August 11, 2026- Because of my regularly doing psychological evaluations pertaining to spinal cord stimulators to help reduce pain, I am often talking to people who are in chronic pain and seeking relief. Also because I have treated persons to offer mental health suggestions on how to overcome chronic pain, I am aware that large numbers of persons have had to find ways to cope with pain as best they can resulting from arthritis, osteoporosis, sciatica, slipped discs, fibromyalgia, neuropathy, migraine headaches, or any other situation that causes chronic pain. Chronic pain is that type of pain that never fully leaves you. It may vary from day-to-day, but is always there. How persons individually cope with pain on a regular basis depends on the person and the pain they are dealing with as well as their ability and desire to find mental health techniques to help to go along with any pain medications they are prescribed. Finding and maintaining effective mental health strategies to overcome pain have become more important as we as a society realize that many pain medications are leading to addictions by persons in pain. The important thing to remember is that giving in to the pain is never acceptable because the end result will be anxiety, depression and worse pain. Mental health strategies to try to ameliorate pain and maintain gains that one has obtained through pain management would include positive affirmations that reinforce/support your strategies for pain management, realistic goals you remember as you deal with your pain, keeping track of your progress for reinforcement/encouragement, see going backwards as something that can occur but to always try to move forward, change goals based on the reality of your circumstances, accept challenges and difficulties will occur and try to resolve them as they come up as best you can, accept there are times you will need help and ask for it, a strong sense of spirituality can also be helpful, do progressive relaxation, deep breathing, and self hypnosis to help reduce pain, anxiety and depression when the pain is strong and is hard to cope with, reward yourself as you continue on your road to maintaining your ability to fight your pain as best you can, and possibly seeking out a therapist experienced in pain management to help you as you mentally try strategies to help ameliorate your chronic pain and maintain it. My final point is that chronic pain is something horrible to deal with day in and day out and any mental health strategy that can be used to help eliminate it and maintain pain relief needs to be considered and tried.

July 21, 2026- Transitions are an important part of our lives. They are those times in our lives that can be
exhilarating but can cause great emotional pain resulting in anxiety and depression. How we
deal with them has a lot to do with the level of satisfaction and happiness we will have in our
lives. Transitions would include death of someone we really care for, job changes by choice or
necessity, changing job requirements, divorce, marriage, parenting, buying and moving into a
home, falling in love, financial stress, incarceration, and moving to a new location. Some of
these transitions are by choice such as buying a house or taking a new job, but they can be
stressful transitions we need to learn to adapt. Situations like death of a loved one, being fired,
needing to move to a new location or a divorce are transitions that can be exceptionally difficult
and devastating to a person as they experience them. Regardless of whether the transition is
sought or thrown upon us, the following ways to deal with natural transitions that we all
encounter as we live our lives would include accepting the reality that transitions always occur in
our lives, recognize and accept they are occurring and adapt to them as fast as possible, have
realistic expectations of what to expect, develop a support system as needed, keep yourself in
good physical and mental health, recognize good decisions made now will lead to a better
outcome in the future of whatever transition you are experiencing, and never stop trying to move
forward in life as best as possible. An important thing to remember is transitions will always
occur in our life regardless of what plans we make to not have them occur. The death of a loved
one, being divorced or being fired from a job are things one cannot plan for appropriately and
can lead to great distress. Before these things occur, it is important persons think about how
they will react to such possible transitions, and even if they become overwhelmed, realize they
will survive. How well they survive will depend on their attitude and behaviors. Pretending they
will not occur and not planning for them will lead to greater devastation for the transitions we
have not sought and which can be so damaging psychologically. It also is true transitions we
desire can have some potential negative outcomes. Persons may be excited about taking a new
job, but when in it may question their capabilities and somehow may be focusing on what they
liked about their past job. A person who has always wanted to move to another city may enjoy
living there, but then can feel lonely or lost in the adapting to an unknown city loaded with
unknown people and activities going on that are the normal parts of a city. Something to
remember is that transitions are difficult under the best of circumstances and it is important to
accept this. Try to have a plan to deal with them as they occur. I have given you some
suggestions but trying to see most transitions as opportunities for resolution rather than
overwhelming problems is a good place to try to change your outlook on life transitions.

July 15, 2026-
We are today specifically talking about young men rejecting couples intimacy. It is a phenomenon that most persons are not familiar with and have probably not thought about very much if at all. A starting point is that 60% of young men under 30 are single. Sexual intimacy was at a 30 years low a few years ago and this trend seems to be continuing. In the years 2022-2023, 24% of men aged 22 through 34 reported they had had no sex with a partner in the past year. It also is reported that 76 to 87% of men 18 to 29 years old are regularly consuming pornography. Another interesting reported situation is that men between the ages of 20 and 30 are spending less time outdoors than prison inmates. It also was reported that there are men who use porn who tend to report less satisfaction with real live sex. And on top of all this, the lack of interaction skills that were not developed during Covid, when persons were often relegated to just using the Internet for communication, adds another interesting dimension to this situation. Another factor is that many men appear to find Internet excitement and self gratification more satisfying, less complicated and less risky than trying to be in a relationship with a partner with mutually satisfying intimacy. A problem with all of this information is that people arguably need interactions with people for good mental health and this trend is not good for men and certainly leads to a much smaller pool of men for women who desire to marry let alone have the ability to have children and hopefully love generating homes. Reasons given for this current situation in addition to Covid would include that many women also are not that ready to be in an intimate couples relationship as they are striving for educational and personal goals. There also are men who grew up in dysfunctional homes who have no desire to be part of one. There also is the generally unreasonable fear by some men that women will lie about them in any sexual relationship and they choose not to be involved. I personally have heard young men fearful of being falsely accused of inappropriate sexual activities in an intimate relationship that might go in a negative way. Even if this is not reasonable, if a man has this belief and decides to act on it, it can lead to a lack of couples intimacy. A problem with possibly changing this whole lack of couples intimacy situation with men is that there is no easy solution if one is of the belief that men are better off in a couples relationship with good intimacy that results in children and potentially a happy and loving family. At present, there does not appear to be a great awareness of the situation or any desire to change it.