You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Swell AI Transcript: 152. Greg Batarro - part 1.mp3
Dr. Gregory Bottaro:
What does Catholic therapy offer to the world? The awareness is only step one of what's important. It still doesn't have like an outside purpose. Well, where's all of this self-awareness going? What are we plugging into that's actually bigger than both of us? We're here, all of us here, to live towards this higher order transcendent relationship. You can look at our individual relationship and realize that this is participation in the vertical transcendence of relationship, where we're going out of ourselves towards God, individually and together. But it's through the interaction together that we're also both stepping up into a world in which we can encounter objective truth, goodness, and beauty. You must be some kind of therapist.

Stephanie Winn: I'd like to take a moment to explain what you are about to hear. I had not one, but two fascinating conversations with Dr. Greg Bottaro. The reason for this is that we had a minor miscommunication over how much time to allot for our first interview. So we had to unexpectedly cut it short early, and he was generous enough to schedule a follow-up with me. That follow-up was going to be part two of one conversation. However, I thought each conversation ended up being so valuable in its own right. And I felt like in part two, we actually really got into some of the most fascinating meat of the conversation that I was the most looking forward to. And so that's what we're going to lead with. The conversation you are about to hear is my second conversation with Dr. Greg Pitaro, originally intended to be the second half of one conversation. In a follow-up episode, I will release part two, which was actually our first conversation, if that makes sense. Hope it makes sense. Hope you enjoy the conversation. I personally loved it and found it very fascinating. Dr. Greg Pataro. In our first conversation, we kept sort of dancing and circling around this intriguing question of the concept you call a blueprint of the human being according to Catholic psychology. So let's get into it. How would you describe the Catholic view of what a human being is?

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Yeah, no, it's a really good question to circle around on. And I think why there's so much circling is worth just noting that there could be a false assumption or proposal being made, even with the analogy of blueprint, And it's precisely part of the blueprint that we are not something to be summed up in a blueprint. There's a mark of our humanity that we actually talk about being ineffable or indescribable, or that there's a part of the person that's incommunicable. And there's a uniqueness to each individual person that's actually outside the bounds of definition and really nailing down in a simple blueprint. This is just a challenge that we try to overcome with language. But I use the image of blueprint all the time. And I talk about, if you want to fix your car, bring it to a mechanic. They know the blueprint. They can fix your car. Well, the human person is not a car. We are not just a material being. And so just noting that is why we do a lot of this dancing. And there's these different lenses through which we can look at this thing, the human person. One of the lenses to give us a very simple paradigm is the fact that we're made in the image of God. And what we can say is that there are actually five marks of relationship that make up our blueprint. And so a lot of times I talk about blueprint in terms of these five marks of relationship. And so the first one is that we are made in the image of God, and God, we believe to be a trinity. This is the Christian revelation of God, so that God is both three and one. We're made in his image. That means that there's some way in which we are both a multiplicity and a unity. And so part of our human blueprint is that we have these two dimensions of multiplicity and unity, and that we will find in relationship not just a function of our humanity, but an essential quality of our identity. And that's a really important distinction to make, because we can say, let's study the person, let's do psychological research, let's talk about what's good for the human person. And what I find is in most people's conceptualization of the person, it's a sense of the individual person. You do any kind of research, it's like, here are all the variables for this person. Sometimes good research will look at, well, what other relationships is that person embedded within? Right? So like, think about if we're studying medicine, how does this medicine affect depression? And then you set up a study. and you study all these variables, and maybe we look at each participant's relationships that's in that study, but maybe we don't, and there's no real sort of paradigm or standard by which good study protocol will always necessarily include a deep dive into the relationality of this particular participant in this study. So, the implicit point that's being communicated through that scientific research is relationality is not an essential core of what makes up a person. So we would say that it actually has to absolutely be an essential core of what makes up a person, if we're having any kind of blueprint understanding of a person. So we're always thinking through a Christian lens, how does relationship fit in this person's life? Because we're made from a relationship, we're made in the image of relationship. So that's the first mark of the person. The second mark is that we are then formed in relationship. So not only are we made out of the image of relationship in the image of relationship, but we're actually then developmentally in space and time becoming who we really are in relationship. So most simply thinking about just being in a family. And so all the relational dynamics that make up the family dynamics are part of what forms the person into who they are. And also then the third mark of relationship is that that's where we are wounded. So we are wounded in relationship. This is part of what makes us human. And we develop distortions of who we are. We become less of what we could be because of these wounds, because of misunderstandings of identity and things like that through relationship. But the fourth mark of relationship for the human person is that we can be healed in relationship. So it's because we're made out of relationship and we have a formative capacity and vulnerability to relationship that all those wounds can actually be corrected through relationships that we're a part of. And then ultimately the fifth mark of relationship for the person is that we are destined for eternal relationship. So this is our end goal. This is the telos. This is the purpose or the intention of our whole life. And in Christian framework, we talk about that being an eternal union with God. That's an eternal relationship of infinite mutual gift of self of one to another. And so that's when we look at marriage. You mentioned theology of the body before. This is the whole point that John Paul II taught through the theology of the body, is that marriage is an image. It's just a foretaste. It's a small appetizer of the fullness of reciprocal, mutual self-gift that we are all destined for in union with God. And so whatever can be sort of materially and personally sort of manifest here now in this world and the ever deepening unity of the one flesh union of man and woman in marriage, That is not even scratching the surface of a foreshadowing of what we're actually made for, for all eternity with the divine. And so think about this, if that's true. shouldn't that have a significant mark on how we think about who we are here now? What moves us? What hurts us? What limits us? What distorts us? We're the kind of thing that's made for that amazing, mind-blowing, almost inconceivable reality. So if I'm upset because of a breakup, or I'm depressed because I don't know who I am, or I feel really uncomfortable in my body, all these different dimensions, it's like now I feel like I don't even deserve to live. Well, what we're really made for is so far beyond the sort of normal conceptualization of human capacity that it makes even more sense how devastating those inner experiences actually are. So that's another way to think about the quote-unquote blueprint of the person. Do you still feel like we're dancing around it or does that get a little bit closer towards…

Stephanie Winn: Well, no, I think we're talking about it. And I didn't know that the emphasis was going to be so relational, but it really makes sense to me, it checks out. And so kind of going further into that relational stance, how does this extend into the blueprint for family life, sort of the you know, the ideal circumstances that are worth striving for in terms of how we structure our relationships and how those relationships should be characterized.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: So there's another layer of complexity, or I could say another facet, like if we're a diamond and we have all these different facets that you could look through to understand the core of who we really are, then we can turn back to the individual and we look at the layers of the person inside. And we already talked in the last episode about being a unity of body and spirit. And then we have the overlap between the two happening in the psyche. And then, so then we could also think about this sort of layers of the person. And we can almost think of like the base layer being the material body that we're made out of. And then the top layer being the spiritual dimension of who we are as persons. And then in between those two is this really interesting kind of messy mix of the overlap where you have the psyche. And the psyche includes the consciousness, it includes the subconscious, it includes unconscious life that's happening inside of us. So from the body, we have things like our sort of blood flow, our heartbeat, our lungs, breathing, things that we're not really normally paying attention to. They're happening, it's real, but we're not conscious of it, so that's unconscious. And then we have in consciousness, we have sort of what we're aware of, what we have knowledge of, and what we can decide and choose and will. And then sort of the mix between those two things is this really weird place, which is where we love to think and work and dwell, which is the subconscious. And so it's almost like there's a threshold underneath consciousness where we're into the subconscious. Now this is kind of like unconsciousness because we're not really aware of it, but it has much more effect on our consciousness. And what the Catholic blueprint of the person teaches is that there is an inertia or a dynamic within subconscious material that it's sort of pushing towards conscious expression. So in other words, when we're sick, when we're tired, when we're sleeping, there's a lot that starts to seep out. It's almost like there's a dynamism within the content of subconsciousness that it almost was pushing towards the surface. And yet at the same time, there's almost like this corrective dynamic within consciousness that's pushing it back down. And so we can think about that in a few different ways. So there's this protective dimension of consciousness, which is serving the whole system by keeping certain material under the threshold of consciousness. But the work that we do in therapy is very often focused on how to bring content from the subconscious into the light of consciousness in a safe way. So creating safety, creating rapport, creating relationship in which it's okay for the subconscious material to seep out. And that doesn't just mean repressed memories. That might be patterns of personality, patterns of behavior, certain narratives that we think about ourselves, certain narratives that we think about other people. If I walk around constantly with a narrative of, you know, everybody's out to get me, and then I'm sort of predisposed to always be on guard against people. Like, I'm not walking around thinking that's my narrative necessarily. That's not consciously in my mind. but it's subconsciously held somewhere and it's giving fuel to the way I judge a certain person's action and something that happens interpersonally. So if we think about those layers, and then we think about the top layer I said was the spiritual. So we have the body, and then we have the unconscious, and then we have subconscious, and then we have consciousness, and then that gives way to that top layer of spiritual. And the spiritual dimension is where we step outside of space and time. It's where we can actually commune with the eternal. It's where, and we don't even have to get spiritual to think about it, but it's like the abstraction of objective thought, like to be able to just conceptualize of the idea that two plus two equals four. And the idea that two plus two does not equal not four. Like to even like process what that statement means is like we're stepping outside of space and time. Like that's not dependent on like the room I'm in or the year or the hour that it is right now. We're talking about ideas and ideas are bigger than things that are happening in the present moment. And so that's, uh, that's transcending space and time. That's a capacity that we have as humans. And when we go to that capacity, we can discern and discover, it's almost like we can receive the reality of things that are true, like 2 plus 2 is 4, good, and beautiful. So these are things called the transcendentals in Catholic thought. True, good, and beautiful. And when we write those, we usually write them with a capital T, a capital G, and a capital B. And it's like, if you're before a beautiful sunset, you know, if you're before the sunset overlooking the mountains, you know, the beautiful tapestry that's hanging behind you. And if you were actually there in that space, surrounded by that environment, There's a sense that if you don't receive beauty here, something's wrong with you. Like something's off. Like not judgmentally wrong, but it's like, what don't you see? What aren't you getting? Because there's an objectivity to the reality of beauty that's bigger than us, that we are placing ourselves in the presence of, and we have a capacity to receive what is bigger than us, that is being given to us. So the beauty that's in the environment can be given to us. The truth of two plus two is four can be given to us. We can receive that. And then goodness, you know, the goodness of, of, of helping somebody in need or the goodness of not hurting somebody. Like these kinds of things are, are just innate or objective. They're outside of us. So all of this is going to come back to your question, because all this plugs us into relationships with others. But essentially, we have objective truth, we have a capacity to receive it, and then we have the sort of experience playground inside of us within our consciousness that's navigating the interaction between the self and my inner experience and the other, the outside world. And you're constantly, we're navigating this interaction and we're lining up how much we perceive what's outside of us with what's inside of us. And one of the innate goodness things that we perceive, even from infancy, is I am good. There's a need underneath everything else that's built in. It's just the operating system we come with. That we can receive the truth and the goodness and the beauty of the reality of our own goodness. Which is why when something happens in our environment that contradicts that inner reality, there's what I'm calling a wound. And that wound is usually at the hands of a person in relationship. But then because we have this self-protective faculty built in, because we're good, so we should protect ourselves, we're built to protect ourselves, we sort of manipulate reality. And we create a new narrative to make sense of how is this external reality contradicting this inner sense that I am good? How can I make sense of this? Very simple. This is way oversimplified and way overgeneralized, but baby cries A mom screams and yells at baby, dad loses patience with baby, starts either neglecting or, or being really overly aggressive, leaves baby in need, whatever. However, the baby handles that reality becomes a narrative built in. And this is what we talk about attachment styles, for instance. So then it's like, oh, now I've learned. I don't, I don't trust people. Well, what is that? Well, it's the way to navigate the reality that I think I'm good and deserve being taken care of. I'm not being taken care of. So the narrative that then seeps into my subconscious is that people are not to be trusted. They're not the source of me getting what I need. That's how I can make sense of the fact that this person is not giving me what I need. Again, this is like way oversimplified, but just to try to color out where I'm getting with this. So if we have that transcendent dimension, that subconscious making sense of what's consciously being experienced. Okay, now the next question is, well, I've already alluded to this. Here we are being embedded in relational dynamics. We are participating in relationships. So by God's design, relationships are built, are meant to teach us who we are. So by God's design, a parent loves a baby. And a parent's message, that external experience, non-verbally at first, and just behaviorally and experientially through presence, reinforces the baby's need, the sense of innate goodness, the sense of deserving to be loved. That's by God's design. You have a mom, you have a dad, you have two people that are complementarily built to take care of different dimensions of the environment around this child. And then the baby receives that and then becomes formed in the knowledge of who they are, or to some degree is deformed in who they are. And so that's what lines up with sort of that relational perspective. And in our language, philosophically, we call that participation. So it's like participating in relationships. And then, like I said before, the way that those are disoriented can also be corrected through other relationships where people can form the deep enough rapport where they get access to the deepest layers of your subconscious. And it's like they're inserting new chips. It's like you're swapping out the programs that were built on top of the operating system to create better programs, better narratives, better expectations. And in our theoretical orientation, we call it a corrective emotional experience. And it's where we're actually building a whole different narrative and paradigm that disposes us to relationships differently than what we might have been taught originally. So I guess the last thing I'll say on this is also that the mark of relationship is eternal. And this is also the Catholic perspective of what we call the communion of saints. And so when we think about saints, these are people who have already gone past the sort of temporal here and now in this material world, and have stepped into the eternal reality of our human family. And they're already participating in that fullness of union with divine relationship, and then also with each other. because all of us as a human family are built to be in union with each other as we are in union with the same God. And so participating in that means that they're already there. And then if we're stepping into, like sort of developmentally stepping into a deeper relationship with God in this life to be completed in the next after death, it means we're stepping into a relationship even with the communion of saints. And so this is something I think is really beautiful also from a lot of the native indigenous spirituality that we find where there's a lot of emphasis on ancestry. And there's even emphasis on guides and helpers that are sort of part of one's journey in this world. And we have that. That's what the Catholic saints are. They're patron saints, guides, support helpers, people just like us who have gone ahead just like our ancestors have gone ahead of us, but we're still connected, and they're rooting for us, and they're supporting us, and they're mystically, supernaturally, maybe pointing little things out to us along the way to help us make better decisions and become better versions of ourselves. So that's the biggest picture of what that looks like to be in relationship.

Stephanie Winn: I love how you do that analogy between Indigenous people referring to their ancestors and guides that have come before them and the Catholic tradition of the Saints. And I want to get into that in a moment. But there's a lot you just said there and many things that sort of intuitively resonate as true for me, but also including some claims that I think in today's environment, feel a little bold, even though I don't think they are. But the one claim I hear you say is that there is objective truth, goodness and beauty. And I think in that order, We have maybe decreasing consensus, depending on who you ask, right? I think we probably have the most people will agree that objective truth does exist, although there are people who won't agree with that. Beauty is one of those things, I think, in popular culture that is regarded as highly subjective. And so to make that claim feels a bit bold, but as you were describing some of the language around that, like for example, that a healthy human being should be able to perceive the beauty in something objectively beautiful. I was having this vivid memory coming back of one of the most beautiful sunsets I ever saw. I was going for a walk in Tucson after a thunderstorm. And it was a low-pressure system, so there was a lot of clouds rolling in and out quickly, and the sky was just every color, and I felt it in the air. It was like a 360-degree sunset. It wasn't just one direction. It was like everything in every direction was glowing with the most beautiful colors, and I was just like, feeling it with my whole body. And so I see how that's a valuable part of the blueprint, because if we're treating people in psychotherapy, say, one way to look at depression is not the presence of negative things, but the absence of positive things, the inability to enjoy life, to find meaning, beauty, purpose, awe. things like that. So I appreciate you pointing that out. And then I also heard some sort of maybe reframed psychodynamic theory in there when you were talking about the, what I will call defenses, whether it's repression, projection, introjection, there's a whole list of them for people who are familiar with that branch of psychology. And I guess I'm curious about the Catholic psychology understanding of defenses because I think the misguided view that I grew up with of how Catholicism operates is that it relies very heavily on repression. And I think that's a pretty common narrative that religious people, not just Catholics, but especially Catholics, are just highly repressed. And I think there's a pretty big difference between being highly repressed, maybe dissociated from your body, maybe intellectualizing, rationalizing. to claim to believe in something that you're not really preaching, excuse me, that you're not really practicing or living or don't really feel integrated into your life. And so given that the view of Catholicism that I grew up with and that probably many people have is, oh, Catholics just rely really heavily on repression. Here you are coming from a Catholic but also a relational psychodynamic stance. What would you say to that?

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Yes, I love that question, and also just that honesty and vulnerability with that question and sharing your own story. I grew up in some ways the same way. I think that people who represent the faith in the church have not necessarily done the best job in all times at all places in sort of focusing on the most important things. And sometimes it's like the easier low-hanging fruit to just focus on the moral actions that a person is doing. And so it's really easy for certain personality types, especially to just give me the list of what I'm supposed to do and not supposed to do. Like, isn't that what religion is all about? Where it's like, here's how to do the right thing. Here's here's the wrong thing to avoid doing. And is that part of the picture? Of course. Is that the most important part of the picture? Definitely not. And if that is what's emphasized, then you get to the action that's required without a clear path to get there, and you force people to repress or to engage some other defense mechanism. You know, so if you look at sort of any kind of like, you know, you see this a lot with like narcissism. You know, these narcissistic personality defenses are overt in their, you know, just complete avoidance of looking at what's going on for a person internally, but they're striving for a particular outcome, you know, a particular display of outward behavior. And, you know, they're hanging on this idea that, well, I can look perfect and I can be perfect. And meanwhile, I'm going to judge everybody else and I'm going to put everybody else down. And that's going to help me build up this narrative. I mean, this is not what they're thinking, but subconsciously then they're building up this narrative that they're actually safe because they're, they're the right, they're doing the right thing. But the path to proper moral action has to be one that goes through the actual human experience, that's authentic to the human experience, that is reverent to the human experience. This is what the incarnation is all about. God became man. There's a quote that says, from an ancient saint. This is from early church fathers. This was the concept. And this is actually a quote that's said in different ways by different early church fathers. But essentially, God became man so that man could become God. And the emphasis that I place when I say that is that God was incarnate in Jesus. And whenever that happened in time and space, in history, you know, like the 00 AD compared to today or whatever, it's like that moment in time was the formulation of God entering into our world in space and time. But the whole point was to be in union with the creatures that he created at the level of being. I am one of you. Now you have a bridge to become one of me. To be like me. To become me. in full union, in divine union. But that process is developmental. It's a long road. And so what we miss is there should be a trajectory that goes through the human experience and that we are slowly becoming, we are slowly perfecting, we are slowly becoming the better version of ourself. And people that are like, oh, I can just start doing the right thing tomorrow. I can be perfect tomorrow. I can be perfect right now. I look, I just started. And it's like, wait a minute, you're not taking into account any of the actual human being that you are. There's like, what did you just do with like all of your internal history of all of your wounds, of all of your defenses, of all of your everything, your your story? And then to maintain that narrative, I'm still perfect tomorrow. I'm still perfect tomorrow. Then when these different things are happening, it's, it's necessarily going to come out in very bad ways. So repression might work for today. And look at sometimes that's a great start. You know, it's like, I'm doing this really harmful behavior and I know that it's wrong. Maybe it's morally wrong. I also know that it's just bad for me. Like it's self-harm, let's say. You know, and it's somebody who's like cutting or somebody who's doing some kind of other self-harm behavior. And it's like, okay, well, if you really don't want to keep doing this behavior, like work out really, really hard. Like take a cold shower. You know, we talk when people have like pornography addictions, you know, we say like, Hey, you want to get yourself out of that moment of temptation, go jump in a cold shower. It's like, that's a great immediate intervention. Like for somebody that's just like, can't unstick from the cycle. Is that the intervention that's going to solve the problem or heal the wounds that are underlying either of those cell patterns of self-harm? Because that's what pornography is also. No, that's never going to heal the wound. It'll temporarily stop the behavior. So we have to have an integrated approach to this, and the Catholic faith, Catholic psychology, fully supports and integrates that perspective.

Stephanie Winn: Many of you listening to this show are concerned about an adolescent or young adult you care about who's caught up in the gender insanity and therefore at risk of medical self-destruction. I developed ROGD Repair as a resource for parents just like you. It's a self-paced online course and community that will teach you the psychology concept and communication tools the families I've consulted with have found most helpful in understanding and getting through to their children, even when they're adults. Visit ROGDRepair.com to learn more about the program and use promo code SUMTHERAPIST2025 at checkout to take 50% off your first month. That's ROGDRepair.com. Out of all the things you said, I had sort of a what might have appeared like a strange reaction when you said, I am going to become like you so that you can become like me. And you said this as God's offering to us. And the reason I was laughing is because I just had the most bizarre analogy pop up. And I, you know, I make these spurious correlations and you start talking about our relationship with God, I start thinking about human interpersonal dynamics and the corollaries there. So the thing that had came into my mind was that My fiancé and I love each other very much and we're very compatible in many ways. There's one thing that we're very different on, which is that I am very fluent in the language of dance. It comes super naturally to me. I'm just a dancer. I don't need lessons. I've had a few, but like music plays, my body can move to it. He's not fluent. at all, and his brain just doesn't process music into movement in the same way that mine does. So it's something that creates, that is a huge source of joy for me that I have struggled to figure out how to invite him into. And we will be taking lessons, but, you know, we're getting married. I want to be able to dance with him. We're just on different pages. And we had a breakthrough recently. And it was where I realized that when I move to music, I can be moving five different body parts to five different rhythms at the same time. And it might look cool, but it's also like speaking a foreign language with a broad vocabulary to fast clip. It's not how you're going to teach a beginner a new language. And so our breakthrough was when I realized I need to make my movements more simplistic so that he can mirror me. So we started practicing mirroring and instead of dancing in all the like funky, cool ways that I do that he could never possibly replicate, I just simplified my movements. So it's an arm and a leg and an arm and a leg, and we're just moving to the two and the four, you know, and then he can mirror me. So I thought about that and that image came to mind and that's why I laughed. And then I also immediately after thought about a parenting moment with my stepkids the other day where they, you know, as parents have all experienced thousands of times, one of your kids gets grumpy at the other. without communicating clearly or respectfully about it, just projects their mood into the environment with grunts and growls. And so I had an intervention and I say, hey, you're taking out your anger on your brother. Seems like you want him to know that he did something to upset you. It's not at all clear what he did or what you want him to do differently next time. So I had my little intervention. And we figured it out. We solved it. I've taught them some communication skills, but I found myself really kind of like code switching because my female therapist brain really wants to make everything very like complicated and elaborate, but I'm talking to boys.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Yes.

Stephanie Winn: So I have to break it down. I have to say, So what did he do? He unplugged the cable. And how did that interfere with your project? You know, just really kind of stepping a little outside of my natural way.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Super compartmentalized and broken down into steps and like, yeah.

Stephanie Winn: So, you know, I can think of these immediate examples in my life of ways that love manifests as building that bridge with someone. I am going to come toward you. I'm going to do this in a way that speaks your language better. And it's not necessarily a giving in order to get thing. But yes, but it does help. You know, in the case of dance, this is how I build that bridge to where he can dance with me. And in the case of teaching the children to communicate better, they might never communicate like 40 year old female therapists do, nor should they as preteen boys. But I'm giving them the skills to say, Hey, can you not do that next time? Can you do this instead? And that would be so good.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: There's so that's such a rich snapshot. There's so many ways to look at that. And so many data points, like so many teaching moments in that. So you're you're also I mean, the parent child dynamic, you're stepping out into their world. And I was first thinking about in ego psychology, there's this three-step paradigm for a healthy child development. And the first stage, this is like for just forming healthy children, the first stage is to delight in the child. The second stage is to emulate strength and sort of emulate what is worthy of emulating, like modeling. And so it's like, When, uh, you know, when the, you know, there's, there's, it's like when kids think like, oh, my dad is my hero, you know, or like, I have like a fairy tale idea of my mom. Who's like, you know, the queen or. You know, there's like these different narratives that can build off of that, but it's like, first you have a sense that this is our paradigm. We say like, well, parents are like gods to their kids. So like God, this is by God's design. So like parents are the ones who are like first God to their kid. Like we created you. We're the creator, you know, and then it's like, and my creator is delighting in me. Like the first moment of my experience of awareness is that I'm being delighted in by, by the one who holds my existence in her hands or his hands. Like that's the immediate open door. Like that's the key that opens that door. And then the second thing is that a child becomes aware of is like, oh, you're big. And it's almost like a sense of like, I, you know, and this is like toddlerhood. And then it's like, I like, you're so distant and sort of immense and a world beyond me. And then the kids talking on the you know to their friends it's like my dad could beat up your dad you know and it's like you know my mom makes the best meatloaf and. Whatever these things are maybe my mom can beat up your mom i don't know what kids are having conversations about today but and then the third step. is mirroring. And that's when like my sons want to pretend to shave, you know, they want to have shaving cream on their face and they want to stand next to me when I'm shaving and they want to do the things that we do and they like hug the way we hug and they want to treat each other. They pretend to get married and they do these little role plays and it's like, so we have delight and then you have emulation being sort of, um, uh, proposed, I guess you could say. And, and then we have the actual mirroring. So it's like you, you step into the kid's world. You have to be present with them as they are, as they can hear it, as they can understand it, and then draw them out into your world. Like that's the full culmination. The other layer of this though, which is so huge, what you're saying is man and woman. So this is the first point of going into the world of the other to then draw the person out into your world. And this is why God made us man and woman in his image. This is the whole point of man and woman in the image of the Trinity, and that through our relationship with each other as man and woman, we are actually an image of ultimately the relationship between us as humans and God. But between man and woman, it's a mutual submission, a mutual gift of self and receptivity of the other. And then what happens is man and woman do this in marriage for each other, they're supposed to, but then the best dynamic which creates healthy human development is when women, when mom gives this to her sons. And when dad gives this to his daughters, because people say, I teach complementarity in dating and complementarity for adults. And then somebody was like, well, that's fine. You think men are so compartmentalized and always dealing with the external environment. And women are so nurturing and so focused on the individual interpersonal, personal orientation of other people. But my boyfriend is much more personal oriented than i am or my my wife is much better at. Organizing the closet and changing the tire on the car than i am it's like okay that's fine. But i never said the complementarity starts in adulthood. So the fact of the matter is, we're not complementarity and recognizing that we're starting off with differences doesn't mean that we stay in those differences our whole life. The whole point is that when it's done correctly, we receive from the other and we start to manifest and display actions that are like the other. That's because we're in development in relationship. The development starts in childhood. So by you stepping into your son's, your stepson's lives. and by you meeting them where they are, you're validating their masculinity and you're giving them the experience of being in a complementary relationship with a woman. So you're giving, like you're not, you can't not be a woman even as you're mirroring and sort of teaching them how to become better men. So it's like a woman is teaching me how to become a better man. So there's like two things happening here right now. It's like, number one, I'm getting a lesson in how to be a better man and it's happening from a woman. So it's, I'm validated from a woman that I'm good to be a man. And that, and that I can actually respond, maybe learn developmentally how to respond more appropriately over time to a woman. So it's such a rich example you gave there. I love that. I love that little, uh, story.

Stephanie Winn: It's been such a growth process for me as a stepparent entering the lives of boys that I didn't create myself because I think if I'd had my own sons, there would have been a lot of growth and learning how to be a mother to boys. But that would have been from the beginning of their lives. But, you know, meeting boys at the particular stage in childhood that they were in, I've spent years learning how to raise boys as a as a female woman who, you know, as a feminine woman who didn't have brothers or anything like that. And there's so many adjustments I have had to make to, I think, adopt to that more boy-friendly style, that more direct style of communication, the style of playfulness and banter. I think it's been really good for me, to be honest, but I appreciate that sort of framing. And like I said at, you know, in our first conversation, so many of my own issues that I had throughout life that I sought help for stemmed from the lack of that father-daughter relationship that you described. You said a lot of interesting things I wanted to circle back to. Unless you had any comment there, I have a question about the saints.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Um, just really quickly, I would say that I'm just kind of overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude at the moment for clients. Like also just thinking like you must've had a lot of learning experiences with, with male clients, which would help you sort of enter into that a little bit. But for me, maybe, maybe it's more so my own personal reflection of just like the women that I've been able to sit with and understand and get to know and love through this therapeutic work is so formative. and makes me a better dad to my daughters, a better husband to my wife, and like, because I didn't grow up with sisters. And so, and my mom was kind of distant, you know, and it was, our relationship was more about, in some ways, was more about her emotional needs. So I kind of grew up with a similar opposite structure and then like just all these different experiences that God allows for like deep growth to happen on my part as a therapist, as well as what I can provide to our clients. So anyway, I just wanted to make a quick note of that, but I would love to answer your question.

Stephanie Winn: It's an important point. We grow so much. I think if we're if we're approaching the work with the right motivations, we grow so much as therapists. I feel like being a therapist grew me up, if that makes sense. And it's impossible to be a good or even decent therapist and hold hatred or animosity or prejudice toward any demographic group. Now, it doesn't mean that feelings of hostility will never show up in our countertransference. And it's important to be able to reflect on those. But there's a lot of toxic narratives in the culture about people's demographics, whether it's your classic forms of racism or sexism or this now very popular, widely accepted belief that it's OK to hate straight white men because they are straight white men. You can't hold a belief like that and be available as a therapist. And so I think people, I guess, you know, people in our profession, I don't want to oversimplify all the different growth trajectories available to us, but I kind of feel like you roughly fall into one of two categories. Either the work makes you a better person, a more open-minded, less prejudiced person with respect for the human spirit, or you're approaching work with prejudices and then looking to your patients for confirmation bias and potentially harming people in the process?

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Oh yeah, for sure.

Stephanie Winn: So can I ask you now about the saints?

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Yes.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah. So you earlier mentioned Indigenous people crediting their ancestors. And again, I loved that connection there. And I'm really curious about the role of the Saints in Catholic psychology and tradition. I don't know much about it, except that I, you know, hear little bits here and there from Catholics about this or that Saint and what it means to them. But can you tell us sort of where that fits in with the whole tradition?

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Yeah, so I gave you a couple layers of answer here. I think the basic idea of a saint is it's a person who lives a remarkable life in a particular way. And there is a process that the church has set up to sort of think through and then receive signs that a person has progressed to the full communion with God. in heaven. And so that's a loaded statement, because we also have this whole teaching on purgatory, which is a whole other topic. But essentially, purgatory just means the finishing off of the purification and the transformation that we start in this life. And it's like, to be in the full presence of God, to be in that full divine union, means to be like God. And so if we die in a certain state of our journey, in which we're not quite there yet, and there might be a bunch of different reasons for how that looks, but we did live a life that was on that trajectory, then it's really a teaching of the mercy of God that he would, of course, just finish the process. It's not like he's saying, it's not like a third option. It's like, no, when we die, we either go to heaven or hell, that's the teaching. But like, if we're going to heaven and we didn't fully go through that purification to be like God in his perfection, then yeah, he's gonna finish off the process so he takes us fully into his divine union and embrace. Now what that looks like, what that means, the timing of that, that's outside of space and time, we don't really have that figured out. But what we do have figured out is that some people we know have already finished that process. And that that's the process of sort of, quote unquote, canonizing a saint. It means this is a human who's brought into the canon of the communion of people that we know have already progressed to the end of this process that all of us are really on. So that's the objective, sort of just like the reality of what it is to be a saint. It looks like you have a bunch of questions there. Do you want to jump in?

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, you see my face doing funny things. I've never heard purgatory described so mercifully. Like, you make it sound really merciful.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: You make it sound… Oh gosh, it is 100% mercy of God. Purgatory is mercy.

Stephanie Winn: I mean, not according to my ex-Catholic mother when I was growing up.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Yeah, no, this is what's just misunderstood.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, I mean, it makes sense, the concept of purification. I think in life, if we're sensitive, if we're aware of what's happening to us and around us. We have experiences here on earth of various forms of purification. We have, you know, whether it's physical detoxification processes like sweating in a sauna that allow us to feel some kind of release, You know, I do yoga classes sometimes. I was very heavily into yoga when I was younger. And there's like a working through that happens. Like there's this initial resistance where it's like, oh, I don't want to do this thing that's like so good for me. And by the end, you're like, oh, you know, so.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: What was I thinking? How did I miss this?

Stephanie Winn: I mean, there are so many things in life that are good for us that we resist. And then there are so many times that we feel better after having done something that was challenging or humbling or that felt like it took something away from us. Sometimes loss and even humiliation can result in us becoming more lovely people. So life has its way of, you know, trying to purify us, and I guess the way that you described purgatory as like God finishing the process, it sounds merciful. It's like, you know, and I could easily see, you know, if I were to adopt this worldview, I could easily see God having that kind of relationship with me, like, you know, Stephanie, you meant well. Like, you still got this, you still got that, but I could see how hard you worked on this and that, and, you know, you've come this far, so let me just help you out with these last little traces of, you know, whatever the heck that is.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Yes, and there's so many misunderstandings from teachings that the Church has, and then the people who are teaching them and talking about them. And, you know, like, for instance, we have this teaching that, like, all salvation is through Jesus Christ. So then people take that and say like, well, if you don't believe in Jesus, then you must be going to hell. It's like, no, that's not the teaching.

Stephanie Winn: That's not the teaching. So that was another thing, right? That when it comes to these like messages I grew up with about religion, some of them were coming from my mom and her trauma with the way that religion was taught to her. But also like there was this girl in my elementary school class Every, every elementary school class that I had, who was the daughter of a preacher. And she was also very mean and she was my biggest competitor. We were both like always vying for teacher's pet. So there is this kind of rivalry, I guess, between us. She would tell me I was going to hell." And so that was the whole messaging. If you do not adopt this doctrine, swallow it 100%, no questions asked, you're going to hell. And I think there's a lot of people who just say, too rich for my blood. Nope, I need to feel like I am intact. My intellect is respected. And anyone who tells me that I will suffer eternally as a result of having critical thinking skills or some part of me that has reservations about joining this religious group, that philosophy is not for me. So I think that's where a lot of people reject those ideas. And I'm hearing you saying something quite different.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: A hundred percent. So this is the basic, this is basic Catholic teaching. And I, this might sound a little crazy, but this is how I formulate the teaching. So I'm going to put it a certain way. When you die, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen. You're going to see Jesus and you're going to know that he is God. Every person. who dies, when they die, they're gonna see Jesus. They're gonna know he's God. It's no more about arguments. It's no more about shame and guilt. It's no more about abuse and wounds. It's no more about reputations and narrative. It's just there. And you know the truth. And then you have a choice. Now, how this happens is not taught. Like this is not, again, like time and space, it gets weird around death and after death. So like, there's not like a clear delineation of this, but this is my interpretation. And to show like how hopeful this is and how much mercy there is here, God is love. Along with the knowledge that this is God, you have the knowledge that he showed us how to live. He came to this world to show us how to live as a human, the way that we are created to live. And our whole life is made up of choices, whether we are going along with that or not. And we're more or less culpable for those choices and responsible for those choices. Sometimes we have no idea if we're doing something that's actually against the path that he set for us. Sometimes we kind of know, whether you believe in Jesus or not. And then sometimes people believe in Jesus and they should definitely know, and they're making terribly bad choices. But regardless of what category you're in, you see your whole life. And this is the choice. This is what I think. Again, this is just very personally my interpretation. There is suffering involved with purgatory, but it's the suffering of knowledge. You now have full awareness of the eternal repercussions of every moment of your life and every choice you've made and every person you've affected. And your choice is, do you want to accept looking at that and letting me love you and heal you and show my mercy to you, which requires you to acknowledge all of this that you've just done in your lifetime, or not? And you could reject that. It could be too much. It's like, I don't want to look at this. I see it now. I know the truth. I'm going to distract. I'm going to move away from this. I'm doing something different. It's your choice. God is not an evil trickster. He's not here to dupe us. He's not here to sucker us into something. He's not here to use us. He doesn't need us. He just is love. So we have to let that filter down through every dimension of how we think about literally every part of our life and existence, including our death and the judgment that happens at death. Judgment is, here's your choice, and you're going to face the consequences of your own choice.

Stephanie Winn: So I can start playing my own kind of personal highlight reels of Stephanie's worst moments, right? And think about the things that I would be like, oh God, you know, to like not want to look at the downstream consequences of who I offended or things like that. I'm sure we all have this and anyone with a conscience, right? Has this capacity. But then I can also think, well, wait a minute, there's also another highlight reel of all the lives I touched in beautiful ways. And I guess the question is, are we just being shown highlight reel number one, or are we getting those reels side by side? Because I can imagine, again, I think God would be like, Stephanie, you meant well, let me help you out with the rest. I can imagine that if If the highlight reels were fair and balanced, that the the way that I would feel touched in this, you know, hypothetical life review post death that we're talking about, the way that I would potentially feel touched by all the good that I was shown would potentially give me the strength to deal with the hard parts of, of the things that I've done as well. Like, is that your philosophy on it or what do you think?

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: I couldn't have articulated it better, 100%. I think both are probably far greater than we can anticipate, which is why it's a level of suffering beyond what we can anticipate and also a level of consolation. People say that it's like the saints who have actually appeared to people and then given them like knowledge about what happens, are very clear that it's both. It's like you're closer to God than you are now, like you can't be happier. So you're happier in purgatory than you are in heaven.

Stephanie Winn: But also it's the- Wait, than in heaven?

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: I mean, sorry, on earth, sorry.

Stephanie Winn: Okay.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: I know I just confused my words, but yeah, no, you're happier in purgatory than you are on earth because you're that much closer to heaven. And then at the same time, you see the ramifications of things that you didn't even anticipate having a negative consequence. So it's not even just about like what you're guilty of, but it's actually just what you've done. It's like you just see it. You see the full, full spectrum perspective. And I would hope, and again, I, this is like not teaching like the, the sort of balance or the comparison or the, you know, equation, there's no equations. It's not, that's not actually the teaching, but if you could imagine if you have a lot more of those happy moments and consolations, then that's gotta be part of it's sort of, you know, helping get through some of the more difficult things. And also it's just a matter of. There's a saint named St. Therese of Lisieux, and she has what's called the Little Way. And the Little Way is of love and trust and mercy. And what it means is, actually, it's very simple. At the end of the day, it's just how much do you trust the goodness of the Father? And how much do you trust in God's mercy? And he can't be outdone. So like, your trust can never be greater than his mercy. His mercy is infinite. The limitation is our trust. So she just like went all in on that concept. And she was like, oh, okay, well then I'm just going to pour out every last drop of everything I'm potentially able to show and give in terms of trust. And I know I'll immediately be swallowed up in his mercy. So I have no purgatory to suffer. Because I'm just going to give it all to him. Do I make mistakes? Do I hurt people? Sure I do. In the light of God's mercy, as I actually trust in the goodness of the Father, now that's not like duplicitous. She's not saying that so that she can go kind of do whatever she wants. She actually lived in the way to say, I trust him so much, I'm going to do everything in my human power to follow the way he set out to say I should live my life. That's how much I trust him. But more than just the how to live is also the fact that I'm loved. into existence by an eternal father who loves me, and he's here to take me in all the way, regardless of what I do in this world.

Stephanie Winn: What is the Catholic perspective on atoning during this life? Everyone knows about confession. Maybe that's a part of it. I'm not sure how big a part of it is. So for example, people who go through 12-step programs, we know that one of those steps is to apologize to those you've wronged. But there's often a question of Is it in that person's best interest for them to hear from you? Or would your attempt to, let's say, reconcile with this person or apologize to them, would that potentially be selfish to actually contact that person? Oh, good question. So when it comes to atonement, when it comes to people who, let's say people embrace this viewpoint and say, well, okay, maybe I'm going to purgatory, but let me see how much I can get out of the way, how much I can downsize my baggage before I get there, sort of minimize God's workload and minimize the amount of suffering in the afterlife. Like, let's see what I can deal with first, right? What is the recommendation in terms of, you know, reconciliation, atonement, things like that in this life?

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Yeah, great question, and that gets really nuanced in psychology and therapy. But if we look at it as atonement, we can think about it two ways. One is sort of horizontally in relationship with other people, and then one is vertically in relationship with God. So we owe to God love, and love is manifest with our neighbor as much as it is with him. So the way we love others is how we are loving God. So we owe that to God. So when we don't love our neighbor, we're actually creating or committing an injustice against not only our neighbor, but also God. So in any act of injustice towards another person, we owe an atonement or, you know, some act of sorrow, of remorse, of confession to God. Depending on the situation, the way that we show that same act of atonement towards neighbor may look very different. And so as you've alluded to, you know, there's situations in which you're actually, you know, you have to really balance this. Like where does this actually end up serving myself? If I just want to relieve my own guilt, you know, and that's your primary intention, then the choices you make and the actions you take towards the other person are not necessarily real atonement. It might be actually just continuing the same trajectory. Or, you know, there's maybe not the kind of relationship that's established to hold real deep communication on some level. You know, so, you know, I think about, you know, if I think about like, you know, in the past, I remember, I remember, um, you know, dealing with struggling with even, even like sexual temptation or like, you know, uh, you know, young and being a young guy and having all sorts of thoughts. And if I have a lustful thought about somebody. it's not appropriate to go tell them and apologize. Like, wait a minute, like, maybe just keep that one between you and God and confession kind of thing. And then it's, you know, and the way that I actually transformed that and atoning for that was to think, to like transform my thought into a prayer for the person that I saw. And so I actually did a blog post on that. It actually is in line with what we were talking about earlier about not just repressing everything. And I remember going to the gym as a college student at Boston College and working out with a buddy of mine who was actually a seminarian. And so we were like helping each other. You know, but we're like, you know, 20 years old, young men, single. And it's like, we kept checking each other, nudging each other, elbowing each other. If one caught the other person, like staring in a certain direction at for too long or whatever. And it was like, oh, we had a joke. Look up at the ceiling or look down at how many floor. Oh, are those new ceiling tiles up there today? Like it was just like silly joke to just repress, essentially avoid. But then I was like, man, first of all, that's not going to work. Second of all, we're missing the beauty of the actual person, which we were previously just objectivizing. So the proper response is to see the real person and then actually go like, oh, so this is a beautiful woman and probably getting objectivized by other people. I hope she knows her true value and goodness. Let's say a little prayer for her. And that's where we transformed it immediately into something that was appropriate. I wasn't going up to apologize. I love that. That wasn't necessarily appropriate.

Stephanie Winn: No, that's a really, I really love how you articulated how that can be done. Because I have this thought often. Like, I've come around to seeing how it would be better for most people and better for future generations for people to focus more on getting married young and having children while they're healthy and fertile. But then we have some issues with that, which is how do young people develop the maturity to make wise decisions about their marriage partners? How do we not only incentivize through the culture, young people to do things that are pro-social, but how do we also create a culture that's wise, that supports people having the right frame of mind, because we're not trying to create a lot of divorces before people are 30 just because they, you know, married the first person they met because that's what the culture told them to do or because they, you know, followed a religion that said that you have to get married before you can have sex and they really wanted to have sex. So I think about this. I think about young people and their high sex drives and how we can help them channel those natural inclinations in a healthy direction. Yeah. And, you know, especially, let's say, for Catholics, right, who are raising their children in this belief, you wait until marriage for sex and that that is God's design to create. I mean, I'm just going to extrapolate here. One of the many benefits of that is creating healthy societies for children, intact families for children. And so how do young people who are not very mature and who have these drives deal with these things? And you just articulated it. Oh, to realize that, and I think we do this as therapists too, through what we learn from our countertransference. We learn, if I'm feeling this countertransference towards this patient, I should have the self-awareness, maybe the supervision to understand, is this a me thing? Is it because they remind me of a part of myself or someone in my life? Or is it possible that my countertransference is telling me something about this person's ways of relating to other people and that maybe other people in their lives have experienced the same feeling toward this patient? And if I cannot take it personally, if I can see it as a source of information, how I'm feeling towards this patient, then I can learn something potentially useful from it. And then I can turn that learning into something that's potentially useful to the patient. So, similarly, using that in prayer, using that in coping with everyday thoughts, that if I, you know, this 20-year-old man, am seeing this beautiful woman and having these lustful thoughts, what is something I can do with that? see her as a whole person, recognize if I feel this way, probably a lot of other men feel this way, and send protective thoughts toward her, you know, wanting what's best for this person. And then I also want to kind of circle back to what you said about objective truth, goodness, and beauty, that beauty is sort of one of our gateways to the divine. And so that by seeing someone objectively beautiful, let's say, that can also be transformed into, you know, appreciation, reverence. Yes. So I loved that.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: That's right. And so, yeah, that's interesting when we think about those psychodynamic sort of interventions and, you know, countertransference and understanding those movements. It's very much a part of our work. And it's interesting, too, though, when you have you know, coming back to like this, what does Catholic therapy offer to the world? The awareness is only step one of what's important, and what that objective truth and goodness and beauty creates is a purpose and an intention, a telos. It's like, what are we doing with all of this awareness? Now, within therapy, you just sort of articulated a sort of a local, let's call it a local purpose, or a temporal purpose, which is to offer insight to a patient. So there's a goodness to that self-awareness, but you're offering insight to the patient about some dynamic that maybe that they were unaware of, and they have that blind spot. And then through the work together, through the dynamic, you can bring light to that and give them an insight. And then they can have that, their own kind of catharsis or corrective emotional experience or however. And then, but then it's still is, It becomes almost like a self-serving loop. It still doesn't have like an outside purpose. And it's like, well, where's all of this self-awareness going? Why is it good to be self-aware? Why is it good to know my blind spots and my dynamics? Like, what are we plugging into that's actually bigger than both of us? And that's where this other system comes in. And it's like, yeah, we're here, all of us here to live towards this higher order, transcendent relationship. So we can look at our individual relationship and realize that this is participation in the vertical transcendence of relationship, where we're going out of ourselves towards God, individually and together. And so it's through the interaction together that we're also both stepping up into a world in which we can encounter objective truth, goodness, and beauty. So like self-knowledge is great because then we have greater access to choices that we make. Self-determination, in other words. Why is self-determination good? Because it can be ordered towards self-gift. And that is a radical proposal that if we really push that out to its limit, we end up with Jesus dying on a cross. And it's like, oh yeah, where does self-gift, how far do you go? And Jesus says, go all the way. Real love has no limit. But that's how to like sort of bring to full culmination, like the full conclusion of what we're really proposing here.

Stephanie Winn: It feels, when you describe it that way, like the missing element in psychotherapy. There was this book a colleague gave me years ago that I honestly never finished reading, but it had a valuable title, which is, We've Had 100 Years of Psychotherapy and the World is Getting Worse. And even though I had only read a couple chapters several years ago now at this point, and I honestly can't remember what they had to say, What I can say is that I've heard that same sentiment echoed by a lot of people with a lot of perspectives on this issue. And so you kind of raised the point of like, what is the point of self-awareness? What is the point of some of the ostensible goals of psychotherapy? if there is the potential to lead in a circular direction or towards navel-gazing or, heaven forbid, worsening narcissism, self-absorption, these are all potential dangers, right? And so I hear you kind of identifying where North on the compass is and that Catholic psychology gives you a way to do that.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Yeah, that's beautifully put. Yeah, definitely, definitely can sign up for that.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I think that's a great place to end things. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed both of our conversations and I'm excited to share this with my listeners.

Dr. Gregory Bottaro: Thank you so much. I really am grateful for your openness and your curiosity. And yeah, I've really enjoyed this as well. So thank you.

Stephanie Winn: Thank you for listening to You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist. If you enjoyed this episode, kindly take a moment to rate, review, share, or comment on it using your platform of choice. And of course, please remember, podcasts are not therapy, and I'm not your therapist. Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for this awesome theme song, Half Awake, and to Pods by Nick for production. For help navigating the impact of the gender craze on your family, be sure to check out my program for parents, ROGD Repair. Any resource you heard mentioned on this show, plus how to get in touch with me, can all be found in the notes and links below. Rain or shine, I hope you will step outside to breathe the air today. In the words of Max Ehrman, with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.