Are the coping styles we develop in childhood defenses or simply who we are? Armand DiMele and Lisa Arnone, LCSW explore whether an authentic self actually exists beneath our social masks, or whether stripping away our defenses leaves nothing behind. Callers and the Enneagram illuminate the argument.
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.
What if part of you refuses to be loved? Armand DiMele and studio guests Lisa Arnone, LCSW, and Audrey Clark dig into the paradox of lovability: how people unconsciously push away love, choose cruel or unavailable partners, and replay childhood wounds in adult relationships. A listener letter about borderline personality anchors the discussion.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Does sin come from God, culture, or conscience? Armand DiMele and Lisa Arnone, LCSW, survey how Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each define wrongdoing, weigh intention, and offer paths to forgiveness. Callers share personal takes on adultery, faith, and moral accountability.
