What happens to the human mind when you’re trapped with strangers in Antarctica or a Mars simulation capsule for months? Emily Anthes, Science Journalist and Author, joins Armand DiMele and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, to examine how extreme isolation, cold, and darkness disrupt mood, hormones, and group cohesion in ways that mirror everyday life under pressure.
Low self-esteem is not just a feeling but a social reflex rooted in ranking and linking, the two drives governing all social animals. Dr. Elaine Aron, author of “The Undervalued Self,” joins Armand DiMele to explain how shame, jealousy, and couples’ arguments trace back to ancient hierarchical instincts and unresolved emotional trauma.
Organized religion shields predators while condemning the vulnerable. Armand DiMele examines clergy sexual abuse across Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam, walking through research on who actually offends and why, dismantling myths about celibacy and homosexuality, and asking what draws people to religious authority in the first place.
Men’s irritability and anger are often unrecognized forms of depression, shaped by hormonal shifts, glandular dysfunction, and psychological loss. Armand DiMele and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. walk through the biochemical roots of Irritable Male Syndrome, from testosterone cycles to adrenal and thyroid disorders, and explore how partners absorb the fallout.
Hidden aggression can be harder to name than overt abuse, and that difficulty is precisely what makes it so damaging. Armand DiMele breaks down passive-aggressive behavior as a form of covert brutality, tracing its roots in repressed anger and exploring how it shows up in forgetfulness, obstruction, blaming, and withheld intimacy. Callers share their own stories of living with or breaking free from passive-aggressive partners and parents.
When love is withdrawn, some people don’t just grieve, they rage. Armand DiMele and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW examine why lost love can trigger obsessive calling, stalking, and even violence, tracing the reaction to a primitive wound response and asking whether abandonment rage is a kind of temporary insanity.
Why do people treat their closest partners with more contempt than strangers? Armand DiMele and co-host Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW examine the hormonal roots of relational irritability, tracing how shifts in dopamine, prolactin, and testosterone erode compassion, and offer practical steps for breaking the cycle.
Moods are not simply feelings but products of neurotransmitters, nutrition, environment, and psychology working together. Armand DiMele argues that blame and repetitive arguing perpetuate bad moods rather than resolve them, and that a flexible, expansive mind, one open even to nonsense and surprise, is the real tool for change.
Why do manners exist, who gets to have them, and what happens when the brain can no longer enforce them? Armand DiMele and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. trace etiquette from dementia and autism to class inequality and road rage, arguing that good manners are ultimately a function of time, neurological capacity, and self-awareness.
Armand DiMele argues that theft, in nearly all its forms, is rooted in a felt absence of love. From childhood shoplifting to time theft at work, he traces how people take what they cannot seem to receive. Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, joins to discuss fighting institutional systems, and callers weigh in on corporate fraud and righteous anger.
