Keyword: survival

Strategies for Getting Through Life November 12, 2014

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Ben Starr, Giullian Gioiello

Everyone develops a strategy for getting through life, and most of them form in childhood. Armand DiMele, joined by co-hosts Ben Starr and Giullian Gioiello, maps out the recurring patterns: the beauty-seeker, the easygoing half-asleep type, the controller who trusts no one, the dramatic emotional type. Understanding someone’s strategy, rather than judging it, is the path to genuine connection.

What Drives Us June 23, 2010

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Lauren Sykes, Sherri Siegel

What separates the person who pursues degree after degree from one who is content to sit still? Armand DiMele and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. trace motivation from hypothalamic hormones like ghrelin and leptin to subconscious drives rooted in early experience, drawing on theorists Steven Reiss and Daniel Pink along the way.

How the Brain Evolved Emotions with Dr. Joe Ledoux June 16, 2010

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Dr. Joe Ledoux, Sherry Segal

Fear is not just a feeling but a hardwired survival circuit, and the brain acts on danger before the conscious mind even knows what is happening. Neuroscientist Dr. Joe Ledoux walks Armand through the amygdala’s two pathways, why emotional memories feel vivid but are often inaccurate, and why it is far easier for emotions to hijack thought than the other way around.

How People Survive Catastrophe January 14, 2010

What happens in the mind and body when people face catastrophic loss? Using the 2010 Haiti earthquake as a focal point, Armand DiMele examines the psychological and biological mechanisms that carry people through the unthinkable, from dissociation and stress chemistry to religious ritual and the drive to live for others.

The Genius of Instinct with Henry Weisinger June 16, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Henry Weisinger, Stephanie D'Ambra

Our instincts are not primitive liabilities but hardwired tools for success that evolution refined over hundreds of thousands of years. Henry Weisinger, author of The Genius of Instinct, walks through six key instincts with Armand and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, showing how shelter seeking, care soliciting, and emotional vulnerability help people move from merely surviving to genuinely thriving.

Surviving Crisis and Finding Strength with Mark Matusik June 25, 2008

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Mark Matusik

What do you discover about yourself when crisis strips everything away? Author Mark Matusik discusses his book drawing on interviews with Joan Didion, Ram Dass, and others who survived profound loss, illness, and trauma. The recurring insight: real strength only emerges when the fictional version collapses.

Deception and Adaptation in Nature and Humans March 28, 2007

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Atin

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 Evolutionary Roots of Depression with Roberta Maria Acchi April 5, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Acchi

Depression may be a biological strategy shaped by evolution, not merely a pathology. Armand DiMele and guest Roberta Maria Acchi examine rank theory, the biochemistry of winning and losing, why men hide depression, how oppressed groups are kept docile, and how blocked creative potential rewires the nervous system toward low mood.

Animal Survival and Human Deception Undated

Host: Armand DiMele

Every human defense strategy has a counterpart in nature. Armand DiMele maps four types of animal mimicry onto everyday human behavior, from gang colors to tomboyism to con artists, then takes a caller whose obsessive cleaning turns out to mask a deeper, unnamed fear.

How Mirror Neurons Shape Empathy Undated

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Atti

Mirror neurons fire as if you are doing what you merely observe, and that single fact explains empathy, art, sports fandom, and psychic-seeming intuition. Armand and co-host Roberta Maria Atti trace the discovery from a researcher in Parma watching a monkey mimic his coffee sip, then connect it to personality types, great athletes, and the secret of why pizza vanishes at parties.