Melissa Febos, author of the memoir “Whip Smart,” describes her four years as a professional dominatrix in Midtown Manhattan and what it taught her about power and fear. Armand DiMele and co-host Dr. Sherry Siegel probe why high-powered men seek submission, and Febos reflects on how therapy finally let her see the work clearly.
Father’s Day triggers deep, often denied wounds that shape careers, relationships, and self-worth. Armand DiMele maps the landscape of absent, frightening, and emotionally dead fathers, argues that most men’s self-hatred traces back to unacknowledged need for their fathers, and fields calls from listeners grappling with unavailable dads and its lasting fallout.
What does it actually mean to live with a narcissist, and why do so many people keep choosing them? Armand DiMele and Wendy Behary, LCSW, Author of “Disarming the Narcissist,” map the traits, from entitlement and demeaning sarcasm to emotional detachment, and explore why partners often play a willing role in the dynamic.
Why do we turn people and needs into abstract objects? Armand DiMele argues that objectification is a defense against vulnerability, whether it shows up as racial dehumanization, sexual fetish, or the jealous conviction that no one can be trusted. Callers trace these patterns back to childhood wounds.
Most people make decisions by default rather than by design. Armand DiMele and life coach Christine Langerman walk through seven steps for intentional living, using the deceptively simple question of what to have for dinner to reveal how the shadow self, fear of failure, and lost passion quietly shape every choice we make.
Social psychologist Dr. Katherine Good joins Armand and co-hosts Ben Starr and Giullian Gioiello to unpack how stereotypes shape behavior in ways people rarely notice. The conversation moves from implicit bias and stereotype threat to Ferguson, policing, and the fear that drives prejudice.
Good-looking people get better parenting, higher grades, and lighter legal treatment. Armand and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, psychiatrist, examine how physical appearance shapes self-worth from infancy onward, why beautiful people face their own insecurities, and how body dysmorphic disorder keeps sufferers chasing fixes that never resolve the underlying wound.
What makes people care about right and wrong, and where does that impulse come from? Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti open with a striking story of a heavily medicated psychiatric patient who offered comfort to his own doctor, then trace morality from biology and genetics through religion, sexuality, taxes, and the tension between inner conviction and externally imposed rules.
Sexual fantasy is a creative workaround for deep psychological inhibition. Dr. Michael Bader, author of “Male Sexuality,” joins Armand to explain how childhood guilt, the fear of hurting others, and the loss of selfhood quietly kill desire, and why “healthy ruthlessness” is actually essential to arousal.
Your favorite animal reveals your true nature, while your favorite color is the mask you show the world. Armand DiMele builds a surprisingly revealing self-knowledge exercise from listener responses, then pivots to pity, arguing that pitying others distances us from them and that self-pity quietly sustains depression by substituting victimhood for honest self-examination.
