Violence lives inside everyone, and Armand DiMele traces its origins from brain chemistry (serotonin, testosterone, adrenaline) to childhood trauma to personality type. Callers share firsthand accounts of growing up with domestic violence, and Armand examines how givers, perfectionists, and competitors each carry hidden aggression.
Mundane complaints hide deeper wounds, and Armand DiMele shows how to find them. Working live with Lisa Arnone, LCSW, he demonstrates how a throwaway statement like “I hate people who buy lottery tickets” can be guided, step by step, into a genuine first-person admission about fear, disappointment, and unmet need.
Serotonin may not cause depression after all. Armand DiMele and Linda Vanella, LCSW-R, dig into why the serotonin hypothesis is crumbling and why neurogenesis, the growth of new brain cells, may better explain how mood shifts with age and how exercise, learning, and enriched environments can counter decline.
The most common New Year’s resolution, spending more time with family and friends, reveals a quiet seasonal depression and a fear of disconnection. Armand DiMele examines why friendships fade over time, how divorce, aging, shame, and shifting priorities pull people apart, and what it actually takes to stay connected.
Anger is not just emotional but biochemical: cortisol drops, testosterone rises, and the left brain activates when we rage. Armand DiMele and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW discuss how anger functions as the body’s shortcut out of depression, why blaming others is an addiction, and what the latest neurochemical research reveals about rage, closeness, and self.
Irritability turns out to be closer to fear than anger, and closer to tears than most people realize. Armand DiMele and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, trace how weather, hormones, serotonin, fatigue, and vitamin D deprivation all converge to push the nervous system toward that hair-trigger state, and callers weigh in with their own experiences.
Depression is not weakness but a physical stress reaction triggered when the brain exhausts its supply of neurotransmitters. Armand DiMele explains the neurochemistry of collapse, the narcissistic wounds that drive suicide, and why a depressed person genuinely cannot imagine a way out. Callers share personal recoveries, including one with an MAO inhibitor.
Neurocardiology is upending the old idea that the heart is merely a pump. Armand DiMele and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. examine how extreme stress and emotional loss can literally stop the heart, where serotonin is actually stored in the body, and why fragmented specialist care leaves patients powerless.
Moods are not simply feelings but products of neurotransmitters, nutrition, environment, and psychology working together. Armand DiMele argues that blame and repetitive arguing perpetuate bad moods rather than resolve them, and that a flexible, expansive mind, one open even to nonsense and surprise, is the real tool for change.
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.
