Category: Personal Growth & Change

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Losing Your Mind to Find Resilience November 6, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Giullian Gioiello, Yo-Yo Ma
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Reality is hard, and humans escape it through sex, rage, drugs, romance, and lies. Armand DiMele argues this is understandable but costly, then pivots to Hurricane Sandy as a case study in forced clarity. Co-host Giullian Gioiello shares his firsthand experience as an NYU student in the East Village during the storm, grounding a practical discussion of how to build resilience through pain rather than around it.

The Art of Self-Inquiry July 31, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Lisa Arnone
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Most people ask the wrong questions about themselves. Armand DiMele and Lisa Arnone, LCSW walk through a structured framework for deeper self-inquiry, moving from surface-level complaints through feelings, causality, and self-acceptance, with caller conversations illustrating each step live.

How Talking Changes Feeling July 3, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Lisa Arnone
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Mundane complaints hide deeper wounds, and Armand DiMele shows how to find them. Working live with Lisa Arnone, LCSW, he demonstrates how a throwaway statement like “I hate people who buy lottery tickets” can be guided, step by step, into a genuine first-person admission about fear, disappointment, and unmet need.

Normal and Abnormal in the Therapy Room June 26, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: John Valerio, Lisa Arnone
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

What separates normal from abnormal, and who gets to decide? Armand DiMele, joined by Lisa Arnone, LCSW, and social work student John Valerio, teaches therapists-in-training how to read the spectrum from too much to too little, using Carl Menninger’s framework and the hyper-hypo model to map human behavior.

The Part of You That Resists Change June 20, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Lisa Arnone
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Growth has three stages: awareness, knowledge, and personal change. Armand DiMele and Lisa Arnone, LCSW, walk through each, arguing that real transformation begins not with making changes but with seeing your situation clearly and without judgment. The episode’s centerpiece is the “engineer,” an inner force that fights to keep you exactly as you are and can only be moved by negotiation, not force.

The Dependent Personality June 19, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Lisa Arnone
Category: Identity & The Self, Personal Growth & Change

Dependency gets reframed as a workable strategy rather than a simple flaw. Armand DiMele, working with supervisee Lisa Arnone, LCSW, walks through dependent personality disorder, the hidden advantages it offers both the dependent person and their partners, and why independence is no guaranteed path to happiness either.

Four Thinking Styles and How They Shape Therapy June 13, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Lisa Arnone
Category: Personal Growth & Change, The Mind & Neuroscience

Armand DiMele and Lisa Arnone, LCSW break down a four-part framework of thinking styles, concrete sequential, concrete random, abstract sequential, and abstract random, showing how each shapes personality, stress responses, and the fit between therapist and client. The conversation ends on trust as the core of healing.

What Is a Feeling June 12, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Lisa Arnone, Michael G. Haskins
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Most people, including therapists, cannot define the difference between a feeling and an emotion. Armand DiMele works through that confusion with Lisa Arnone, LCSW, distinguishing feelings (bodily sensations), emotions (outward discharge), and impulses, and showing why conflating them keeps people stuck.

Finding Power in Your Dysfunction April 3, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Joanna, John Valerio, Lisa Arnone
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Every behavior we label dysfunctional serves a hidden purpose. Armand DiMele argues that depression, addiction, paranoia, and even passivity are forms of power, and that befriending these parts of ourselves rather than fighting them is what actually enables change. Lisa Arnone, LCSW joins the conversation alongside callers working through these ideas in real time.

The Feeling of Powerlessness March 21, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Linda Vanella
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Power is largely an illusion, and fighting that truth is a recipe for depression, rigidity, and exhaustion. Armand DiMele and Linda Vanella, LCSW-R, trace powerlessness from its biological roots through addiction, codependency, grief, and disability, arguing that accepting what we cannot control is itself a form of strength.