Being Human

The meltdown. The defiance. The constant "look at me." It's easy to wonder if something is wrong. But most of the time, these aren't signs of a disorder — they're signs of development still in progress.

In this episode, Dr. Greg explores what's really underneath "behavior problems," why children can't be diagnosed with personality disorders, and why the question that changes everything isn't "what's wrong with my child?" — but "what does my child need from me right now?"

Key Topics:

• Why children cannot be diagnosed with personality disorders — and what's actually happening when their behavior looks like one
• How emotional regulation is learned, not innate — and what co-regulation actually looks like
• Why a child's dramatic, self-centered, or defiant behavior is often developmentally appropriate
• What it means when a child borrows a parent's nervous system — and why that steadiness is the foundation
• Why the patterns we see in our kids so often point back to something in us
• How a parent's own unhealed wounds shape the environment a child grows up inside
• Why admitting our own imperfection is one of the most formative things we can give our children

Learn More:

• CatholicPsych Newsletter - Sign up to stay connected and hear the latest developments!
• Start of the Being Human series on the Histrionic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #274: To Be Loved Is to Perform: Inside the Histrionic Compulsion for Attention and Validation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
• Pilgrimage to Poland - Learn more about this journey with St. John Paul II
• Summit of Integration 2026 - Sign up to learn more about this year's event!
• Healing Retreat in Wyoming - Learn more about our upcoming retreat experience.
• The Stages of Spiritual Development - Previous Being Human episode on how the stages of human development are interrelated to the stages of spiritual development.
• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment

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$20 billion in research. Suicide rates 32% higher than the year 2000. Something is deeply wrong — and it isn't a lack of effort.

In this episode, Dr. Greg makes the case that the mental health crisis isn't a funding problem or an awareness problem. It's a standard problem. Without a vision of what a healthy human person actually looks like, the best we can do is manage symptoms. And he introduces something new: a Mental Health Litany and Novena beginning May 15th — nine days of prayer leading into Pentecost, naming the specific fears and lies beneath our patterns and bringing them before Christ.

Key Topics:

• Why decades of funding and awareness haven't moved mental health in the right direction
• Why the absence of symptoms is not the same thing as health
• What Catholic anthropology offers that the mental health industry doesn't have
• Why the Church has been slow to speak into mental suffering — and what that silence has cost
• How a litany does something that silence and symptom-management can't
• What it looks like to bring anxiety, depression, and trauma into Catholic prayer — by name

Learn More:

• Download the Mental Health Litany and join the Novena: catholicpsych.com/litany
• Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier: The book Dr. Greg references that argues our current mental health treatments may be making the problems worse
• Start of the Being Human series on the Histrionic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #274: To Be Loved Is to Perform: Inside the Histrionic Compulsion for Attention and Validation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment

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Healing isn't about changing your personality. It's about being freed from the compulsions that drive it. In this final episode of the histrionic series, Dr. Greg explores what the path from performance to presence actually looks like — why hiddenness feels terrifying but works like medicine, and why the deepest fear underneath this pattern can only be answered by God.

Key Topics:

• Why healing doesn't mean losing what makes you magnetic — and what actually does need to change
• How a room falling silent can feel like ceasing to exist — and why that's the wound, not the cure
• Why hiddenness feels like punishment but acts like medicine
• What it means when provoking a reaction feels more real than having a real conversation
• Why no amount of being seen by other people ever quite reaches the thing underneath
• Why real connection becomes possible only when you stop needing to be the most interesting person in the room

Learn More:

• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation
• Being Human series on the Histrionic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #276: Back to Eden: Overcoming the Fear of Being Alone Through Divine Love
  • Ep. #275: Hiding the Real You: The Histrionic Battle for Intimacy
  • Ep. #274: To Be Loved Is to Perform: Inside the Histrionic Compulsion for Attention and Validation
• Previous episode on attachment theory:
  • Ep. #63: Attachment Theory: What It Is, What It Isn't, and How It Affects Your Relationships
• 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
• The Jeweler's Shop by Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) — the play Dr. Greg references on the theater of the word and the freedom of love
• God Is Love: St. Teresa Margaret — Her Life — the book Dr. Greg discovered in college about the Carmelite mystic whose life of radical hiddenness is a model for this healing path
• Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity: The Complete Works, Volume One — the Carmelite mystic Dr. Greg credits with introducing him to St. Teresa Margaret
• Summit of Integration 2026 — Coming to Dallas this October, celebrating the Year of John Paul II
• Start of the Being Human series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment

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Being seen is not the same as being known. The life of the party can be the most isolated person in the room — filling every silence, commanding every gaze, and going home to an emptiness no audience has ever touched. In this episode, Dr. Greg goes into the loneliest part of the histrionic pattern: why the most socially active person in the room can also be the most profoundly alone, and why only God can reach what no human mirror ever could.

Key Topics:

• Why being the most social person in the room can also leave you the most alone
• What it reveals when provoking a reaction starts to feel more real than having a real conversation
• How early wounds teach you that your existence depends on other people's responses
• Why heat is not warmth — and reaction is not connection
• What Henri Nouwen's I-Thou relationship reveals about why an audience never actually fills you
• Why no parent was ever meant to give you what you most deeply need
• Why God is not just the answer to this wound — but the only one it makes sense to bring it to

Learn More:

• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation
• Being Human series on the Histrionic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #275: Hiding the Real You: The Histrionic Battle for Intimacy
  • Ep. #274: To Be Loved Is to Perform: Inside the Histrionic Compulsion for Attention and Validation
• Gaudium et Spes — See paragraph 22 for the full quote of "Christ reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear"
• Henri Nouwen Society — explore Henri Nouwen's writings on the I-Thou relationship
• Start of the Being Human series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing: A Deep Dive into the Dependent Defense Pattern
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary: Why Real Change Happens through Love not Willpower
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment

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What if the person who lights up every room is actually living in fear and darkness? The humor, the charisma, the ease with which they hold attention - beneath the surface, there's often a fragile system always scanning for the next signal that they're still seen.

In this episode, Dr. Greg explores how anxious attachment shapes the histrionic pattern - why performance becomes protection, why real closeness can feel threatening even when intimacy is desperately wanted, and how this plays out in relationships and in the spiritual life.

Key Topics:

• Why you can light up every room and still feel completely alone
• How charm can be a defense, not a personality trait
• Why real closeness can feel more threatening than rejection
• How anxiety, not vanity, drives the need to be seen
• Why any reaction, even a negative one, feels better than being ignored
• Why boredom feels existentially threatening, not just uncomfortable
• How intensity gets mistaken for intimacy, and what keeps real closeness out of reach

Learn More:

• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation.
• Previous episode in this series - Histrionic Part 1:
  • Ep. #274: To Be Loved Is to Perform: Inside the Histrionic Compulsion for Attention and Validation
• Home of the Being Human podcast – Easily search 250+ episodes on topics of interest.
• Amoris Laetitia – Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Francis on Love and the Family
• Summit of Integration 2026 – Sign up to learn more about this year's event!
• The Personalist Cure – Upcoming new book by Dr. Greg Bottaro
• Don't Be Afraid of Screwing Up Your Kids - Because You Already Are – Dr. Greg's guest appearance on the Messy Family Podcast
• Start of the Being Human series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
• Previous episodes on parts work:
  • Ep. #34: A New Theory! w/a Catholic Lens
  • Ep. #35: Why Do I Feel Like I Have Conflicting Thoughts? w/ Dr. Peter Malinoski
• Previous episode on attachment theory:
  • Ep. #63: Attachment Theory: What It Is, What It Isn't, and How It Affects Your Relationships
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment

Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

"Unless someone notices you, you don't matter." For some people, that's not a passing fear — it's the operating system. In this episode, Dr. Greg opens a new series on histrionic personality patterns, exploring what's really underneath the compulsion for attention and validation: not vanity, not drama, but a terror of non-existence so deep it shapes everything.

Key Topics:

• Why attention-seeking can be less about selfishness and more about survival
• How identity gets built from the outside in — and what gets lost in the process
• Why the funniest, most entertaining person in the room may be the loneliest
• What it means when emotional intensity gets mistaken for intimacy
• How family systems shape and reward the role of the one who keeps everyone watching
• Why solitude feels so threatening — and what that reveals about all of us
• How the spiritual life can become its own kind of performance

Learn More:

• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation
• Video reflection from James Van Der Beek (Dawson from Dawson's Creek) on identity, suffering, and faith
• Start of the Being Human series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
• Previous episodes on parts work:
  • Ep. #34: A New Theory! w/a Catholic Lens
  • Ep. #35: Why Do I Feel Like I Have Conflicting Thoughts? w/ Dr. Peter Malinoski
  • Ep. #49: Internal Family Systems & External Family Tensions
• Previous episode on attachment theory:
  • Ep. #63: Attachment Theory: What It Is, What It Isn't, and How It Affects Your Relationships
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment

Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

Borderline patterns are notoriously hard to treat — but the problem isn't a lack of research. It's that the secular framework approaches healing from a disintegrated view of the person. In this final episode of the series, Dr. Greg explores why lasting healing goes deeper than symptom management, what conditions actually make transformation possible, and how the Catholic understanding of the person changes everything.

Key Topics:

• Why secular treatment can reduce symptoms but can't reach the wound underneath
• How projective identification, emotional projection, and crisis bonding emerge from a fragmented self — not from bad character
• Why healing has to happen in relationship, because that's where the wound began
• What it actually means to rebuild a coherent sense of self from the inside out
• Why lasting healing requires stable, unidirectional support over time — and why a romantic relationship can't provide it
• How faith, psychology, and science work together to restore integration and agency

Learn More:

• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation
• Love and Responsibility by St. John Paul II
• Correcting Aquinas: JP2's Truth Bomb on Gender and Human Dignity (Ep. #197) — why marriage can't be a place of healing when the power dynamics are built on a lie
• Previous episode in this series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #272: You Are Not Your Feelings: From Borderline Chaos to Inner Coherence
  • Ep. #271: Forgive, Explode, Repeat: Humanizing Borderline Personality with St. John Paul II
  • Ep. #270: I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: The Chaos of the Disorganized Attachment
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment

Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

Breathing exercises help. But they have a ceiling. For someone whose interior world is constant emotional chaos, no amount of skill-building will reach the level where real healing happens. In this episode, Dr. Greg unpacks what actually transforms borderline patterns — not DBT techniques or symptom management, but the kind of sustained, stable relationship that reorganizes the subconscious and restores a coherent sense of self.

Key Topics:

• Why skills like DBT can help but can't replace what's actually missing
• What it feels like to be subject to your emotions rather than the one having them
• Why healing looks like forming a continuous "I" — not feeling better in the moment
• How a consistent, stable relationship quietly rewires the interior life over time
• Why the same patterns that made life chaotic can become a superpower in healing
• What it means to move from surviving to true encounter — and why that distinction matters

Learn More:

• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation
• Previous episode in this series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #271: Forgive, Explode, Repeat: Humanizing Borderline Personality with St. John Paul II
  • Ep. #270: I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: The Chaos of the Disorganized Attachment
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
• Stop Walking on Eggshells – A guide for navigating relationships affected by borderline personality patterns
• Want to go deeper into discernment? Explore our Discernment of Spirits course.
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment

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Forgive. Explode. Repeat. That's the cycle — and no matter how much effort goes into the repair, it keeps starting over. In this episode, Dr. Greg explores why genuine healing can't happen inside the cycle itself, what "walking on eggshells" misses about the person suffering, and how St. John Paul II's vision of the human person restores dignity to everyone caught in these patterns.

Key Topics:

• Why repair doesn't actually heal — and what's really driving the reset
• Why calm can feel more threatening than crisis
• What "walking on eggshells" gets right and what it leaves out
• How the rupture-repair cycle creates the illusion of intimacy without building it
• Why both people in the pair end up losing themselves
• How Catholic anthropology sees the person beneath the pattern

Learn More:

• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation
• Previous episode in this series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #270: I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: The Chaos of the Disorganized Attachment
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
• Person and Act by Karol Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II)
• Stop Walking on Eggshells – A guide for navigating relationships affected by borderline personality patterns
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment

Follow Us on Socials: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter (X) | LinkedIn

"I love you… now go away." That's the kind of chaos disorganized attachment creates. It's not drama or manipulation. It's deep inner turmoil that makes love feel dangerous and safety hard to trust. In this episode, Dr. Greg explores how childhood wounds shape these push-pull patterns, why closeness can feel threatening even when love is real, and how disorganized attachment helps make sense of borderline personality patterns.

Key Topics:

• Why someone can put you on a pedestal one day and tear you down the next
• How childhood wounds create push-pull patterns that feel impossible to escape
• Why closeness can feel like a threat, even when love is real
• How disorganized attachment helps explain borderline personality patterns
• Why these patterns are rooted in inner turmoil, not simple manipulation
• How healing begins by making sense of the chaos instead of being swallowed by it

Learn More:

• Need help? Schedule a free CatholicPsych consultation
• Previous episode on attachment theory:
  • Ep. #63: Attachment Theory: What It Is, What It Isn't, and How It Affects Your Relationships
• Previous episode in this series on the Borderline Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #269: BORDERLINE: The Push-Pull Between a Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation
• Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #265: Jerry Maguire, Gollum, and the Fear of Not Existing
• Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
  • Ep. #261: Narcissism and the Terror of Being Ordinary
• Stop Walking on Eggshells – A guide for navigating relationships affected by borderline personality patterns
• Want to help? Learn more about our Certification in Professional Accompaniment