Psychological compensation drives us to mask pain rather than face it, and the fix often grows larger than the original wound. Armand DiMele and co-therapist Lisa Arnone, LCSW explore how cigarettes, painkillers, bravado, and even love choices can be coverups that reinforce the very suffering they were meant to relieve.
Most people enter therapy not to change but to get better at what they already do. Armand DiMele introduces the concept of “criminal intention,” the hidden, often dark strategies we developed as children to survive, and shows how recognizing them in love, friendship, and work is the real engine of personal change.
Getting what you want is impossible when you don’t know who you are. Dale Goldstein, author of “Heart Work,” joins Armand DiMele to walk through his nine-step process for locating buried feelings in the body, grieving unmet childhood needs, and uncovering the authentic self beneath years of numbness and distraction.
Hormonal shifts in middle age are not a slow decline but a shedding of biological imperatives that frees people to rediscover themselves. Armand DiMele and studio guests Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, and Linda Vanella, LCSW-R, trace how falling testosterone and estrogen reshape identity, drive anxiety, and open the door to playfulness, creativity, and new purpose.
When coworkers and bosses drive us crazy, the cause is often older than the job. Kathy Elster and Catherine Crowley, authors of Working With You Is Killing Me, join Armand DiMele to explain how family-of-origin patterns quietly shape who we hire, who we resent, and why some toxic work relationships feel impossible to leave.
Hypnotherapist Cindy Brielotta walks Armand DiMele through the five-phase process she uses to locate and release buried emotions. The conversation covers why suppressed feelings drain energy and drive overreaction, how hypnotic age regression traces emotions back to their earliest source, and why forgiving an offender is ultimately an act of self-liberation.
Different cultures don’t just treat mental illness differently, they define it differently. Armand DiMele surveys a striking range of culture-bound syndromes, from “running amok” in Malaysia to “ghost sickness” among Native Americans, showing how biology, belief, and shame shape what gets called disorder and what gets ignored.
Unmet childhood needs quietly drive adult relationship failures. Armand and Portia Franklin, a New York psychotherapist trained in the methods of Albert Pesso, Co-founder, Pesso Boyden Therapy, walk through five core needs: place, support, nurturance, protection, and loving limits, and explain how their absence gets re-enacted with partners who can never truly fill them.
Real leadership is not about dominance or charisma but about entering the world of the people you lead. Armand DiMele traces the shift from command-and-control models to empathetic, follower-centered leadership, drawing on politics, parenting, and the workplace to show why hidden authority often works best.
Living with a partner who has ADHD often breeds nagging, resentment, and a damaging parent-child dynamic, and Armand DiMele explains why the disorder is a brain chemistry issue rather than laziness or selfishness. The episode also examines genetic research on vasopressin and why some people are biologically wired toward infidelity.
