Every living creature seeks altered states, from caffeine-loving goats to alcohol-raiding elephants. Armand DiMele and guest Ed Elkin, a longtime humanistic psychology colleague living in a shamanic community in California, trace how psychedelics open perceptual doors that yoga, meditation, and creativity can then walk through without chemicals.
Thinness is socially prized but psychologically understudied. Armand DiMele and nutritionist Roberta Maria dig into the BMI research linking low body weight to higher suicide risk and lower serotonin, then argue that extreme thinness is a ‘being disorder’ as much as an eating disorder, one that rarely gets the clinical attention it deserves.
Depression may be a biological strategy shaped by evolution, not merely a pathology. Armand DiMele and guest Roberta Maria Acchi examine rank theory, the biochemistry of winning and losing, why men hide depression, how oppressed groups are kept docile, and how blocked creative potential rewires the nervous system toward low mood.
Why do some people feel responsible for everyone else’s happiness? Armand DiMele, joined by co-host Giullian Gioiello and Linda Vanella, LCSW-R, unpacks the compulsion to please others, the anger it breeds when unreciprocated, and the guilt that follows when we feel we’ve let someone down.
