Mood: Scared

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Childhood Fantasies and the Need for Significance April 23, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Identity & The Self

Feeling insignificant is not just painful, it triggers the same survival anxiety our ancestors felt when cast out of the group. Armand DiMele connects the amygdala’s panic response to a deep need to matter, then takes calls from listeners whose childhood dreams of fame, travel, and service all point back to the same hunger for acknowledgment.

The Human Need for Certainty and Significance April 21, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Camille, Denny, Felicia, Giuseppe, Heidi, Stephanie D'Ambra, Tony
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Drawing on Tony Robbins’ TED talk, Armand DiMele unpacks four core human needs: certainty, uncertainty, significance, and love. Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW co-hosts as callers weigh in with stories of illness, grief, and new beginnings, making the framework feel lived-in rather than theoretical.

The Problem with Courage April 16, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Emotions & Inner Life

Armand DiMele challenges the conventional praise of courage, asking whether it is genuinely virtuous or a way of shaming people whose fear is entirely reasonable. He introduces counterphobia, the impulse to charge toward what frightens us most, and explores with callers how fear, avoidance, and self-nurturing shape daily life.

The Compulsion to Organize April 2, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Sherri Siegel
Category: Anxiety & Fear, The Mind & Neuroscience

Why do scattered people suddenly need to line up the ducks? Armand DiMele and guest Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. trace the spectrum from everyday tidying impulses to obsessive-compulsive disorder, examining the biology of doubt, the genetics of compulsive behavior, and why nightmares may all be, at root, about organizing chaos.

When Stress Becomes Strain with Dr. Bernie Stahl March 25, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Dr. Bernie Stahl
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Stress is not the enemy, but strain is. Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernie Stahl use physics as a framework to trace how normal stress hardens into breakdown, and why the real remedy is not relaxation or meditation but acknowledging the pain directly. Callers practice shouting their anger out loud.

Fear and Depression in Hard Economic Times March 24, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Depression & Mood

When financial security collapses, the brain shifts from optimism to panic, and people tumble between regret about the past and dread of the future. Armand DiMele traces how economic hardship drives depression, hedonism, and isolation, then takes calls from listeners dealing with fresh grief, cancer, loneliness, and the sting of plans that never paid off.

Four Steps to Peace of Mind with Dr. Henry Kellerman March 11, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Dr. Bernard Starr, Dr. Henry Kellerman
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Can psychological symptoms be resolved in four steps? Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, guest-hosts and interviews psychoanalyst Dr. Henry Kellerman, whose book argues that every symptom traces back to unconscious rage over blocked wishes. They unpack the four-step symptom code, contrast psychoanalytic and behavioral approaches, and discuss how identifying hidden anger can dissolve phobias and obsessive thoughts.

Human Gullibility and Financial Madness with Bernard Starr January 21, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Dr. Bernard Starr
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Society, Culture & Current Events

Why do smart people fall for scams, bubbles, and collective delusions? Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, trace the psychology of gullibility from the Dutch tulip mania and the South Sea Company to the dot-com crash and Bernie Madoff, examining how situation, cognition, emotion, and social pressure leave us all vulnerable.

The Nature of Mind December 31, 2008

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Dr. Bernard Starr
Category: Meaning, Spirituality & Philosophy, The Mind & Neuroscience

Are you in control of your mind, or is your mind controlling you? Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, trace how chemistry, conditioning, and automatic thought patterns quietly drive behavior, then explore whether meditation, introspection, and spiritual detachment can help us step back and truly observe our own thinking.

When the Mind Surrenders December 30, 2008

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Ensorara, Sarah
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Identity & The Self

Why do people willingly give up control of their own minds? Armand DiMele argues that boredom, peer pressure, and the pleasure principle all prime us to surrender our mental autonomy, whether to love, obsession, cults, or hormones. A caller shares her near-recruitment by the Moonies as a vivid case study.