Different cultures don’t just treat mental illness differently, they define it differently. Armand DiMele surveys a striking range of culture-bound syndromes, from “running amok” in Malaysia to “ghost sickness” among Native Americans, showing how biology, belief, and shame shape what gets called disorder and what gets ignored.
Stop attacking yourself and start listening. Armand DiMele walks listeners through a step-by-step practice for reaching the instinctual, feeling self he calls the “creature,” using guided relaxation, breath work, and a non-dominant hand writing exercise to open a dialogue between the rational mind and the emotional self.
Most people are not emotionally ill, just emotionally out of shape. Armand DiMele and Dr. Vivian Wolsk, Executive Director of the Gestalt Center for Psychotherapy and Training, explore emotional fitness, the body’s role in identifying feelings, the empty chair technique, and why negative programming feels so compelling.
Some people turn every minor setback into a crisis; others dismiss everything as no big deal. Armand DiMele unpacks both tendencies, tracing catastrophizing to guilt, anxiety, and childhood bids for attention, and trivializing to emotional numbness, arguing that a healthy relationship needs both types in balance.
