Keyword: repetition compulsion

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Self-Knowledge and the Patterns We Repeat in Love October 10, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: John Valerio, Lisa Arnone
Category: Identity & The Self, Love & Romantic Relationships

Why do we keep choosing the same partners and recreating the same dynamics? Armand DiMele argues that relationship problems are never really about the other person but about unexamined childhood wounds. With co-therapist Lisa Arnone, LCSW, he traces how early needs for attractiveness, desirability, and parental attention shape adult love patterns.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves September 18, 2012

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: John Valerio, Lisa Arnone
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Identity & The Self

We are all method actors in stories we invented, and the stories we tell others are shaped as much by what listeners want to hear as by what we want to say. Armand DiMele and Lisa Arnone, LCSW explore how anxiety, denial, and the compulsive need to “fix” others often trace back to unfinished business from childhood.

The Many Faces of Craziness January 6, 2011

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

Armand DiMele breaks down what ‘crazy’ actually means, separating neurotic repetition (doing the same thing and expecting different results) from chemical and psychological states where a person loses touch with themselves entirely. He traces how fear of danger drives paranoia, withdrawal, and self-destruction.

Why Patterns Keep Repeating September 8, 2009

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Identity & The Self, Personal Growth & Change

Why do the same traps keep springing? Armand DiMele works through the nature-versus-nurture debate, chromosome alleles, and childhood nurturance to explain why personality patterns persist, then takes calls to show listeners how their judgments of others reveal their own wounds and fears.

Oh No He’s Just Like My Father with Sandra Reischus August 8, 2007

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Sandra Reischus
Category: Family & Parenting, Love & Romantic Relationships

We unconsciously seek partners who recreate the emotional dynamics of our childhood homes, not the people themselves but the feelings they produce. Sandra Reischus, author of the book of the same name, joins Armand to unpack why comfort zones in love are often traps, and how psychotherapy rewires those early patterns.

Separation and the Chemistry of Love February 14, 2007

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Atin
Category: Love & Romantic Relationships, The Mind & Neuroscience

Why do couples lose their spark, and can separation actually rekindle it? Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti trace the rise and fall of phenylethylamine in romantic love, argue that emotional distance restores chemistry, and connect childhood neurological gaps to adult attraction patterns and the need for containment.

The Comfort Zone and Resistance to Change Undated

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

Why do we resist change even when our circumstances make us miserable? Armand DiMele examines the psychology of the comfort zone, repetition compulsion, and the moment people finally say no more. Real change, he argues, requires a kind of death before any rebirth is possible.