni Versace

“Participation in a society is not an artistic choice; it’s a human need.”

AI WEIWEI

Fascinating Facts

I’ll not include anything in this section because I believe I have maximum words in this Friday Mailing. There are several important warnings about keeping children protected during this holiday season, so if you are a pastor, counselor or parent please pay attention to those articles.

Counseling Articles

Journey Church mourns pastor, father of 4 killed in crash: ‘Faith in the valleys’

Joshua Rene, who served as the executive pastor of Journey Church, which has congregations in West Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach, and Juno Beach, was killed this past week in a collision between his motorcycle and a pickup truck. See article for more details and remember his wife, children and church family in prayer.

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Men don’t act their age until their mid-30s. After a decade of dating, I should know

This is from the Telegraph¸ a British newspaper, so you won’t be able to read it without a subscription, so I’ll summarize its gist. Commenting on the Cambridge study which came out last week, that indicated the adolescence epoch of the brain lasts until at least the early 30s, this British young woman, who has dated many men in their late 20s and early 30s, agrees that most men don’t leave adolescent ways of thinking until at least their early 30s. She complains that most men in their 20s and early 30s are unwilling to share their feelings. Many say they want a relationship but flee as soon as a commitment is expected. She does not address the situation with females, since she’s focusing on her dating experiences with males, so we don’t know whether males dating females in this same age range feel the same way.

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How to Live to 100, According to Dick Van Dyke

You won’t be able to read this article either without a subscription, because it’s from the New York Times, so I’ll provide a summary. Dick Van Dyke, whom most of us have seen in movies such as Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, is approaching 100, and has recently written a book “100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life.”

He does recognize and accept that some things in his body don’t work as well as they used to. He wears hearing aids and recognizes that his eyesight is not as sharp as it used to be.

Although probably most of us will not live to 100, there are things that Van Dyke recommends that can help us live full lives as long as we do live. He goes to the gym three days a week and does yoga and stretching exercises on other days. He keeps an attitude of playfulness with him throughout each day, looking for the enjoyable things around him. He sings every day. He keeps up social relationships with friends and enjoys having his grandchildren and great-grandchildren visit him.

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Yikes! I’m Attracted to My Client: Five Clinicians Weigh In

Here are five suggestions from various clinicians about how to handle it when you are experiencing feelings of attraction toward a client. You can see if you feel comfortable with any of their suggestions or would handle the situation differently. (If you do not have a subscription to the Psychotherapy Networker you can probably access the article by registering as a guest.)

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Exercise Added to Standard Care Promising for Adult ADHD

Adding a standard exercise program to standard care for Adult ADHD reduced ADHD symptoms for participants significantly over those in the control group.

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10 Strategies to Get Through the Holidays with Bipolar Disorder

Ten strategies by someone with bipolar disorder of some time-tested strategies she and her colleagues have used to get through the stresses of the holiday season.

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A Smartphone Before Age 12 Could Carry Health Risks, Study Says

This is from the New York Times and you won’t be able to read it without a subscription, so I’ll summarize the gist. A recent study of 12,000 children, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that purchasing a smartphone for a child who is younger than 12 increases the likelihood that they will experience higher rates of depression, obesity and poor sleep than children who do not have such access. This is an association, so the study is not proving cause and effect. But other studies have shown that purchasing a cellphone for young children decreases the time they spend socializing and exercising. And having access to cellphones while in bedrooms at night keeps children from getting adequate sleep.

So you may encourage parents who are being badgered about this issue that delaying such a purchase for a child younger than 12 that delaying the purchase is for their own good.

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Rebel nuns win reprieve to stay in convent, refuse to sign church demands they get off social media

Three rebellious nuns  in Austria, two of whom are in their 80s, have broken into their former convent after fleeing from a church-run nursing home and not giving in to demands from the Church that they stay off social media and cease all media contact (they have 100,000 followers on Instagram and several thousand more on Facebook). The article says all three had taught for decades at the convent and had been promised lifelong residence at the Convent for their service if their health allowed. Pictures showed them eating lunch together and later one of the sisters engaged in a boxing-glove workout. The Church contends that the women are disobeying their vows to the Church of lifelong obedience. Some plucky 80-year-olds!

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Concerns About Chatbots

Because two teens have committed suicide, and at least four lawsuits have been filed, some publishers of chatbots are halting the use of chatbots by teens. Many of those teens are mourning the loss of their chatbots “friends,” some of whom had conversations with their chatbots for several hours per day. There are two articles from the Wall Street Journal and one from the Harvard Business School, all of which can only be accessed with subscriptions or for a payment, but for counselors and parents and pastors, one should be aware that these chatbots are created with the intention to convince users to spend longer and longer on them, often to encourage them to purchase things, and sometimes to encourage them into activities that are not healthy.

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What to Know About the ‘764’ Online Predator Network and the Federal Crackdown

Chatbots are not the only threats to children that counselors and parents need to know about. A group of human perpetrators prey on children as young as 9 years old and encourage them to become involved in unhealthy activities. Children and teens typically access children through social media platforms such as Discord, Roblox, Snapchat, Instagram, and Telegram.

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How a Generation of Women Was Misled About Hormone Therapy

For the last 15 years women going through early stages pre-menopause, menopause or perimenopause were cautioned by a black box warning that taking a combination of estrogen and progesterone could cause an increase in breast cancer, stroke, or pulmonary embolism. As a result, millions of women have suffered years of uncomfortable symptoms. Antidepressants sometimes were prescribed, which often did not adequately decrease their symptoms. Sometimes they were told this was just due to aging, and there was no treatment.

This month the FDA has removed the black box warning. It appears that the early warnings were based on studies of older women (women in their 60s, 70s and 80s) and also used older formulations of estrogen and progesterone that are no longer being used. So women approaching menopause, are in menopause or after menopause who are experiencing uncomfortable symptoms should contact their doctor about appropriate treatment. Millions of women are understandably frustrated for the years of discomfort they have experienced.

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The Outcry Among Some Professional Groups About the Supreme Court Considering Conversion Therapy

Some professional groups have loudly decried the fact that the Supreme Court is considering whether any discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity that might eventually lead a person away from homosexuality or transgender ideology would be a limitation of free speech, claiming that any such discussions never amount to change and cause clients to experience depression, anxiety, or worse.

Now it is true that if a parent or pastor or counselor used coercive speech to try to compel a child or teen to change either of these that could be harmful. But to have gentle, supportive discussions of such matters to help clients think through these issues is a very different matter, and hopefully the Supreme Court will recognize that pastors, parents and counselors should retain the right to do so when appropriate, and such speech should not be constrained by state laws. (You probably won’t be able to read this article without a subscription to the Guardian, which is a British newspaper, although similar arguments have been made by the leaders of professional groups here in the U.S.)

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A Teddy Bear Not to Buy Children for Christmas

Teddy Bears have been loved by children for many years. But this year toymakers have added a new version—Teddy Bears powered by AI. And although these AI Teddy Bears were supposedly tested and approved by experts, including pediatricians and psychiatrists, it was found that when the AI teddy bears were engaged in conversations, they would talk about pills, knives, sex, and other activities harmful to children. So for Christmas gifts for children, just stick with the old-fashioned Teddy Bears, not those powered by AI. (You won’t be able to read this article without a subscription to the Washington Post, but I think this summary gives you the information you need.)

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College Instructor Put on Leave Over Zero Grade for Gender Essay

This issue has received national attention. This article (and other articles) give further details on this issue that arose in a psychology course. The instructor is transgender, born a male but claims his identity as a woman. The assignment was to read an article and write an analysis of it. Although the University is a state university, it agrees that viewpoint diversity should be allowed in college classes including viewpoints based on Scriptural convictions. An unrelated professor was asked to read the assignment and the essay and said there is no way the assignment should have received a zero grade. The student makes the point that she believes people should share their thoughts on issues, whether they agree with the political beliefs of the professor of that particular course.

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How Safe Is AI for Mental Health Information?

You may have a client who asks you this question. This answer by a psychiatrist is a balanced answer: he tells what AI does well, but for clinical judgement he recommends consulting a professional and he recognizes that AI sometimes makes mistakes and misses warning signs.

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Inside Bipolar Psychosis: How I Lost Reality and Found My Way Back

A powerful story from a woman who has experienced both PTSD from a traumatic attack while a teenager and several episodes of bipolar disorder which resulted in psychosis and how, despite these challenges, she has managed to recover from those episodes, raise her children, and learn how to live a meaningful life.

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FDA-Approved Glasses Slow Nearsightedness in Kids

There have been contact lenses that seem to slow the progression of myopia (nearsightedness) in children but some parents are hesitant to have their children use contacts. Now there is a new brand of glasses approved by the FDA to slow the progression of nearsightedness. The slowing of the progression of nearsightedness may have other benefits (discussed in the article). So this discovery may be of interest to some parents.

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Dialectical Behavior Therapy Versus Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Treatment for Suicidal Behavior in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial

This study found that DBT for suicidal behavior when treating borderline personality disorder resulted in significantly less suicide-related events than treatment with SSRIs.

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Communicating the Neurobiology of MDD

This article, appearing in the November issue of the Psychiatric News, discusses the fact that the serotonin deficiency model, which was the primary model for the last two decades, has some deficiencies, for treatment with serotonin-enhancing drugs does not alleviate all depressions. She advocates in its place a neuroplasticity model, which recognizes that many depressions stem from a deficiency of serotonin, but that some depressions are caused by other factors. To quote from the article, there are “heterogeneous biopsychosocial contributors to MDD, such as genetic load, in utero exposures, stress and trauma, neuroinflammation, and medical conditions.” She then goes on to explain what she means by that.

While I agree with much of what she has said in the article, I believe that trying to explain all depression because of neurobiological factors leaves out a few possible sources of some people’s depression. Here are just three, and probably you can identify others. One psychological source is unrealistic expectations. Whenever people have unrealistic expectations in any area, e.g. individual relationships, marital relationships, career, etc., and those expectations are not met, they are likely to feel frustrated, and if the situation continues, depressed. A second source of depression is existential: for example, we all need to have a meaningful goal we are working toward, and if we lose that goal, e.g., through retirement, we are likely to feel depressed unless we find something else to give us a new sense of purpose. And thirdly, I think some depressions may be due to spiritual factors. For example, guilt can cause a person to become depressed. Or a person may realize they desire some sort of relationship with a Higher Power, but either because of intellectual questions or an unwillingness to give control of their life to someone greater than themselves, or for some other reason, they may feel unwilling to take that step. There are probably other reasons you can add to this list. But my response to this author’s article is that, while I agree that she has made several valid points, I believe that some of our client’s depressions cannot simply be explained in neurobiological terms. I believe that to be the best counselors we can be, we should answer the question “What is causing this client’s depression at this point in time?” and then help them develop a solution to whatever is causing it. In some cases, it may be to refer them to a medical professional for medical treatment, but in some cases it may to explore other kinds of solutions.

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I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving week and encourage you to consider some of the warning we are receiving as you purchase gifts for this Christmas season.

Henry Virkler