Serial romantic pursuit, whether in men or women, often masks a search for the missing same-sex parent. Armand DiMele works through narcissism, sexual addiction, and erotomania to argue that until men find their father and women find their mother, true love stays out of reach.
Do men and women harbor genuine hatred toward each other, or is it fear wearing hatred’s mask? Armand DiMele traces misogyny and misandry through evolutionary biology, phobia research, and caller stories, arguing that what looks like contempt between the sexes is often unacknowledged fear of the other’s power.
Every man carries a feminine side and every woman a masculine one, and denying that hidden half drives attraction, obsession, and heartbreak. Armand DiMele draws on Jung’s concept of the anima and animus to explain why we fall hard for people who embody what we repress in ourselves, and how reclaiming that lost half is the real work of intimacy.
High-energy and low-energy people are drawn together because each supplies what the other lacks, but that same imbalance can doom the relationship over time. Armand DiMele traces the psychology and almost physics of this dynamic, from falling in love as an energy exchange to the depression that follows breakups.
Why do we go blind when we fall for someone? Armand DiMele and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, break down lust, lovesickness, and limerence, the infatuation state coined by Dorothy Tenov, arguing that romantic blindness may be biologically wired and that mature love requires accepting people as they actually are.
What if the mysterious quality that makes a person or relationship feel just right is the psychological equivalent of umami? Armand DiMele maps the five taste sensations onto human personality types and romantic chemistry, arguing that savory wholeness, not sweetness or intensity alone, is what makes love and life satisfying.
Love is a biological event as much as an emotional one. Armand DiMele walks through the full arc of attraction, from the mental state you bring to a first meeting, to the pheromones and immune-system signals that drive desire, to the oxytocin and dopamine that sustain long-term bonds. Knowing the science, he argues, makes us more compassionate lovers.
Emotions did not arrive randomly but were shaped by evolution, starting with mate selection in lush early environments. Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta trace how song and dance triggered the first feelings of love, expanded the human brain, and gave way to speech, testosterone, and the emotional complexity we carry today.
Relationships literally rewire us, and Armand DiMele unpacks why with co-hosts Linda Vanella, LCSW-R and Lisa Arnone, LCSW. Drawing on Norman Doidge’s neuroplasticity research and a Diane Ackerman essay on the brain in love, the conversation covers pheromones, mate selection, physical intimacy, and how what we attend to defines who we become.
We don’t get loved for who we are but for the act we perform. Armand DiMele argues that everyone develops a personal commodity, a curated set of traits offered to secure love and value, and that depression is simply the belief that nothing you offer will ever be enough.
