Being Human

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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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
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