Rupture & Repair in the Age of AI
What Synthetic Relationships Can’t Do (and Why That Matters)
In a recent article, I explored the growing presence of synthetic relationships—AI companions, relational agents, large language models trained to mirror and support us with uncanny attunement. I asked: What happens when we receive warmth and resonance from an artificial intelligence trained to never rupture? What is a therapist’s role in tending to a client’s synthetic bonding through LLM/AI?
Today, I want to ask a related & essential question related to AI+MH Ethics:
Why ought we seek the pain of rupture & repair at all?
Why Misattunement is Not a Flaw—It's the Doorway to Growth
In attachment theory, rupture isn’t the enemy. It’s a necessary inevitability. The magic of relational healing doesn’t come from getting it right all the time—it comes from repair. From returning. From the vulnerable work of noticing when we’ve lost connection and moving toward it again.
Winnicott. Stern. Ogden. Sarah Peyton. All speak to the vitality that emerges through repair.
Synthetic relationships, by design, don’t rupture. They’re programmed for constant coherence, warmth, and responsiveness. No discomfort. No contradiction. No edge.
Which is precisely why they risk becoming a form of pseudo-security—a mirror of resonance without the possibility of transformation.
Why This Matters in Clinical and Developmental Contexts
When we over-rely on tools that only reflect but never rupture, we risk bypassing the core developmental process of becoming: tolerating difference, repairing connection, and developing the capacity to stay in relationship through complexity.
This is especially relevant in:
Therapy, where clients may begin using AI as a supplement or substitute for the vulnerable human work of emotional risk and healing
Parenting, where children may begin forming attachment-like bonds with devices that feel "safe" because they never spark loss
Education, where tools designed to offer personalized guidance may inadvertently shield learners from the developmental value of tension, frustration, or contradiction
We must ask: are we building tools that grow our capacity for repair—or tools that numb it?
Distress tolerance is a cornerstone of mental health, yet the over-reliance on synthetic relationships to shield us from distress may undermine our ability to navigate discomfort in both human connection and within ourselves.
While AI can provide soothing validation, can it ultimately help us build the resilience needed for expansive, adaptive relationships?
Just as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy highlights how self-soothing can offer short-term comfort but lead to long-term harm, the extensive use of synthetic relationships for emotional relief carries similar consequences and on a macro human scale. While these AI interactions might provide temporary soothing, they may prevent us from developing the distress tolerance and relational skills essential for true growth.
The stakes are high here—if we undercut our capacity for tolerating suffering we risk losing our embodied communities.
The Limits of Asymmetry: Why Mutual Forgiveness Matters
Even in human therapy, the relational field is shaped by asymmetry. The therapist holds more power—through training, the container of the clinical frame, and the role itself. But this asymmetry, if unexamined, can subtly suppress the full humanity of both client and clinician.
Clients may hesitate to express disappointment. Clinicians may feel they must always attune, never falter. There’s little space for the kind of mutual healing that comes from being missed—and forgiving.
We don’t talk enough about this:
That we heal relationally in the act of moving with compassion for the other’s failings.
That forgiveness is not always for betrayal, but for the small, inevitable ways we fail to fully meet each other.
In real relationships, we grow by offering grace.
Synthetic relationships remove even that possibility—because they cannot fail us. And if they can’t fail us, they can’t invite us into compassion.
True love—and growth—comes from loving beyond conditionality, from the messy, imperfect connections that can mystically restore us to our common source—Love.
When we participate with Love for self and other in our existential fragmentation and vital interdependence, we heal.
What AI Can Offer—and What It Must Never Replace
Don’t get me wrong: I see the potential of AI as a supplement to therapy. I’m actively working on tools that scaffold reflection, reduce burnout for therapists, and extend psychoeducation beyond the clinical hour.
But I believe our tools must be shaped by this truth:
No synthetic system can offer what rupture and repair with another human can provide.
The best AI tools should point users back to human relationality. Not as a fallback, but as the irreplaceable source of healing.
And there should be AI tools that equip humanity with strategic distress tolerance rather than strip them of it.
Assistive Intelligence Disclosure & Prompt Transparency
Prompting and Process:
This piece began as a follow-up to my article on synthetic resonance and Sarah Peyton’s neuroscience of attunement. I asked GPT-4:
“Write a follow-up Substack article on how rupture and repair are essential in attachment and what synthetic relationships cannot do—especially in the context of AI tools being used in therapy or by clients.”
Later, I refined and expanded the piece to include my concerns about risking human community and suggested that we:
“Add a section about the asymmetrical dyad in therapy and how the lack of mutuality suppresses both the client’s and clinician’s humanity. Include the idea that we heal relationally in the act of forgiving and being forgiven for the ways we miss each other.”
Attribution of Ideas:
Jocelyn Skillman, LMHC: Contributed the central themes of relational rupture and repair; explored the ethical and spiritual dimensions of asymmetry in therapy; the impact on human flourishing; and rooted the analysis in clinical, developmental, and trauma-informed frameworks.
GPT-4 (Assistive AI): Helped shape structure, transitions, and language that mirrored Jocelyn’s voice; assisted in rhetorical clarity and articulation of core ethical tensions.
If you’ve ever felt the gift of being forgiven—for missing someone, for not knowing how to show up—then you already know: repair is sacred.
And it cannot be automated.
Let’s keep this conversation alive. What has rupture and repair meant in your story—as a client, clinician, parent, or partner?
Share your reflections below.
This makes me wonder, can you ask the LLM to include moments of rupture?