Being Human

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 
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Dr. Greg thought the draft was good. A year later, he called it "terrible." That's how a book ends up taking almost ten years to write.
With The Personalist Cure finally launching, Dr. Greg sits down with his good friend Dr. Bryan Violette for a conversation that circles back on itself the way John Paul II's own writing does. Along the way, they get to the heart of the book: the difference between love that controls and love that sets free.
Key Topics:
Why so much of what passes for love is really a compulsive effort to get your own needs met
What emancipating love looks like: willing the good of the other for their sake, even when it costs you
Why the love Jesus shows on the cross changes how you see every relationship in your life
What John Paul II meant by mutual submission in marriage — and why it's the opposite of control
Learn More:
The Personalist Cure by Dr. Greg Bottaro — the book behind this episode, almost ten years in the making
Join us at the Summit of Integration in Dallas, October 20–23, celebrating the Feast of St. John Paul II (virtual tickets available)
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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
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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
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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)
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