Counseling News from the Week of February 6,2026
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
“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
Seneca the Younger, "Moral Letters to Lucilius"
“We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart.”
Blaise Pascal
“The search for truth is never over.”
MORGAN FREEMAN
“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.”
René Descartes
“Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.”
Cato the Elder
Fascinating Facts
(I’ve not included anything in this section in order to leave room for other important articles this week.)
Counseling Articles
Why Reading on Print Is Better for Your Brain
This YouTube video will take 15 minutes to listen to, but I think it’s worth investing the time. It shows that for quick learning about information, reading from a screen is worthwhile, but to really comprehend difficult information or retain it, reading it from a book will help you understand it better and retain it longer.
Click here to watch the video
Heteroflexible was the fastest growing sexuality of 2025 – this is what it means
Heteroflexible is listed as the fastest growing sexuality in 2025. It refers to someone who is primarily heterosexual but is open to experimenting with same-sex relationships.
Click here to read the full article
The Sexuality That Feels 'Alien': What Nebulasexual Means as More People Come Out
Since most of us have not heard this term before, nebulasexual, first discussed in 2014, refers to a sexuality that feels vague, unclear, or difficult to define. The term is related to the idea that someone defines their sexual feelings as nebulous. So if you have a client who comes in with that issue, you now have a name for it.
Click here to read the full article
How common is rough sex? Research highlights a stark generational divide
Although rough sex is being shown more frequently in some media, this researcher wanted to know how common it was in real life. She interviewed about 9,000 men and women. She found that about 50% of men and women said they had participated as either the active participant or the recipient, although men were slightly more likely to be the active participant and women slightly more likely to be the recipient. Participants of the research were presented with a list of 10 behaviors in giving their answers about what they meant by the term “rough sex.” The most common behaviors participants said they had engaged in were biting and light spanking. More intense behaviors such as smothering or punching were reported less frequently.
Age was definitely a factor: young people were more likely to have engaged, and the cohort younger than 40 more likely to have engaged than the cohort above 40.
Click here to read the full article
10 Common Concerns About Bipolar Medications — and How to Handle Them
When patients are prescribed medications for bipolar disorder, there are a number of reasons they don’t take them regularly. Here are 10 of those reasons, and good answers for why it’s in their best interests to find the medication, or combination of medication, that gives them mood stability.
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Transgender Detransitioner Receives Millions in First Malpractice Verdict Outcome
Parents in the past were often persuaded to approve transgender surgery for their children by being asked the question: “Would you rather have a transgender child or a dead child?’ Fox Varian, who received transgender surgery at 16, was awarded 2 million dollars in a lawsuit against her surgeon, plastic surgeon and counselor in the first successful lawsuit by a detransitioner who said her counselor encouraged her to have gender surgery while she was too young to understand the full implications of the decision she was making.
Click here to read the full article
Physician Group Opposes Youth Gender Transition Surgery
For the first time a mainline U.S. physician group is recommending against gender transition surgery for those younger than 19, reversing an earlier position they had taken in 2019. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons sent an 11-page letter to their 11,000 members saying that there was “insufficient evidence supporting a favorable risk-benefit calculus for performing the surgeries on children.” The letter recommends that such surgery not be done before a person is 19, citing evidence from comprehensive reviews on treatment of gender dysphoria in minors from medical journals in Europe and from studies showing that most instances of gender dysphoria resolve or substantially reduce in intensity by the conclusion of puberty. This recommendation contradicts positive statements about gender transition treatments by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society. The recent award of $2 million against a surgeon and plastic surgeon may have had some effect on their position. The decision by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons may also be in part because there are 30 pending lawsuits by people who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria and received gender transforming medical treatment. Although gender transition treatments are quite lucrative for hospitals and the doctors performing them, the threat of potential lawsuits, the research from medical journals in Europe, and the resistance from the Trump administration may be having an effect.
Click here to read the full article
Doctors’ Group Endorses Restrictions on Gender-Related Surgery for Minors
You won’t be able to read this article without a subscription to the New York Times so I’ll summarize its major points. In a very significant development, The American Medical Association on Wednesday supported the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommendation that doctors postpone any gender-related surgeries until individuals are 19. They cited some of the same reasons as those given by the ASPS. The AMA recommended such children be given supportive counseling but any surgical decisions be delayed.
Click here to read the full article
Trump Voters in Red States Oppose AI Accelerationism
Although this headline seems to indicate the research is only about Trump voters, the research involves several issues voters in general feel about AI. The majority believe that government should have some role in regulating AI, that AI companies should be responsible for any harms their products cause, and that AI chatbots should not be available to children.
Click here to read the full article
Every Marriage Needs a Bootcamp
This article makes several good points. Most of us have no formal training in preparing for marriage. Some individuals have had no models of what a healthy marriage looks like, and most of us do not know how to make the transition from falling in love to making a love relationship stay strong for many years. In this article this author, who is now a psychologist and professor, grew up in a single parent family, discusses how she researched and then developed a six-week on-line course for young couples as they begin their marriages or decide they want to continue to improve them.
Click here to read the full article
The Secret to Marriage Equality Is Formula
This is from the New York Times, so I’ll summarize its major points. The author, a mother, breastfed her first child, and she lauds the many benefits, such as passing on the mother’s protective antibodies to the baby and the powerful bonding that occurs. But there are downsides, such as sleep disruption during the night, and the problems that could occur if the mother has to be away for one or more days, such as emergency hospitalization or something else. So for their second child, she still nurses occasionally, but uses bottle feeding for most times, and her husband shares the feeding responsibility. She recommends this method to couples, and it came in handy when she had to have an emergency appendendectomy.
Click here to read the full article
Research Finds Interaction with Father, Not Mother, Affects Child Health
This is from the New York Times, so I’ll summarize its major points. This research study of 292 families found that the quality of interaction by fathers with infants, when measurements were taken at 2 and 7 years, found that positive involvement by fathers was associated with better heart and metabolic functioning, but no such associations were found with mother’s interactions. I believe most researchers would say that both parents’ involvement is important, but this research does point out the importance of fathers being positively involved in interactions with their infant children. (The point from the previous article about sharing feeding responsibilities with the husband seems relevant here.)
Click here to read the full article
Men Are Happiest When They Do 2 Things, Data Shows
Research shows that men are happiest when they (1) are married and (2) have children.
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Male Friendship in an Epidemic of Isolation
This article contains several good points about a topic about which many commentators and counselors have written. I encourage you to read the article, because I think it has good points for counselors. I’ll just mention two articles or books mentioned in the article: “How Male Friendship Saves Lives,” written by Jarie Bolander and “Making and Keeping Man Friendships,” by Brett McKay.
Click here to read the full article
4 highlights from 'Melania' documentary about the first lady and her family
This movie is in theatres now, and on Thursday Amazon stated it is opening it in 200 more theatres because of the early response by audiences. This article from the Christian Post might help you decide whether you would like to see it. Other reviews besides this one seem to reflect one’s attitude towards Trump. For example, the articles in the New York Times are routinely negative. But the fact that Amazon has decided to add 200 theatres to the number of places showing Melania indicates there is widespread interest in our First Lady.
Click here to read the full article
Hillary Clinton speaks out against 'toxic empathy' — but misses the point
Hillary Clinton has recently been in the news regarding her views on “toxic empathy.” Here is what I believe is an excellent analysis of her thinking.
Click here to read the full article
How to Look for an ADHD/LD Overlap
Sometimes ADHD and a learning disability coexist, and sometimes one is misdiagnosed as the other. Here is an informative article on the subject.
Click here to read the full article
Talk Therapy Best Option for Managing Grief
New research has confirmed that talk therapy is the most effective treatment for managing grief and the depression that comes from grief.
Click here to read the full article
How Neuralink Will Change the World
Neuralink is a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk designed to create brain computer interfaces (BCIs) that, at present, help some people who have lost sensory abilities to be able to function at least partially again. It will employ neuroscientists, engineers, and others to create various BCIs to provide medical assistance and possibly enhance cognitive abilities in the future. Obviously, ethical issues will need to be addressed as the field develops.
Click here to read the full article
A Book I Would Encourage Every Christian Counselor to Read
I’ve never said this about any humanly written book before, but I think this is a book that every person, Christian or not, should read. I’ll explain briefly why. The authors, two Europeans who are unknown to most American readers, say there is one issue that every person needs to answer: Is there a supernatural Creator, or can the universe, all life including human life, be explained as simply the product of natural processes acting on matter (i.e., materialism)?
The authors say we cannot prove the answer to this question absolutely, but that we can look at the implications of what scientific study has revealed, particularly in the last 50 years, and what the implications of various sciences have revealed to answer this question.
The authors are two Europeans, both of whom are brilliant scientists in their respective fields, who have spent four years compiling the scientific research and explaining it in terms that most of us can understand.
I’ve spent the last month reading this book and made a summary. While it’s a 20-page summary, the actual book is about 600 pages long, and so its length may cause some people to postpone reading it immediately. I hope this summary will whet your appetite to purchase and read the whole book yourself as soon as your time allows. For believers, I think it will reassure you there is incredible amount of scientific evidence that a supernatural, super-intelligent Creator created the universe about 13.8 billion years ago and continues to watch over it today. And for the non-believer, I believe the book provides all the information needed to convince a skeptical person that it makes more sense to believe in a divine Creator than to believe that materialism and natural Darwinian processes explain how we came to be.
Here is a 20-page summary of the book (sorry about its length, I could not find a way to shorten it). What I hope is that it will, if you read it, give you enough of a foretaste of this book that you will want to purchase the book and read it on your own. I’m going to attach this summary to the Friday News, but I don’t know whether Wild Apricot will allow me to attach something of this length. If it does not, I encourage you to go to one or more of the book reviews available online to get a taste of the book. It has recently become available as a Kindle book for $2.99.
(I have sent the attached summary to one of the authors, who has read it, made minor corrections, and given me permission to share it.)
I can't attach the summary to this newsletter because it exceeds the allowable length for an attachment to the Friday News. This summary of God, The Science, the Evidence will be posted on the SFACC.net website on Friday or Saturday for you to download. You may find it by going to the tab “Training Archive” and then looking for “Recommended Books.”
Sincerely,
Henry Virkler