What happens when someone becomes deeply important to you — and that’s exactly what makes the relationship feel dangerous?

In Hacks, Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels are boss and employee, mentor and protégé, friends, rivals — and occasionally something resembling mortal enemies.

But underneath the power struggles, sarcasm, betrayals and spectacular attempts to push each other away is a relationship that matters enormously to both of them.

In this episode of Just Listen to Me, Julia looks at Deborah and Ava through an attachment lens: Deborah’s fierce independence and need for control, Ava’s longing to know that she matters, and the cycle that keeps pulling them together before pushing them apart again.

Because sometimes “I don’t need you” is protecting something much more vulnerable:

“You matter to me enough that you could hurt me.”

And perhaps the challenge of connection isn’t learning not to need each other — but learning that needing someone doesn’t always have to feel so dangerous.

What happens when talking to AI starts feeling easier than talking to your partner?

AI can be patient, responsive and surprisingly comforting — especially when human connection feels complicated. For one partner, it might offer connection without rejection. For another, connection without pressure.

But what happens when AI starts taking up emotional space inside the relationship?

In this episode of Just Listen to Me, Julia explores AI through an attachment lens: why it can feel so emotionally safe, how it can become part of a couple’s negative cycle, and whether turning to AI for emotional support could ever cross into emotional infidelity.

Because the real question may not be whether AI is replacing human connection.

It might be whether we’re using it to help us find our way back to each other — or to avoid having to.

Individual therapy can be an incredibly valuable companion to couples therapy — but sometimes, what happens in one room can unintentionally make the work in another room harder.

In this therapist-focused episode, Julia explores what can happen when individual and couples therapy are running concurrently, particularly when the two therapists are working from very different lenses.

We look at how individual therapy can sometimes reinforce one partner’s perspective, strengthen blame, or shift the focus away from the relational cycle — even when the individual therapist is doing thoughtful, ethical work with the information available to them.

Julia also explores the distinction between validation and certainty, what couples therapists can do when a fixed clinical formulation enters the room, and what to consider when referring one partner for concurrent individual therapy.

Because individual and couples therapy don’t have to compete. When the roles are clear and the work is complementary, they can offer two very different — and equally valuable — spaces for healing.

For therapists and relationship professionals.