Melissa Febos, author of the memoir “Whip Smart,” describes her four years as a professional dominatrix in Midtown Manhattan and what it taught her about power and fear. Armand DiMele and co-host Dr. Sherry Siegel probe why high-powered men seek submission, and Febos reflects on how therapy finally let her see the work clearly.
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.
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.
What happens when the inner voice you are told to trust becomes the voice that traps you? Armand DiMele and Linda Vanella, LCSW-R, trace how obsessive compulsive thinking works, with a close look at scrupulosity, the little-known OCD variant rooted in religious or moral perfectionism, and how childhood wounds often feed these hidden compulsions.
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.
Why do we resist change even when our circumstances make us miserable? Armand DiMele examines the psychology of the comfort zone, repetition compulsion, and the moment people finally say no more. Real change, he argues, requires a kind of death before any rebirth is possible.
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.
Limiting beliefs keep talented people stuck, and therapist Armand DiMele unpacks them with Dr. Kenneth Christian, author of “Your Own Worst Enemy.” They map the traps: distaste for order, compulsive giving for love, the need to control, and fear of rocking the boat, arguing the problem is never the person, only the pattern.
Which relationship style actually lasts? Armand DiMele draws on research by Dr. Peter Hogan using a train game experiment to map three relationship modes: competitive, cooperative, and dominant-submissive. The counterintuitive finding is that clearly defined dominant-submissive pairs outlast the rest.
Good-looking people get better parenting, higher grades, and lighter legal treatment. Armand and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, psychiatrist, examine how physical appearance shapes self-worth from infancy onward, why beautiful people face their own insecurities, and how body dysmorphic disorder keeps sufferers chasing fixes that never resolve the underlying wound.
