Keyword: identity

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Depersonalization Disorder with Jeffrey Abugel April 19, 2011

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Jeffrey Abugel, Linda Vanella
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Identity & The Self

What does it feel like when your mind detaches from your body and never reconnects? Jeffrey Abugel, who lived with depersonalization disorder for decades and wrote about it, joins Armand DiMele alongside Linda Vanella, LCSW-R, to explore DPD’s causes, its links to panic and drug triggers, and its surprising overlap with spiritual concepts of ego dissolution.

Living With Your Alter Personalities March 30, 2011

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Identity & The Self

We are never just one person. Armand DiMele argues that the selves we show at work, in love, or in fear are not masks hiding the real you but genuine alternate personalities, shaped by survival. The episode examines perfectionism, passive aggression, romantic longing, and SSRI-induced personality shifts through this lens.

The Alter Self in Addiction and Compulsion March 1, 2011

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Addiction & Compulsion, Identity & The Self

What if every addiction or compulsion is run by a hidden alter self, not the person you know yourself to be? Armand DiMele draws on his decades treating dissociative identity disorder to argue that alter personalities, from the false front to the persecutor, operate in all of us, driving behaviors our primary self disowns.

The Sandwich Generation April 8, 2008

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Aging & Mortality, Family & Parenting

Women and men squeezed between raising children and caring for aging parents are quietly burning out, and almost no one is talking about it. Armand DiMele examines why the sandwich generation is a growing crisis, tracing longer lifespans, delayed marriage, and adult children staying home as forces that trap the middle generation in relentless giving.

The Me and the We in Love April 1, 2008

Category: Identity & The Self, Love & Romantic Relationships

Every relationship requires a balance between individual identity and couplehood. Armand DiMele argues that losing the “me” inside the “we” drives compulsive behaviors from internet pornography to over-exercising, and that preserving a private self is not a threat to love but its foundation.

The Psychology of Activism with Dr. Suzanne Ross March 29, 2007

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Dr. Suzanne Ross
Category: Identity & The Self, Meaning, Spirituality & Philosophy

What drives a person to spend a lifetime fighting for others, and what does it cost them? Dr. Suzanne Ross, clinical psychologist and lifelong activist, traces her path from wartime refugee to courtroom advocate, exploring how identity, love, and community sustain activists through fear, loss, and exhaustion.

Deception and Adaptation in Nature and Humans March 28, 2007

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Atin
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Identity & The Self

Deception is not a human failing but a survival strategy woven through all of nature. Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti trace mimicry and camouflage from animals and flowers to human imposture, fictitious illness, and the social masks people wear, asking when self-presentation becomes pathology and how to find the rare relationships where none of it is necessary.

The Need to Belong March 20, 2007

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Identity & The Self

Belonging requires more than membership. Armand DiMele draws on University of Michigan research to argue that fitting in matters as much as formal ties to family, work, or country. Callers share how volunteering, nature, and shared love (not shared hatred) create genuine connection.

The Psychology of Clutter and Hoarding November 30, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Addiction & Compulsion, Identity & The Self

Clutter is a habit; hoarding is an illness, and Armand DiMele draws a clear line between them. He traces hoarding to a fragile sense of self, fear of loss, and compulsive just-in-case thinking, then takes calls from listeners wrestling with their own accumulation and the anger and grief beneath it.

Breaking Free From Fixed Roles November 29, 2005

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Gladys Santopal, Sherry Oren King
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Personal Growth & Change

When we cling to a fixed idea of who we are, something in the mind can sabotage us, as with a kicker who missed three field goals in front of his cheering family. Armand and two Gestalt therapists, Sherry Oren King and Gladys Santopal, explore how rigid self-concepts block authentic living and what awareness, inner reliance, and stopping the urge to change others can actually do.