Category: Anxiety & Fear

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How Fear Miscalculates Risk January 16, 2008

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, The Mind & Neuroscience

Fear is not irrational; it is a lightning-fast risk assessment run by the reptilian brain, and that system makes predictable errors. Armand DiMele explains why people fear planes but not cars, ignore slow-building dangers like smoking, and grow reckless when they feel protected. Callers connect the science to their own lives, including one woman whose fear of water traces back to childhood beatings and dissociation.

Holiday Organization with Marsha Ramsland December 5, 2007

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Marsha Ramsland
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Personal Growth & Change

Over-organization at the holidays can itself be an expression of anger, research suggests. Armand DiMele and organizing expert Marsha Ramsland work through practical strategies for gift lists, themed buying, scheduling and teaching children organizational habits, while Armand pushes back on the limits of pure efficiency.

Fear Conditioning and the Dentist November 15, 2007

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, The Mind & Neuroscience

Why do so many people dread the dentist? Armand DiMele uses dental fear as a window into how the brain wires pain to neutral stimuli, how that wiring buries itself under layers of displacement, and how extinction learning and reward associations can undo it.

What Post-Traumatic Stress Really Means August 29, 2007

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Trauma & Healing

The PTSD diagnosis has been stretched so far that almost anyone can qualify. Armand DiMele traces the term from Civil War battle fatigue to 9/11 relief clinics, unpacking the three core symptoms and arguing that real trauma is rarer, and more specific, than the culture now assumes.

The Burning Brain of OCD August 9, 2007

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Stephanie D'Ambra
Category: Anxiety & Fear, The Mind & Neuroscience

OCD is a physical brain disorder, not just a behavioral one. Armand DiMele and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, examine the neural circuitry behind obsessive loops, explain why stuck thought patterns generate what Armand calls “brain burn,” and offer practical strategies for manually shifting gears to break the cycle.

Smiling Your Way to Calm July 3, 2007

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, The Mind & Neuroscience

The vagus nerve, not exercise or meditation, may be the most direct route to calming stress. Armand DiMele draws on neuroscientist Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory to argue that a genuine smile, social engagement, and facial muscle activation can switch the brain from threat mode to rest faster than a workout.

Shyness and the Fear of Social Life March 6, 2007

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Personal Growth & Change

Roughly 40 percent of young people now call themselves shy, and the number keeps climbing. Armand DiMele traces the roots of social fear, from genetics and brain chemistry to absent fathers and sheltered childhoods, and makes the case that facing the world anyway, fumbles and all, is how confidence actually grows.

Feeling Helpless and Powerless November 8, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Kent Robertshaw
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Depression & Mood

Helplessness and powerlessness are not the same thing, and the difference matters. Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, trace how powerlessness drives anxiety, social phobia, OCD, and addiction, while helplessness underlies depression, then offer practical steps for reclaiming a sense of agency.

The Long-Range Psychological Effects of 9/11 September 7, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Trauma & Healing

Five years after 9/11, Armand DiMele examines how the attacks amplified whatever psychological vulnerabilities people already carried, driving surges in anxiety, sleep disorders, PTSD, extramarital affairs, addiction, and antidepressant use. Callers share firsthand accounts, including one man who found that volunteering broke his sense of helplessness.

Hypochondria Panic Attacks and Psychosomatic Pain with Dr. Kent Robertshaw July 13, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Kent Robertshaw
Category: Anxiety & Fear, The Mind & Neuroscience

Panic attacks feel like heart attacks, and hypochondria can be a disguised craving for care or an unconscious flirtation with death. Armand and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, argue that fibromyalgia, irritable bowel, and chronic pain are often psychosomatic, and that most doctors overtreating vague symptoms do more harm than good.