When devotion to a sick partner becomes all-consuming, caregivers lose themselves. Armand DiMele and co-host Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. speak with David Travland and Rhonda Travland, authors of “The Tough and Tender Caregiver,” who each survived years of spousal caregiving and argue that self-care is not selfishness but survival.
Why do the same traps keep springing? Armand DiMele works through the nature-versus-nurture debate, chromosome alleles, and childhood nurturance to explain why personality patterns persist, then takes calls to show listeners how their judgments of others reveal their own wounds and fears.
Migraine is a disease, not just a bad headache. Armand and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. are joined by neurologist Dr. Carolyn Bernstein, author of “The Migraine Brain,” to cover diagnostic criteria, weather and hormonal triggers, travel-related attacks, pain diaries, and why no universal cure exists.
Is constant digital connectivity replacing real human contact? Armand DiMele sits down with a 17-year-old student, his tech-savvy cousin Giullian Gioiello, and therapist Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW to examine how Facebook, texting, and smartphones are reshaping how young people relate, feel lonely, and find (or lose) silence.
Most conversations about relationships ignore the dozens of peripheral people who shape our days. Melinda Blau, co-author of ‘Consequential Strangers,’ joins Armand DiMele to argue that acquaintances and near-strangers are as vital as intimates, offering job leads, practical help during crises, and a powerful antidote to loneliness.
Most of us say we want the truth, but go to great lengths to avoid it. Armand DiMele and guests Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. and Catherine Altieri, LCSW examine what happens when someone must deliver unwelcome news, covering everything from bad breath to terminal diagnosis, and why doctors, friends, and partners so often fall silent.
Bonding is the hidden engine of effective therapy, and oxytocin is the hormone that makes it possible. Armand DiMele argues that people leave therapy not for the reasons they give but because they never truly connected, then traces how oxytocin drives love, calms stress, curbs addiction, and can be consciously cultivated through touch and eye contact.
Armand DiMele and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D., a neurologist, unpack alexithymia, the inability to identify or express emotions, tracing it from spinal reflexes to brain chemistry. They explore how trauma and abuse can shut down feeling as a survival mechanism, why couples clash over emotional expression, and how hormones and neurotransmitters shape what we feel.
Feeling trapped is not a neurosis but a survival instinct, argues Armand DiMele. From the evolutionary need to flee predators to modern exit strategies in marriage and career, he traces how the drive to escape is wired into human biology, and callers share how economic pressure, caregiving, and difficult relationships trigger that ancient fear.
What separates pain threshold from pain tolerance, and when does prescribed medication become addiction? Armand DiMele and guests Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. (neurologist and pain specialist) and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, trace physical pain through the nervous system, examine malingering, and use Michael Jackson’s death as a lens on narcotic dependency, withdrawal, and the emotional dimensions of chronic suffering.
