The holidays bring more psychological distress than any other time of year, and Armand DiMele offers practical strategies for navigating them. Topics range from seasonal affective disorder and family dinner blow-ups to the Italian phrase “stataziti” (zip it), loneliness, and a caller’s anxious child.
Most people think of obsessions as disorders, but Dr. Eric Mizell argues they can be powerful engines of creative and personal achievement. He and co-host Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, join Armand DiMele to discuss how productive obsessions differ from anxiety-driven ones, why showing up daily matters, and what Beethoven reveals about the creative process.
What happens to people who were never held as babies? Jean Liedloff, author of “The Continuum Concept,” argues that the unmet need for physical contact in infancy drives lifelong restlessness, rage, and self-rejection. Armand and callers trace the thread from Columbine to loneliness to addiction.
Men and women enter relationships with radically unequal negotiating tools, and most couples never realize it. Armand DiMele traces how this imbalance breeds resentment, then walks through a practical step-by-step framework for making requests, brainstorming solutions, and reaching agreements without resorting to threats or withdrawal of love.
Most people make decisions by default rather than by design. Armand DiMele and life coach Christine Langerman walk through seven steps for intentional living, using the deceptively simple question of what to have for dinner to reveal how the shadow self, fear of failure, and lost passion quietly shape every choice we make.
Bottled-up feelings turn into rage, depression, and stuck stories. Armand DiMele and therapist Anne Marganow argue that accessing fear, sadness, and vulnerability is not weakness but the path to self-support, discussing breathwork, role-switching, and why hysteria is actually a flight from feeling.
The brain is not fixed machinery but a living structure that rewires itself through thought, learning, and practice. Dr. Norman Doidge, author of “The Brain That Changes Itself,” joins Armand DiMele to discuss how neuroplasticity challenges Cartesian mind-body dualism, what brain training can do for age-related cognitive decline, and why mental rehearsal reshapes the brain as powerfully as physical practice.
Romantic partnerships rarely fit a single mold. Armand DiMele and co-hosts Ora Yemini-Morrison, LCSW and Giullian Gioiello map over a dozen relationship styles, from fantasy and lies to dominance, competition, and enabling, arguing that most couples fall into rigid patterns and that recognizing yours is the first step toward something better.
Regret is not simply bad or good. Armand DiMele argues that obsessive regret feeds depression, but dismissing regret entirely stunts maturity. The episode explores how examining what went wrong, with honesty and without self-punishment, transforms regret into genuine wisdom. Callers share their own turning points.
Blushing is just the visible tip of shame, but Armand DiMele argues that shame runs deep enough to drive suicide across cultures, from Afghan women to Japanese workers to returning soldiers. Callers share their own experiences of shame, self-attack, and the spiritual breakthroughs that finally allowed them to feel worthy.
