Keyword: childhood

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The Art of Confrontation July 1, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Sherri Siegel
Category: Communication & Conflict, Emotions & Inner Life

Confrontation can connect or destroy depending on how it is used. Armand and co-host Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D., a neurologist, trace confrontation from childhood power dynamics to workplace disputes, examining what makes it skillful or destructive, how body chemistry fuels anger, and why finding common ground often works better than open conflict.

Finding Your Sense of Home June 25, 2009

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

Home is where love and safety meet, and Armand DiMele traces that feeling back to our evolutionary roots, from cave dwellers seeking food and mates to modern adults who forget how to play. A schoolteacher caller from New Jersey brings the theme to life, describing how fear has replaced recess.

How Depression and Moving Affect Family Bonds June 3, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Family & Parenting, Love & Romantic Relationships

Frequent family moves double teen suicide risk, antidepressants quietly erode sexual desire and romantic attachment, and childhood wounds quietly shape adult partner choices. Armand DiMele connects these threads through research and caller conversations, arguing that what couples fight about is rarely what they are actually fighting about.

Childhood Fantasies and the Need for Significance April 23, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Identity & The Self

Feeling insignificant is not just painful, it triggers the same survival anxiety our ancestors felt when cast out of the group. Armand DiMele connects the amygdala’s panic response to a deep need to matter, then takes calls from listeners whose childhood dreams of fame, travel, and service all point back to the same hunger for acknowledgment.

How Memory Shapes the Love We Seek March 5, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Love & Romantic Relationships, The Mind & Neuroscience

Every time we recall a memory, we alter it slightly, building love lives on reconstructed rather than real experiences. Armand DiMele traces the neuroscience of memory from protein synthesis at the synapse to the ways callers mourn lost parents, idealize childhood, and search for love modeled on images that may never have existed.

Sleep Rituals and Disorders September 21, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, The Mind & Neuroscience

Sleep is rarely discussed in therapy, but your bedtime rituals reveal more about you than almost anything else. Armand DiMele walks through the psychology of sleep habits, shared beds, and disorders from insomnia and hypersomnia to sleepwalking and night terrors, then takes callers through their own sleep secrets.

The Psychology of Grandparenting August 10, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Catherine, David Travland, Keith, Sante
Category: Family & Parenting, Identity & The Self

Grandparents are everywhere in family life yet almost nowhere in psychology literature. Armand DiMele builds a case for why grandparenting deserves serious study, examining how grandparents transmit love, jealousy, and dysfunction across generations, illustrated by callers sharing their own grandparent stories.

Sibling Rivalry and Competition November 3, 2005

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Family & Parenting, Identity & The Self

Sibling rivalry is rooted in biological competition for scarce resources, chiefly parental time and attention. Armand DiMele traces the dynamic from birth order through adult behavior, drawing on callers’ stories, and offers parents concrete guidance on reducing destructive competition at home.

Political Frustration and the Inner Rebel Undated

Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Society, Culture & Current Events

Political frustration mirrors childhood helplessness more than most people realize. Armand DiMele argues that when rebellion feels futile, people regress to the emotional position of a powerless child, growing cynical or turning on their own allies. Callers share personal stories connecting civic despair to family wounds.

Childhood Obesity and Parental Responsibility with Molly Carmel Undated

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Molly Carmel, Sherri Siegel
Category: Addiction & Compulsion, Family & Parenting

When does a child’s weight become a matter of parental neglect, even criminal liability? Armand DiMele and co-host Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. talk with Molly Carmel, eating disorder specialist at the Wilkins Center, about the biology of obesity, the limits of food policing, and what parents can actually do to help.