Episode 275: Hiding the Real You: The Histrionic Battle for Intimacy
Release Date: 04/21/2026
Episode 291: OCPD and Scrupulosity: How the Worship of Rules and Control Leads to the Loneliness of Certainty
Being Human
Certainty feels like safety. But you can only ever be certain alone — and the life you build on control slowly becomes a lonely one. In week two of the series on OCPD, Dr. Greg explores why we reach for control when trust feels dangerous — and how the certainty we build to feel safe ends up costing us the very relationships it was meant to protect. Key Topics: Why the certainty that makes you feel safe is the same thing that leaves you alone How a rule can feel safer than a person — because a rule never changes its face Why the control you use to protect the people you love can drive...
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Episode 290: “I’m Only Loved When I’m Perfect”: The Lie Fueling Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Being Human
Perfectionism doesn't always come from loving excellence. Sometimes it's the only way you've ever known how to feel safe. In the first episode of a new series on Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, Dr. Greg unpacks how perfectionism, rigidity, and control take root—and why, underneath them, control quietly fills the space where trust was supposed to be. Key Topics: Why the pursuit of perfection is often less about loving excellence and more about not feeling safe without it How "until I'm perfect, I'm not loved" becomes the sentence an entire personality gets built on Why one small...
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Episode 289: You Can’t Heal What You Won’t Face: How Presence Breaks the Cycle of Fear
Being Human
Avoidance works. That's the problem. Every time you dodge the hard thing, the relief is real—and so is the price you don't see coming. In this final episode of the series on avoidance, Dr. Greg makes the case that the way out isn't escape or a burst of willpower, but presence: staying in the room one second longer than you want to, and letting God meet you in the mess you were trying to hide. Key Topics: Why the relief avoidance gives you is exactly what keeps you stuck Why good therapy and mentorship refuse to hand you advice—and why that's what actually heals How even "staying present"...
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Episode 288: Why “Everything Happens for a Reason” Isn’t Working: The Holy Words We Use to Avoid Healing
Being Human
"Offer it up." "I've forgiven them." "Everything happens for a reason." Every one of them is true—and every one can become a way to avoid the healing God is actually offering. In this episode, Dr. Greg names spiritual bypassing: using prayer, devotion, and even good theology to step around grief, anger, and the wounds still waiting underneath. He explains why grace builds on nature, and why God heals only the humanity we're willing to bring into the light. Key Topics: Why the one escape nobody warns you about is the one everyone applauds: prayer, retreats, "offering it up" How "I've already...
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Episode 287: We Are Not Robots: Why Connection Is Not Optional for Human Flourishing
Being Human
There’s a lot of talk recently about whether AI can be considered a person. But the more serious question might be whether people are becoming too much like AI—learning to live without real connection. To keep our distance. To avoid vulnerability. To convince ourselves that we don’t need anyone. In this episode, Dr. Greg continues the series on avoidance by turning to schizoid personality: the pattern where the wish for connection hasn’t just been buried by fear, but has gone quiet altogether. Drawing on the personalism of St. John Paul II, he shows why we stay made out of...
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Episode 286: A Mental Tug of War: Inside the Avoidant Mind and the Burden of Being Known
Being Human
Avoidance looks like not wanting people. It's almost always the opposite: wanting connection so badly that being seen feels like the biggest risk of all. In this episode, Dr. Greg explores avoidant personality patterns through the lens of Catholic anthropology—where the quiet tug-of-war between longing to be known and fearing rejection comes from, and how the difference between what happens in us and what we choose opens a path toward freedom. Key Topics: Why "I just need my space" can be a wall dressed up as a boundary How a childhood full of real love—not neglect—can still teach you...
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Episode 285: Venting Isn’t Always Healing: The Difference Between Sharing Truth and Feeding Resentment
Being Human
Getting it all off your chest is supposed to be healing. But sometimes the venting that feels like relief is quietly feeding your resentment instead. In this episode, Dr. Greg sits down with Fr. Gregory Pine—author of Training the Tongue—to explore why the deepest purpose of speech is communion, and how to tell the difference between working through your pain and simply settling the score. Key Topics: Why the real purpose of speech isn’t expressing yourself — it’s communion How to tell whether you’re venting toward healing or just venting to settle the score Why the friend who...
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Episode 284: Stop Chasing Spiritual Highs: Why Real Healing Happens in the Ordinary
Being Human
Your prayer life can be how you avoid healing. In this final episode of the antisocial series, Dr. Greg unpacks why a retreat high or a powerful devotional moment can convince you the healing is done — when the actual work hasn't started yet, and why that work happens in the small, unglamorous moments nobody puts on a holy card. Key Topics: Why the most moving retreat of your life can leave you exactly the same — and what actually changes you What "magical penance" reveals about the parts of us that prefer grand gestures to real repair Why healing happens in what you do on an...
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Episode 283: “I Will Never Be Hurt Again”: How Jesus’ Sacred Heart Breaks the Cycle
Being Human
A hardened heart isn’t where the story starts. It’s what’s left after a child trusted, got hurt, and concluded: I’ll never be in that position again. This week, Dr. Greg turns the antisocial series toward hope: looking at how that hardness forms, and how the Sacred Heart of Jesus, betrayed and pierced yet still open, breaks the pattern. Key Topics: Why a hardened heart is never cold by nature—it’s protection learned the first time trusting backfired Why the urge to control everyone around you is really an old strategy for never being at anyone’s mercy again How “making up for...
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Episode 282: You're (Probably) Not a Serial Killer—But You May Share Some of Their Antisocial Traits
Being Human
You're probably not a serial killer. But the patterns that shape one run through all of us, at lower volume. In this episode, Dr. Greg traces antisocial patterns back to their source in everyday life — how we manage people, pray, and protect ourselves from being hurt again. Key Topics: Why the patterns that define serial killers aren't limited to serial killers — and how to see yourself honestly in that mirror How omnipotent control can look like loyalty, competence, or even holiness — and what it's protecting underneath What "magical penance" looks like when atonement becomes a form of...
info_outlineWhat 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:
- 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:
- Start of the Being Human series on the Dependent Defense Patterns:
- Start of the Being Human series on the Narcissistic Defense Patterns:
- Previous episodes on parts work:
- Previous episode on attachment theory:
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