Temper is something you can lose, hold, or redirect, and Armand DiMele argues all three carry consequences. With co-host Giullian Gioiello and Linda Vanella, LCSW-R, the conversation moves from toddler tantrums to explosive adults, asking whether suppressing anger protects us or stores up damage for later.
Birth order predicts more about your personality and relationships than most people realize. Armand DiMele and researcher Stephanie Ross break down how being an only child, firstborn, or later-born shapes anger triggers, confidence, and compatibility, while noting that adoption, remarriage, and loss can shift everything.
Anger hides in workaholism, control, and even the urge to merge completely with a partner. Armand DiMele traces how unmet childhood needs shape adult love, from fusion relationships to the search for safety in families where it was never found. Callers bring raw examples of both.
Hatred is not a demon to be hidden but a feeling to be explored honestly. Armand DiMele and Linda Vanella, LCSW-R, trace hatred from childhood helplessness through jealousy, control, and vengeance, with a moving call from a man who lost his brother on 9/11 and has since been cut off from his nephews and nieces.
Why do people who fight passionately for others surrender control at home? Armand DiMele argues that submission carries hidden rewards, chiefly freedom from decision-making and a longing for parental nurturing, while dominance often masks deep feelings of powerlessness. Callers share their own struggles with unequal partnerships.
Can a person who distrusts or dislikes others learn to open up again? Armand DiMele takes calls from listeners wrestling with resentment, false accusations, childhood neglect, and the habit of performing friendliness to win approval, tracing each back to early wounds and pointing toward gratitude and genuine closeness as the path out.
Irrational thinking is the hidden engine of unhappiness. Armand DiMele walks through nearly twenty common cognitive distortions, from needing universal approval to believing everyone else is happy but you, drawing on rational emotive therapy and his own clinical stories to show how funny thinking fuels emotional distress.
Passive aggression hides in plain sight behind sweetness and forgetfulness while recruiting others to act out its anger. Armand DiMele and co-host Giullian Gioiello trace the aggressive spectrum from assertiveness to psychopathy, explain how passive and aggressive personalities attract each other, and connect these dynamics to political betrayal and marital infidelity.
Childhood patterns harden into the repetitive emotional games that wreck adult relationships. Dr. Claude Steiner, a pioneering transactional analysis theorist, walks Armand through classic games like Uproar, Why Don’t You Yes But, and Now I’ve Got You, then explains how the drama triangle keeps people cycling through persecutor, rescuer, and victim roles.
Psychologist Dr. Noel Nelson, author of ‘Dangerous Relationships,’ walks Armand through seven early warning signs of abusive relationships, from whirlwind romance to possessiveness to boundary violations. The conversation covers why controlling behavior, not pathology or alcohol, is the clearest predictor of domestic violence.
