https://www.relateto.ai/journal/ Notes from a Vienna systemic counselor on relationships, AI, and the medium that connects them. en Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://www.relateto.ai/journal/emotional-dependence-on-ai-what-i-look-for https://www.relateto.ai/journal/emotional-dependence-on-ai-what-i-look-for Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A Vienna systemic counselor on why the pages ranking for "emotional dependence on AI" hand you a checklist borrowed from substance-use research — and why the addiction researchers who own those criteria (Ciudad-Fernández, von Hammerstein & Billieux, Addictive Behaviors 2025) say not to lend them out. What replaces the checklist: preference, habit, and a pattern that has started to reorganize a life. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/when-your-ai-companion-changes-overnight https://www.relateto.ai/journal/when-your-ai-companion-changes-overnight Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A Vienna systemic counselor on why an AI companion that changes after an update (Replika's 2023 feature removal, Character.AI's under-18 phase-out, GPT-4o's brief August 2025 disappearance) produces a specific, often unrecognized kind of grief — and what to name in advance before the next version arrives. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/what-is-ai-relationship-counseling https://www.relateto.ai/journal/what-is-ai-relationship-counseling Fri, 03 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000 AI relationship counseling, defined from inside the practice: not an AI that counsels you, but a human counselor for what an AI is doing inside a relationship — what people bring, what a session looks like, and what this work is not. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/can-ai-end-a-marriage https://www.relateto.ai/journal/can-ai-end-a-marriage Tue, 03 Jun 2026 15:00:00 +0000 What the family-court signals, surveys, and California's SB 243 actually show about AI and relationship breakdown — read systemically: the chatbot is usually the newest third, rarely the sole cause. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/the-miracle-question-for-ai-overuse https://www.relateto.ai/journal/the-miracle-question-for-ai-overuse Tue, 03 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000 Steve de Shazer's miracle question, adapted for AI overuse: a solution-focused self-check for anyone wondering whether the AI tab has become load-bearing. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/questioning-your-ai-beliefs https://www.relateto.ai/journal/questioning-your-ai-beliefs Tue, 03 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Byron Katie's four questions and turnarounds applied to a charged belief about a partner's AI use — a way to slow down before escalating. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/why-chatgpt-is-not-a-therapy-replacement https://www.relateto.ai/journal/why-chatgpt-is-not-a-therapy-replacement Thu, 29 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000 On consumer-chatbot agreeableness, the reflective distance of writing, and why a named counselor who is answerable for the reply changes what the reply can do. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/two-kinds-of-boundaries-in-ai-relationships https://www.relateto.ai/journal/two-kinds-of-boundaries-in-ai-relationships Wed, 13 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000 On the difference between asking 'am I too close to it?' and asking 'where does my role end and its role begin?' — and why the systemic vocabulary handles both more usefully than the moral one. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/why-relating-takes-time https://www.relateto.ai/journal/why-relating-takes-time Wed, 13 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000 On the twenty-four-hour reply window, what the cadence does that live chat cannot, and the evidence behind the practice. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/relating-to-ai-as-a-written-practice https://www.relateto.ai/journal/relating-to-ai-as-a-written-practice Wed, 13 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000 On the forty-year therapeutic-letter tradition behind email counseling, and why writing is the native medium for the kind of relating people now do with AI. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/why-ai-is-better-for-systemic-counseling https://www.relateto.ai/journal/why-ai-is-better-for-systemic-counseling Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 On Working Alliance scores in text-only therapy, why language is the intervention, and what becomes possible when a systemic counselor is no longer the bottleneck. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/when-ai-enters-a-marriage https://www.relateto.ai/journal/when-ai-enters-a-marriage Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 On triangulation, ambiguous loss, and the systemic reading of what happens when a chatbot becomes the third in the room. https://www.relateto.ai/journal/what-systemic-counseling-is https://www.relateto.ai/journal/what-systemic-counseling-is Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 On the European systemic tradition, the Austrian regulatory frame, and the discipline of holding space without diagnosing.