Mood: Scared

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Living with Chronic Pain with Dr. Kent Robertshaw December 27, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Kent Robertshaw
Category: Addiction & Compulsion, Emotions & Inner Life

Chronic pain sufferers are blamed, disbelieved, and undertreated, and that abandonment can be as damaging as the pain itself. Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, trace how physical pain acquires an emotional life, how opiates seductively treat both, and why escalating narcotic use often signals depression and loneliness as much as bodily suffering.

Resiliency and Letting Go December 26, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

Resilience is built on four pillars: a positive attitude, stress management, intentional participation in life, and self-care. Armand uses the year-end transition to encourage listeners to release old habits, grudges, and long-carried shame, and explores how a genuine apology can be the most liberating act of all.

The Science and Soul of Crying December 21, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Depression & Mood, Emotions & Inner Life

Crying is not the cause of being upset but the sign of having already been upset, a release of accumulated stress hormones and toxins. Armand DiMele walks through the biochemistry of emotional tears, the handicap syndrome in animals, why suppressing tears feeds depression, and how to actually be present with someone who is crying.

How Genes Shape Who We Are December 13, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Atti
Category: Identity & The Self, The Mind & Neuroscience

Some people are wired to seek more risk, more novelty, more intensity, and it comes down to gene length. Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti break down how dopamine receptor efficiency, inherited through long or short gene sequences, shapes attention, risk-taking, sexuality, and vulnerability to addiction, and how stress hormones can actually switch genes on and off.

How Memes Shape Human Behavior December 6, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Atin
Category: Society, Culture & Current Events, The Mind & Neuroscience

Ideas spread like viruses, hijacking behavior without our awareness. Armand and co-host Roberta Maria Atti unpack Richard Dawkins’s concept of memes, tracing how cultural bits ranging from the Macarena to post-9/11 fear alerts to childhood warnings replicate, activate, and quietly condition thought and behavior.

The Psychology of Clutter and Hoarding November 30, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Addiction & Compulsion, Identity & The Self

Clutter is a habit; hoarding is an illness, and Armand DiMele draws a clear line between them. He traces hoarding to a fragile sense of self, fear of loss, and compulsive just-in-case thinking, then takes calls from listeners wrestling with their own accumulation and the anger and grief beneath it.

Manic Love and the Six Love Styles November 14, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Love & Romantic Relationships

Six distinct love styles, from the game-playing ludic lover to the selfless agapic giver, frame a deep dive into manic love and its links to hypomania and bipolar disorder. Armand DiMele draws on callers’ personal experiences to show how most people blend several styles at once.

The Molecule of Emotion with Candice Pert November 9, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Candice Pert
Category: Personal Growth & Change, The Mind & Neuroscience

Emotions are molecules, and every cell in the body can respond to them. Dr. Candice Pert, author of ‘Molecule of Emotion’, joins Armand to explain how peptide receptors link drugs, emotions, and memory into a unified psychosomatic network, why music resonates through the whole body, and how integrating our different emotional states leads to genuine healing.

Feeling Helpless and Powerless November 8, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Kent Robertshaw
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Depression & Mood

Helplessness and powerlessness are not the same thing, and the difference matters. Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robertshaw, MD, Psychiatrist, trace how powerlessness drives anxiety, social phobia, OCD, and addiction, while helplessness underlies depression, then offer practical steps for reclaiming a sense of agency.

The Psychology of Heart Disease with Dr. Austin Hayes November 7, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Dr. Austin Hayes
Category: Depression & Mood, The Mind & Neuroscience

Chronic stress, hostility, and depression are stronger predictors of heart disease than most people realize, accounting for a significant share of cardiac risk. Dr. Austin Hayes, a clinical psychologist working with cardiac patients at Mount Sinai, explains how personality, social isolation, and loss of control drive heart disease and how optimism and support speed recovery.