Kissing turns out to be a rich biochemical event. Armand DiMele and co-host Stephanie break down how testosterone, pheromones, dopamine, oxytocin, and even carbon dioxide exchange shape attraction and pair bonding, and why a single kiss can make or break a romance.
Love doesn’t just end, it erodes through unmet needs and biological programming. Armand DiMele argues that fading attraction follows a natural but not inevitable course, drawing on evolutionary drives and caller stories, including one man’s struggle with touch after years of violation.
What do parties, hunger, sex, and manipulation have in common? They all hijack the primitive brain. Armand DiMele argues that the real work of being human is learning to honor instinct and intellect together, rather than letting either one run the show.
Is greed a moral failing or simply the human condition? Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, examine greed as a near-narcotic drive rooted in survival, comparing Wall Street excess and the Madoff scandal to universal human hunger for more health, love, and meaning.
Can you want what you already have? Esther Perel, MA, LMFT, psychotherapist and author, joins Armand to argue that domestic equality and child-centered parenting quietly drain erotic energy from long-term relationships, and that reviving desire requires a different set of rules for the bedroom than for the kitchen.
Too much closeness can kill desire. Esther Perel, MA, LMFT, Psychotherapist and Author of “Mating in Captivity,” joins Armand to argue that intimacy and eroticism often work against each other, and that passion depends on mystery, uncertainty, and the space to want.
Passion thrives on uncertainty, and too much closeness can kill it. Esther Perel, MA, LMFT, psychotherapist and author of “Mating in Captivity,” joins Armand to explore why desire needs distance, how fantasy differs from perversion, and what surrender, dominance, and the body’s hormonal rhythms reveal about erotic life.
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.
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.
What does the brain actually look like when it’s happy? Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti dig into fMRI research on monks, competing philosophical theories of happiness, and the idea that each person has a neurological “thermostat” they keep returning to no matter what fortune brings.
