Too many patients leave the doctor’s office with a prescription they don’t need. Armand DiMele and two psychiatrists, Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD and Dr. Alan Lanz, MD, argue that managed care, pharmaceutical incentives, and patients’ own reluctance to do the hard work of self-examination have combined to produce a culture of quick fixes over genuine healing.
Cross-pollinating ideas from unrelated fields is the fastest path to genuine innovation. Author Franz Johansson joins Armand and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, psychiatrist, to discuss his book on Renaissance-era inspiration, why intersection beats directional expertise, and how fear of failure keeps people cooking the same safe dinner.
Illness can be a doorway rather than a dead end. Dr. Toby Zausner, author of “When Walls Become Doorways,” shares her own survival of ovarian cancer and traces how artists including Matisse and Edvard Munch turned serious illness into their greatest work. Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, explores how tapping creativity fights helplessness and depression.
Legendary alto saxophonist Sonny Fortune joins Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, to trace how Fortune went from corrugated box factory worker and teenage father in Philadelphia to one of jazz’s most celebrated voices. The conversation moves through early perseverance, the power of mentors, and what separates artists who endure from those who walk away.
Legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins talks with Armand and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, about growing up on Sugar Hill, marching alongside his activist grandmother, the role of artists in social change, and the deep grief of losing his wife of 40 years, Lucille. Music and loss intertwine throughout.
Chronic pain sufferers are blamed, disbelieved, and undertreated, and that abandonment can be as damaging as the pain itself. Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, trace how physical pain acquires an emotional life, how opiates seductively treat both, and why escalating narcotic use often signals depression and loneliness as much as bodily suffering.
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.
Men’s depression is vastly underdiagnosed because it rarely looks like sadness. Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, argue that aggression, dominance, substance abuse, and compulsive drivenness are often depression in disguise, and that treating them as such could change everything.
Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, examine why people lock away unbearable pain rather than face it, how children assign themselves blame for disasters and abuse, and why denial of death costs us empathy for suffering near and far.
Every addiction is really a mood management strategy. Armand and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, walk through the core components of addiction, salience, mood modification, tolerance, and withdrawal, using gambling, shopping, cigarettes, alcohol, and internet use to show why substances and screens feel easier than people, and what actually helps someone stop.
