Counseling News from the Week of January 30,2026
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
“It is assuredly better to go laughing than crying through the rough journey of life.”
George Washington
"What works for me is extreme weed-pulling on my to-do list. Clearing out the unnecessary creates the space and conditions for me to nurture my connection with family. And the soil beneath it all is acceptance."
Alicia Keys
“Practice justice in word and deed, and do not get in the habit of acting thoughtlessly about anything.”
Pythagoras
“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.”
Simonides of Ceos
"The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid."
JD Salinger
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
Robert Frost
“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.”
WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD
Fascinating Facts
Light has been modeled as a wave and a stream of particles throughout history
Depending on how long ago you were in high school, your teachers may have told you that light was both a wave and a stream of particles. Now quantum mechanics has validated both models.
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Snowflakes form when water vapor turns directly into ice
Snowflakes do not form when water freezes: they form when water vapor turns directly into ice. Because the water molecule is hexagonal (due to the configuration of hydrogen and electrons), it forms the beautiful lattice structure that makes up snowflakes.
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Counseling Articles
The Biggest Mistakes Men Make in Relationships
If you work with men in early marriage this may be a helpful article to discuss with them. The ideas may be ones that trained counselors are already familiar with, but some young men may need help with, and working on them may help them have better marriages and prevent divorce.
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Wearable intelligent throat enables natural speech in stroke patients with dysarthria
In a major medical advance, researchers have integrated AI with a device that reads vocal cord fluctuations and carotid impulses to produce regular-sounding speech that has a high degree of accuracy in expressing the thoughts the person wishes to communicate. This will be helpful to people who have lost their ability to speak because of stroke, ALS, or Parkinsonism. The developers plan to continue to improve the technology in the future, but this will be a major advance in allowing these patients to be able to communicate.
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Bill Gates Reveals He’s Probably on the Autism Spectrum
Bill Gates personal appearances have often shown his intense focus, monotone delivery, and sometimes awkward demeanor. His daughter mentioned that when she brought boys home to meet her father they were often intimidated by his behavior. He has admitted that if he were a child today he would probably be diagnosed on the autism spectrum, what we previously called Asperger’s Disorder. People with Asperger’s Disorder can vary widely on cognitive abilities, as is the case with Gates. His admission will be an encouragement to other young people with similar neurological issues that they can overcome their disabilities and be successful in the world.
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A psychologist says this exercise can make you more hopeful in fourteen days
You may not be able to access this article without a subscription to the Washington Post, so I will summarize its major point for you. A psychologist says that this simple exercise, which she calls the “Noticing Nature Intervention,” involves going out in nature and noticing at least one thing in nature as you are outside for 14 days. You can take a picture of what you see if you wish. She says doing this for 14 days will produce a noticeable improvement in your mood.
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The Working Motherhood Shift Conservatives Didn’t See Coming
Married mothers are increasingly working full time. They often cite affordability as a major factor. Working mothers prefer jobs that offer some flexibility and some paid family leave when this is available, but paid family leave is not as common in the U.S. as it is in Europe.
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Has Our Reliance on EdTech Ushered in an Illiterate Age?
A growing number of studies and schools have started to recognize that there are some drawbacks to overuse of digital technology in the classroom. Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath’s book The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms our Kids’ Learning—and How to Help Them Thrive Again gives several warnings. He says that digital technology is “almost always slower, shallower, and less durable” than traditional teaching methods. He is a neuroscientist and educator himself. He explains how the brain works and shows how, as screen time increases in classrooms, learning decreases. He says that teaching children critical thinking skills and giving them a basic fund of academic information is what is most important. If you are an educator or are interested in the topic for other reasons, this book may be of interest to you.
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Why A.I. Can’t Make Thoughtful Decisions
In an article related to the above, I’ll summarize the major points from the article since its from the New York Times. Here is a quote that summarizes its central point: “What do I mean by “judgment”? The capacity to arbitrate among competing values and differences of opinion, to weigh considerations that matter independently but cannot be satisfied all at once, to consider several paths of action to alight on the best one. Judgment is the faculty we rely on when trade-offs are unavoidable and the right answer is not waiting to be computed. It is a uniquely human skill.”
The author says that he is not worried that AI will replace a large number of jobs because so many jobs require more than rapid calculation of facts, often require weighing various options where sometimes the variables are ambiguous, and this requires human judgement.
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The Social Mobility Index: Ranking the States on Family Life
This title may not sound interesting, but the concepts in the article are. It appears that two factors—parental engagement and family stability are crucial factors in helping children develop the cognitive skills, character traits and soft skills that will enable them to be mobile and to be successful in adult life. The two states that scored the lowest on the Social Mobility Index have the highest rates of childhood poverty and the two states with the highest scores have much lower rates of childhood poverty.
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A Cluttered Home Causes More Stress for Women Than Men
For men as well as women, a home full of clutter is less pleasing than one that is not cluttered, and both men and women can improve their attitudes about being home and about life in general by tidying up their home. But there is a sex difference: for most women, a cluttered home produces more stress for them than for their spouse. This may be due to multiple factors, including the idea that the home is the wife’s domain and responsibility, and also the fact that she may spend more time in the home.
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How Important is School?
Mark Gregston writes this article for parents of a child with ADHD, but I think it has some good points for all parents about the many values that school offers to young people besides getting good grades. See what you think.
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How to Be There for a Friend with Bipolar Disorder
An excellent blog by Tanya Hvilivitsky about how to be a friend to someone with bipolar disorder. Six of the eight suggestions could be helpful to anyone who wants to support a friend going through a challenging time who is searching for ways to support them.
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Daily Living Tips for Adult ADHD
Here are sixteen daily living tips for helping adults to be more organized and effective in using their time and making sure they address all important tasks. Although the author writes this for adults with ADHD, I found that I used nearly every one on a daily basis even though I had never seen this list before. I think this list could be helpful to most adult clients and counselors.
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How Bad Are A.I. Delusions? We Asked People Treating Them.
This is from the New York Times, so I’ll summarize its major points. It is quite a thorough article, so if you have a subscription to the newspaper I suggest you read it yourself. It includes information from several psychologists and psychiatrists who have counseled with multiple patients with AI delusions.
While psychologically fragile individuals are especially vulnerable to AI delusions, some fairly high functioning individuals have also been subject to such delusions. The delusions span a broad range of subjects, from romantic delusions to messianic delusions. They have caused some clients to have depressive or anxiety episodes, and in a few cases even allegedly caused violent episodes.
Although the article is good, it does not include much about treatment other than the recommendation that clients reduce time with chatbots and get adequate sleep.
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Antidepressant Tapering: Why a ‘Smallest First Step’ Is Vital
If you have a bipolar patient who thinks they are doing well and is considering discontinuing their antidepressant, please have them read this article first. It is by a medical doctor with lots of experience with bipolar disorder. The majority of patients who try this go back on their antidepressant. There are a small minority who, with their treatment team do have successful taper, but it is not a do-it-yourself project.
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5 Tools That Changed How I Live with Bipolar
Here are five tools that someone who has lived with bipolar disorder says have helped her live effectively. You may have heard of one or two, but I think learning about the others is helpful.
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Something Wicked: Why Feminism Can’t Be Fused with Christianity
I do not know if you can read this book review because it came to my email address, but if you can’t, let me encourage you to go to good bookseller and read a review. The book discusses why modern secular feminism is impossible to fuse with Christianity. It might be helpful to Christian counselors and to any Christian women considering marriage who have thought parts of feminism were attractive to them.
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Next DSM Insights
This article includes some of the topics the DSM-6 may include, such as: (1) how chatbots may be related to suicidality, psychosis and delusions, (2) how menopause may be related to adverse mental health outcomes, (3) a report on a new treatment for ADHD and an investigation of early postnatal studies on the development of ADHD, (4) the issue of microdosing on antipsychotics, (6) the possible relationship between women who have depression or anxiety and development of long COVID, and (7) a committee to write their thoughts on the current controversies about autism.
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Wearable Activity Sensors + AI May Help to Distinguish Adolescent Bipolar Disorder from ADHD and Other Disorders
When a teenager has had a depressive episode but not a manic or hypomanic episode and has some symptoms suggesting ADHD, it’s difficult to know whether the diagnosis will eventually be unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, or either in combination with ADHD. Now wearable sensors and AI may help clinicians make this difficult differential diagnosis more
quickly.
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Dealing With a Difficult Relationship? Here’s How Psychology Says You Can Shift the Dynamic
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Here’s a summary from a book by a relationship expert and a psychologist who specializes in attachment therapy. Although you know some of the things they say, I think they have some new ideas that may help you in dealing with difficult relationships.
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The Nefarious Reason Why Google Wants Schools to Give Your Child a Chromebook
Many schools are encouraging students to get Chromebooks to help them in their studies. But according to documents recently revealed from internal Google files, Google’s purpose is to use Chromebook to create a pipeline for future users.” A cognitive neuroscientist who has studied this was quoted as saying: “These companies speak about learning, but to them, learning is just the cover they’re using for these practices of ‘How do we get customers now’ and ‘How do we keep them for life.”
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ADHD Medications May Not Improve Attention, Study Suggests
Doctors and scientists have long believed that ADHD medications work by improving attention, but now researchers are questioning that as the primary mechanism. Recent brain scans show that ADHD medications work, not on the attention centers of the brain, but on the reward centers. The new thinking is that they work by making the current task more interesting, and because of that, persons with ADHD stay more focused.
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Why Your Brain Overreacts to Fear—and How to Fix It
Because we live in a high-stress world our brains may be overstimulated and we find ourselves becoming anxious too much of the time. There are basically two ways to overcome fear. One is cognitive, which uses the prefrontal cortex. By convincing ourselves that something is not really a threat, we can reduce our fear. The other is by reconditioning the amygdala, which involves exposing ourselves to the feared situation incrementally, so the amygdala is conditioned to realize the situation is not harmful. Useful information for counselors.
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When Your Teen Turns to Pot to Deal with Life
A good article to share and discuss with parents who are concerned with their child using marijuana.
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I hope you have a wonderful week!
Henry Virkler