Category: Emotions & Inner Life

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Oxytocin and the Bonds That Heal July 23, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Bonding is the hidden engine of effective therapy, and oxytocin is the hormone that makes it possible. Armand DiMele argues that people leave therapy not for the reasons they give but because they never truly connected, then traces how oxytocin drives love, calms stress, curbs addiction, and can be consciously cultivated through touch and eye contact.

The Neuroscience of Feeling and Numbness with Dr. Sherry Siegel July 22, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Sherri Siegel
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, The Mind & Neuroscience

Armand DiMele and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D., a neurologist, unpack alexithymia, the inability to identify or express emotions, tracing it from spinal reflexes to brain chemistry. They explore how trauma and abuse can shut down feeling as a survival mechanism, why couples clash over emotional expression, and how hormones and neurotransmitters shape what we feel.

Stealing as a Search for Love July 9, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Jenny, Sarah, Stephanie D'Ambra, Susan
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Armand DiMele argues that theft, in nearly all its forms, is rooted in a felt absence of love. From childhood shoplifting to time theft at work, he traces how people take what they cannot seem to receive. Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, joins to discuss fighting institutional systems, and callers weigh in on corporate fraud and righteous anger.

Reading People Between the Lines July 2, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Identity & The Self

Armand DiMele argues that the small, offhand things people say reveal far more than we let ourselves notice, especially when loneliness or desire clouds our judgment. The episode moves from reading red flags in new relationships to the nocebo effect, body dysmorphia, and culture-bound psychiatric syndromes from Haiti to India.

The Art of Confrontation July 1, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Sherri Siegel
Category: Communication & Conflict, Emotions & Inner Life

Confrontation can connect or destroy depending on how it is used. Armand and co-host Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D., a neurologist, trace confrontation from childhood power dynamics to workplace disputes, examining what makes it skillful or destructive, how body chemistry fuels anger, and why finding common ground often works better than open conflict.

Finding Your Sense of Home June 25, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Home is where love and safety meet, and Armand DiMele traces that feeling back to our evolutionary roots, from cave dwellers seeking food and mates to modern adults who forget how to play. A schoolteacher caller from New Jersey brings the theme to life, describing how fear has replaced recess.

Reading People When You First Meet Them June 23, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

What are you actually doing when you size someone up? Armand DiMele breaks down the unspoken calculus of first encounters, from appearance and energy to eye contact and attitude, then invites callers to reveal themselves through animal, color, and water imagery.

The Need to Trust June 17, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Why do we so desperately need someone to trust, and how do we know when that trust is being exploited? Armand DiMele examines the psychology of trust from both sides, dissecting how gurus, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals earn or betray it, then takes a call from a man struggling to quit a long marijuana habit.

The Genius of Instinct with Henry Weisinger June 16, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Henry Weisinger, Stephanie D'Ambra
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Our instincts are not primitive liabilities but hardwired tools for success that evolution refined over hundreds of thousands of years. Henry Weisinger, author of The Genius of Instinct, walks through six key instincts with Armand and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, showing how shelter seeking, care soliciting, and emotional vulnerability help people move from merely surviving to genuinely thriving.

The Pleasure of Repetition June 4, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Repetition is the hidden engine behind nearly everything we enjoy, from exercise and music to sex and daily ritual. Armand DiMele argues that recreation is literally re-creation of the self, and that understanding your own repetitions is key to recognizing what you truly need. Callers explore compulsive eating, adoption anxiety, and a father’s struggle with his daughter growing up.