Being Human

Dr. Gregory Bottaro

At the CatholicPsych Institute, we're doing something new when it comes to therapy. In the Being Human podcast, Dr. Greg Bottaro, Founder and Director of the CatholicPsych Institute, shares with you his vision for Catholic therapy and a revolutionary approach that is focused, finally, on what it means to be human.

  1. 23 hr ago

    Encore: Do You Know There Are 5 Anxiety Languages?

    Which anxiety language do you speak? To celebrate 300 episodes of Being Human, we're bringing back one of your all-time favorites. Dr. Greg walks through the five anxiety languages (reactive, activated, minimizing, withdrawing, and impulsive) and shows why none of these parts is the enemy. Once they're let off the hook, they can become gifts. Key Topics: Why snapping at people, staying busy, or shrugging "this is fine" can all be anxiety, even if you'd never call yourself anxious Why being "always on" can pass for ambition when it's really running from an inner voice that says you'll fail Why pulling back and procrastinating are often your nervous system bracing for a threat, not laziness How anxiety can look like ADHD: the half-organized closet, the car you can't drive, the bathroom you never finished How each part, once it's let off the hook, can become alertness, motivation, peace, or spirit-led creativity Learn More: What's your primary anxiety language? Take the free Anxiety Languages Quiz: https://catholicpsy.ch/quiz Catholic Mindfulness Virtual Retreat: eight weeks of daily videos to help you work with your anxiety language Blog article: Is Mindfulness Safe for Catholics to Practice?  The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman Previous episodes on parts work (IFS): Ep. #34: A New Theory! w/ a Catholic Lens Ep. #35: Why Do I Feel Like I Have Conflicting Thoughts? w/ Dr. Peter Malinoski Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

    Encore: Do You Know There Are 5 Anxiety Languages?
  2. 13 Oct

    Being Human Together: Celebrating 300 Episodes and What God Can Do with a Little Faith

    It's pretty wild: Being Human has reached episode 300. Dr. Greg gathered his friends to celebrate, and the celebration quietly became an example of what this show has been saying all along — being human can't be done alone. Dr. Greg is joined by Dr. Bryan Violette and his wife Teresa, along with Dr. Gerard McNicholas, to look back on 300 episodes of the podcast. Then a simple question about Teresa's new hobby opens into something far more personal, and gives a first taste of what comes next: Being Human Together. Key Topics: Why what you start in faith rarely turns out to be what you thought you were building Why the thing you're most upset about is often standing in for a grief you haven't named yet How a hobby you'd rather not talk about can be the most honest thing about you right now Why the people closest to you can sometimes see your grief before you do Why your favorite song can make you feel completely understood — and strangely alone when you share it How art slips past the part of you that would rather explain a feeling than feel it Learn More: Past episodes remembered in this conversation: Where it all started: Ep. #1: The Beginning Ep. #225: Humility, Time Travel and Philosophy with Peter Kreeft — Dr. Greg's favorite Ep. #102: ADHD and Me, w/ Teresa Violette Ep. #231: Music as Accompaniment: Matt Maher and a Mission to Heal through Song Ep. #172: A Journey through Faith and Music with John Michael Talbot Ep. #291: OCPD and Scrupulosity: How the Worship of Rules and Control Leads to the Loneliness of Certainty Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary: Why Real Change Happens through Love not Willpower The CatholicPsych Show — the live news show Dr. Greg and Dr. Bryan hosted Dr. Greg on The Lila Rose Show St. John Paul II's Letter to Artists The Personalist Cure by Dr. Greg Bottaro Missed the Summit of Integration? Catch the replays, including Christopher West's keynote on the Feast of St. John Paul II  Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

    Being Human Together: Celebrating 300 Episodes and What God Can Do with a Little Faith
  3. 29 Sept

    Your Working Genius: Exploring What the Grind Reveals About Your Gifts

    You've been called lazy. Maybe you've been told you're just bad at your job. But what if that was never the problem at all — what if you've simply been sitting in the wrong seat? Dr. Greg sits down with his good friend Dr. Bryan Violette to explore what the Working Genius reveals about the work that drains us. Along the way, they make the case that even the parts of us we're most embarrassed by are usually protecting something good: our dignity. Key Topics: Why the task that grinds you down says more about your gifts than about your character Why "you're lazy" is usually the wrong story — and "wrong seat on the bus" is often the right one What "adaptive narcissism" is actually protecting Why shame doesn't produce lasting change — it just teaches you to hide better Why "I'm not myself today" gets it wrong, and why curiosity about the part that just showed up works better Why giving yourself away fills you up, even though handing over your coffee only leaves you with an empty cup Learn More: Join us at the Summit of Integration in Dallas, October 20–23, celebrating the Feast of St. John Paul II (virtual tickets available) The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni — the framework Dr. Greg and Dr. Bryan discuss throughout the episode Gaudium et Spes — the Vatican II constitution behind "Christ reveals man to himself" and finding ourselves through a sincere gift of self Previous episodes on parts work (IFS): Ep. #34: A New Theory! w/ a Catholic Lens Ep. #35: Why Do I Feel Like I Have Conflicting Thoughts? w/ Dr. Peter Malinoski Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

    Your Working Genius: Exploring What the Grind Reveals About Your Gifts
  4. 22 Sept

    Throwing Darts in the Dark: What Happens When Psychology and Education Forget What a Human Person Is

    Psychology is supposed to be a hard science with clear answers about what's healthy. It isn't — and when the people forming our kids can't say what a human being actually is, even their best work turns into darts thrown in the dark. Dr. Greg sits down with Dr. Brett Salkeld — host of the Making Every Class Catholic podcast — to trace what psychology and education both get wrong when they skip the question of what a person is for, and why the schools racing hardest to keep up with technology may not be the ones still standing in five years. Key Topics: Why psychology has no agreed-on standard for mental health — and what that gap is doing to real kids in real classrooms Why you have to know what a healthy human being is before you can help one heal How one true principle about the human person let Dr. Greg call the phone crisis in 2014 — years before the data caught up Why a phone doesn't connect two people so much as stand between them — and who profits from keeping it there Why the schools racing hardest to keep up with technology may be the ones that don't exist in five years What actually makes a school worth attending once AI can hand a kid any fact for free Learn More: Dr. Brett Salkeld's podcast: Making Every Class Catholic — bringing the Catholic faith into every subject in the classroom Educating for Eternity: A Teacher's Companion for Making Every Class Catholic by Dr. Brett Salkeld Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyła (St. John Paul II) Duc in Altum Schools Collaborative — the Catholic-schools network where Dr. Greg first met Dr. Salkeld Join us at the Summit of Integration in Dallas — launching the Year of St. John Paul II The Personalist Cure — Dr. Greg's new book, launching this October at the Summit Sign up for our newsletter Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

    Throwing Darts in the Dark: What Happens When Psychology and Education Forget What a Human Person Is
  5. 15 Sept

    A Saint in the Subconscious: JP2 and the Search for the Human Person

    John Paul II is the most important psychologist of the twentieth century — and almost no one knows it. In three dense paragraphs on the subconscious, he named what Freud got wrong and gave us a fuller picture of the human person. Dr. Greg sits down with Fr. Randy Sly to trace how a pilgrimage through Poland turned a philosopher he'd studied for twenty-five years into a father he'd finally met — and why that kind of encounter, not more theory, is what integration actually asks of us. Key Topics: What John Paul II saw about the subconscious that Freud missed entirely Why studying a saint for twenty-five years isn't the same as actually meeting him How explaining integration can be the very thing that keeps you from it Why you don't have to be in crisis to need help becoming who you're meant to be What it means to be a channel instead of a closed loop — and why receiving isn't optional if you want to keep giving Learn More: Join us at the Summit of Integration this October in Dallas — launching the Year of St. John Paul II The Personalist Cure — Dr. Greg's upcoming book, launching this October at the Summit Sign up for our newsletter Fr. Randy Sly's podcast: The Follow to Lead Podcast Integration Pilgrimages — the encounter-focused pilgrimage Dr. Greg helped lead this summer Practice Catholic mindfulness to find the presence of God in the moment  Go deeper in the integrated life through the Integrated Life app and community  John Paul II on the subconscious: Person and Act and Related Essays by Karol Wojtyła Duc in Altum Schools Collaborative Black Elk Healing Retreat (Wyoming) Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

    A Saint in the Subconscious: JP2 and the Search for the Human Person
  6. 8 Sept

    God Threw My Journal into a River: A Conversation on Love and Freedom from the Streets of Zakopane, Poland

    You can become who you are. Which means you can also become who you're not. Recorded on location in Poland during a pilgrimage through the life of John Paul II, Dr. Greg Bottaro and Dr. Gerard McNicholas trace JP2's line "let yourself be molded by love" — and what happens in the subconscious that blocks our freedom to choose it. Key Topics: Why "become who you are" carries a hidden warning — you can also be molded into who you're not Why virtue never becomes automatic, no matter how many years you practice it How the one freedom no one can take from you is the freedom St. Maximilian Kolbe used to step forward and say "take my place" Why the buried things in your subconscious actually want to be known — and why John Paul II called surfacing them a task of morality How art slips in the back door of the subconscious and unlocks what analysis alone can't reach Learn More: Person and Act and Related Essays by Karol Wojtyła (John Paul II) — his account of conscience and the subconscious Our God's Brother — the Wojtyła play that gives us "let yourself be molded by love" Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl  The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk  John Paul II's Letter to Artists The Personalist Cure — Dr. Greg's upcoming book, launching this October at the Summit Join us at the Summit of Integration this October in Dallas — launching the Year of St. John Paul II Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

    God Threw My Journal into a River: A Conversation on Love and Freedom from the Streets of Zakopane, Poland

About

At the CatholicPsych Institute, we're doing something new when it comes to therapy. In the Being Human podcast, Dr. Greg Bottaro, Founder and Director of the CatholicPsych Institute, shares with you his vision for Catholic therapy and a revolutionary approach that is focused, finally, on what it means to be human.

You Might Also Like