AI was supposed to replace what humans make. Instead, it's revealing what only humans can. In this episode, Dr. Greg sits down with Mike Marshall, Director of Design at the CatholicPsych Institute, to explore the irony at the heart of the AI age: the closer machines get to perfection, the more clearly we see that imperfection isn't a flaw to engineer away: it's the signature of being human.

Key Topics:

• What it means to be human in an age that can imitate almost everything
• Why the closer AI gets to "perfect," the more obvious it becomes that something's missing
• Why signing your work is becoming a quiet act of resistance in an age of imitation
• What it actually takes to stay human in a world that's getting very good at faking it

Learn More:

• Letter to Artists by Pope St. John Paul II – The letter referenced throughout the conversation
• mikemarshalldesign.com – The hand behind every piece of CatholicPsych branding, and available for freelance work
• The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton – The meditation Mike draws from on man as "maker," not Creator
• The Mindful Catholic by Dr. Greg Bottaro – The book with the "keys in a blender" story Dr. Greg never expected readers to remember
• Watch other Being Human episodes on YouTube – Watch the full video archive of the Being Human podcast
• Sam Altman on AI Images – The referenced video clip on why the value of perfection is going to zero
• The Integrated Life Journal – Quarterly journal on disintegrated care in the modern world, and what integration looks like in practice
• Summit of Integration 2026 – Sign up to learn more about this year's event!
• 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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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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"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

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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

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