Cross-pollinating ideas from unrelated fields is the fastest path to genuine innovation. Author Franz Johansson joins Armand and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, psychiatrist, to discuss his book on Renaissance-era inspiration, why intersection beats directional expertise, and how fear of failure keeps people cooking the same safe dinner.
Illness can be a doorway rather than a dead end. Dr. Toby Zausner, author of “When Walls Become Doorways,” shares her own survival of ovarian cancer and traces how artists including Matisse and Edvard Munch turned serious illness into their greatest work. Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, explores how tapping creativity fights helplessness and depression.
Roughly 40 percent of young people now call themselves shy, and the number keeps climbing. Armand DiMele traces the roots of social fear, from genetics and brain chemistry to absent fathers and sheltered childhoods, and makes the case that facing the world anyway, fumbles and all, is how confidence actually grows.
Romantic partnership has never been more varied or more confusing. Clinical psychologist Dr. Annalisa Erba traces love and marriage from ancient Greece through Christianity to today, while Armand DiMele argues that real partnership requires knowing yourself first and that staying single is often the wiser choice.
Too little serotonin causes depression and PMS symptoms, but too much can kill you. Armand and Dr. Kent Robichaud, joined by Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, trace serotonin’s role in mood, the menstrual cycle, and the deadly drug combinations, including SSRIs, triptans, Demerol, and ecstasy, that can trigger serotonin syndrome.
Can you stay well when someone you love is suffering? Armand DiMele argues that emotional contagion between bonded people is not weakness but chemistry, and that pretending otherwise may be the real pathology. Callers bring raw stories of toxic supervisors, estranged children, and the cost of staying present.
Passion thrives on uncertainty, and too much closeness can kill it. Esther Perel, MA, LMFT, psychotherapist and author of “Mating in Captivity,” joins Armand to explore why desire needs distance, how fantasy differs from perversion, and what surrender, dominance, and the body’s hormonal rhythms reveal about erotic life.
Monogamy is a theory without a practice, argues Armand DiMele alongside biologist Roberta Mariotti. They unpack genetic, sexual, and social monogamy, explore why no species is truly monogamous, and discuss polyamory and the emotional baggage no relationship structure can dissolve.
Do we truly choose our lives, or are we shaped by genes, culture, and forces beyond our awareness? Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti work through fatalism, determinism, and the neuroscience of repeated self-defeating patterns, arguing that understanding these forces can loosen their grip on us.
Some feelings arrive uninvited and refuse to leave. Armand DiMele opens the new year by cataloguing the emotions people most dread, from jealousy and rage to lust and melancholy, and asks why feeding a negative feeling only makes it more real. Callers and live email responses drive the conversation.
