Valentine's Day Extra Posting February 14, 2026
Explanation: I had a few articles yesterday that I couldn’t include in last week’s articles because of word limits in Wild Apricot, and there were several articles late yesterday and today that gave me a full word limit for this newsletter, so I’m including an extra edition of Friday News (actually Saturday News today).
Interesting Quotes
"Unfortunately, many people do not consider fun an important item on their daily agenda. For me, that was always a high priority in whatever I was doing."
Chuck Yeager
“To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.”
Horace, "Epistles"
"Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet."
Author and poet Katharine Lee Bates
“To love is to will the good of the other.”
Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologica"
“The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.”
RITA DOVE
Fascinating Facts
On February 13th, 1633 Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome to stand trial for advocating that the Earth revolves around the Sun, a criminal heresy to the church of that time. Galileo was judged to be "vehemently suspect of heresy" and sentenced to indefinite house arrest, where he remained until his death.
Table for one? Now you can take your AI chatbot on an actual date at NYC’s ‘world first’ companion cafe
For those who would like to take the AI chatbot out for a date, there is now a café in New York City where you can bring your cellphone or laptop and have your AI boyfriend or girlfriend accompany you on a date.
Click here to read the full article
Counseling Articles
How a Bad Night’s Sleep Affects the Brain’s Cleaning System
We’ve all had the experience of not getting a good night’s sleep and not feeling our best cognitively the next day. Now cognitive scientists are suggesting the reason why this may occur. During sleep our brains normally clean the cerebrospinal fluid of chemical wastes that build up each day. When we have inadequate sleep this cleaning process isn’t complete, and so the buildup may interfere with alertness and thinking processes the following day.
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Brain’s ‘Cleaning System’ Reveals Dementia Risk 10 Years in Advance
New research has shown that the brain’s cleaning system which occurs each night while we sleep, can predict those who will develop dementia 10 years in advance. This may help produce treatments to reduce this risk. Several things appear to interfere with the brain’s self-cleaning system. At the present time, the activities we can take to reduce this risk have been already mentioned in various health articles: Get adequate sleep, sleep on our sides, don’t drink alcohol before bed, exercise regularly, treat high blood pressure, and maintain good cardiovascular health.
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Researchers Map the Prefrontal Cortex in a New Way That Focuses on How It Actually Functions
In some new research, investigators found that how conscious thoughts form may be much more complex than we previously thought. It appears that the brain draws on various components to function at any given moment. For the believer, this is just one more example of the biblical principle that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
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Apatheism: Not atheism, agnosticism but another challenge to Christian faith
Apatheism is defined as “a posture or attitude of indifference toward belief in God.” Since it is a new term that is now being used with some frequency, I thought it would be good to acquaint readers with its meaning. The article gives some good ideas by various authors about it.
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The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle
You won’t be able to read or hear the wonderful sound of this article, which is filled with the sounds of baby giggles without a subscription to the New York Times. But I think the sad part of this article is its title, believing that this is somehow part of evolutionary design. The author of this article, a developmental psychologist who has made studying baby giggles her life’s work, goes along with the evolutionist’s theory that baby giggles must have something to do with prolonging the species by encouraging relationships between parents and offspring. But analysis shows baby giggles do more than that. Young infants’ giggles show that even infants recognize when someone is engaging in play (e.g., the father wearing a spoon as a mustache), and slightly older children doing something and then watching adults’ reactions to see if they’re amused or upset. So even infants’ play, before they’re able to create words, allows them to start to interact with and learn from their environments.
(The New York Times, because of its depth of reporters, often carries helpful articles on a variety of topics, but it is so biased in its reporting on conservative/legal issues that I can’t encourage anyone to subscribe to it unless you are fully aware of the depths of its biases.)
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Do You Have Foot-in-Mouth Syndrome? Expert Advice on How to Avoid Saying Things You’ll Regret
If you have clients who regularly say things impulsively they later regret, this author has five simple methods that may help them reduce the frequency of such statements. And at the end of the article she also contains a few suggestions about what to do if a person immediately recognizes they wish they hadn’t said something.
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How the Search for Genes Involved in Mental Illness Has Led to Key Insights About Reducing Medication Side Effects
This is an article about James Kennedy, M.D., whose long and distinguished career in researching mental illness and treatments for it have been instrumental in several of the advances in recent years.
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Harnessing Potentially Therapeutic Properties of Psychedelics While Eliminating Hallucinations and Other Unwanted Effects
This article by Peter Tarr, Ph.D. tells us that while research with psychedelics has not resulted in any FDA-approved treatments at the present time, this research has given us some helpful insights that may be useful in the future in understanding and developing treatments.
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Intimacy as the Antidote to Autocracy: Dismantling Dominance, One Couple at a Time
This article by Terry Real describes how he did Relational Life Therapy with a couple who had been to three therapists previously who had been unsuccessful in improving their marriage. (This article and the next two are from the Psychotherapy Networker. If you’re not already a subscriber you can access the articles by setting up a free account and after a few articles, decide whether you want to subscribe to the Journal.)
Click here to read the full article
Friendship Therapy: Your New Clinical Specialty
Many of us have not considered friendship therapy as a clinical specialty, but as our society becomes more disconnected, we may have clients asking us to help them develop platonic and other kinds of friendships. This author describes a way to do so.
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You’re Attracted to Your Client? 5 Clinicians Offer Guidance on a Dreaded Ethical Dilemma
Five clinicians offer quite different (but equally helpful) suggestions on how to handle this type of situation.
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Words of Love or Friendship Can Be a Gift
This article is from the New York Times, so you won’t be able to read it without a subscription, so I’ll summarize a few of its points. In our day of email, the art of writing a personal note or letter is no longer common. But the authors say it still has a place. The physical act of writing does something for the writer that typing does not do. And the recipient has something that they may treasure immediately and maybe keep as a remembrance for many years. If you need a little help in writing personal notes they recommend a few books, including Samara O’Shea’s “For the Love of Letters: A 21st-Century Guide to the Art of Letter Writing” ($19.95, HarperCollins) or Chelsea Shukov and Jamie Grobecker on “How to Write a Letter: Find the Words for Every Occasion, “($15, Penguin Random House).
Click here to read the full article
FTC Probing Pediatrician Group, Nonprofit Over Gender Dysphoria Treatments for Kids
The FTC is asking the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) for studies demonstrating the benefits of transgender health treatments. As could be expected, these organizations are resisting this request. But pressure is mounting because of the 30 pending lawsuits by recipients of transgender treatments and the fact of very several recent highly publicized mass killings done by individuals who had received transgender treatment.
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Five Points to Respond to ‘Love is Love’
Not everyone will agree with all the points Joe Dallas makes in this article, but there are probably a few points that we can all agree on. Eros love is not a good love to express except in the context of a committed marriage. And probably, all kinds of love should be guided by agape love.
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Brief Exercise Beats Relaxation for Panic Attack
A recent study found that brief bursts of intense exercise beats relaxation as a treatment for reducing the frequency and severity of panic attacks in panic disorder.
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This Valentine’s Day, Give Your Spouse the Gift of “Us
This marriage coach, who has worked with thousands of couples in the past 20 years, says most couples experience a drop in marital satisfaction following the birth of their first child. But most experience a rebound as they learn how to parent together. A few never do rebound, but he says if we pay attention to what our partner is feeling and wanting, we can gradually move to a better and better relationship. He ends his article with some suggestions for couples.
Click here to read the full article
7 Ways States Can Strengthen Marriage and Families
This author recommends 7 ways states can develop laws and policies that strengthen marriages and families and even some ways that divorcing couples can make a discerning decision about whether divorce is best for them and how to have a healthy-as-possible divorce.
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Today's Young Adults Are in a Dating Recession
In research, only about 1 in 3 single people in the prime dating years (early twenties) are dating regularly. This article discusses the things that hold young people from dating, and some things that could help improve this situation.
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What’s Killing Romance for Young Adults?
Another article on the above topic. This one includes several suggestions that parents, teachers and counselors can do to help young adults become more comfortable taking the risks to become involved in dating.
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Why Every College Needs a Marriage Preparation Office
Colleges have traditionally focused their efforts on preparing students for careers, but this author suggests that preparing them successfully for life after college should also help them prepare for marriage. Some colleges have started offering marriage prep courses, which often are maxed out. She also suggests complementing this with a marriage office to assist dating couples with working through issues they might encounter. Perhaps some of you could be part of that solution.
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Florida Parents Ask Supreme Court to Affirm Parental Rights
Parents of a girl in middle school asked the Supreme Court to affirm parental rights after their public school transitioned their daughter without their approval or knowledge.
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America Legalized Marijuana. Now It Has a Problem.
Last newsletter I covered how the New York Times had publicly reversed its position on legalized marijuana, a major policy shift by a leading liberal newspaper. The medical evidence supports this policy decision. The number of people who are going to hospital emergency rooms with hyperemesis symptoms (vomiting and severe physical pain) and with paranoia and psychotic symptoms. While occasional marijuana use does not seem to be a problem for most people, those who use marijuana heavily each day are those most likely to suffer adverse effects.
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This Ex-Atheist Has Some Explaining to Do
Christopher Beha is a well-known person who was raised a Catholic, then became a prominent New Atheist, and now has converted to his former Catholicism. In this wide-ranging interview with Christianity Today, he covers several topics, including the idea that there are a wide range of different kinds of atheists. In the interview he says that he is not trying to convert anyone but simply trying to explain his own thought process, among other topics covered by him and the interviewer.
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This Trait Could Be Key to a Lasting Romance
This fascinating article is relevant, especially to our discussions today and this week. You probably won’t guess what this trait is: I didn’t. But its humility. The article does a good explanation about what humility is and isn’t (it isn’t low self-esteem), and why it contributes to healthy relationships. Worthwhile insights for us all to consider.
Click here to read the full article
Why Are We So Pornsick?
I’m not very familiar with porn, but we have been reading about how its important to raise young men and women so they’ll be prepared to be healthy men and women in marriage. This article talks about how porn causes young men (apparently some young women look at it also) to have warped views of sex and relationships, and to be afraid of normal dating.
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Michael J. Fox’s Words About His Final Days
As a fellow traveler with Michael Fox in the Parkinson’s journey, I’m always interested in his insights. As he says in this article, every person’s journey is different, and the progression of their symptoms is different. Michael Fox received his diagnosis very early (29) so he has lived with the illness for many years.
I agree with his attitude in many ways, including not viewing the illness in a negative way, finding ways each day to adapt to things one cannot do themselves anymore, and finding ways to continue to have a positive impact on the world.
Click here to read the full article
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Henry Virkler