Marie Vakakis offers relatable insights, practical advice and real talk about parenting, raising teenagers and navigating relationships, with a little humour to keep it real.
Why Mental Health Advice Doesn’t Change What You Do a Conversation with All in the Mind Host Sana Qadar
You can listen to every mental health podcast going and still find yourself losing it about shoes on a Tuesday morning. Knowing the information and actually doing something with it turn out to be two very different skills. Therapist Marie Vakakis sits down with Sana Qadar, host of the ABC’s All in the Mind, to talk about what actually sticks after five years of interviewing some of the best minds in psychology and neuroscience. Sana isn’t a therapist or a psychologist. She’s a journalist who has absorbed more mental health content than most of us ever will, and she’s honest about the bits that changed how she lives and the bits that went in one ear and out the other. They talk about the parenting advice that reshaped her mornings within a week, the therapy language that’s become so common it’s lost its meaning, and why nearly every story about the brain ends up being a story about relationships. This episode covers: How mental health language has shifted over the last five years, and where words like trauma and ADHD get stretched past what they actually mean The one parenting change Sana made the same week she recorded an interview, and why it worked when nothing else had The difference between relying on willpower and changing the system around you How to be discerning about who you take advice from online, and what qualifications really tell you Why relationships sit underneath almost every mental health story, even the ones that look like they’re about the brain What Sana says makes her hard to live with, and the bid for connection she’d been missing Why knowing the information and doing something with it are two very different things marievakakis.com.au askmarie@marievakakis.com.au
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The 5 Love Languages Are Wrong. Here’s What Actually Works.
The 5 Love Languages: What the Research Actually Says Twenty million copies sold. A quiz most couples have done at least once. The five love languages are one of the most widely used relationship frameworks in the world, and it turns out the core claims don’t hold up the way most people assume they do. Therapist Marie Vakakis breaks down what the research actually found when the five love languages framework was formally tested, what it gets right, where it falls short, and what she sees in her couples therapy room when people use it in ways that aren’t working. This episode covers: • The origins of the five love languages and why the framework resonated so widely • Why Gary Chapman’s model was based on pastoral counselling, not research • What the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy found when the core claims were formally tested • Why sharing the same primary love language as your partner doesn’t predict relationship satisfaction • The most common ways the love languages go wrong: compatibility tests, measuring sticks and fixed diagnoses • What responsiveness is and why it’s one of the strongest predictors of relationship satisfaction • Love maps: what they are and why most couples stop updating them after three to five years marievakakis.com.au askmarie@marievakakis.com.au https://marievakakis.com.au/relationship-new-year-reset-2026/
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Grief: How to Cope and Support Someone Grieving
Grief is something all of us will live through, yet most of us were never taught how to talk about it. In her latest episode of This Complex Life, therapist Marie Vakakis sits with grief in all its forms, from the loss we see coming to the loss that knocks us sideways. Therapist Marie Vakakis, an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker and couples therapist based in Melbourne’s west, opens up about the grief she’s lived through and the patterns she sees in her therapy room every week. She covers the many types of grief, the things people say with good intentions that actually make it harder, and the small practical ways we can show up for the people we love when they’re grieving. This episode covers: The different types of grief, including anticipatory grief and disenfranchised grief What to say, and what to never say, to someone who’s grieving Why partners often grieve in completely different ways Grief bursts, and why sadness can arrive months or years after a loss How to support someone without asking them to do the thinking for you What to do when grief comes out as anger Why your grief matters, no matter whose loss it’s measured against Find Marie at marievakakis.com.au or get in touch at askmarie@marievakakis.com.au.
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7 signs your partner is emotionally checked out
You’re spending time together. Dinners, dog walks, evenings on the couch. Nobody’s fighting, nothing is obviously broken. Something feels completely off and you can’t quite point to it. In this episode I walk through seven signs your partner might be emotionally checked out, even when everything looks fine from the outside. Resources and Links • Relationship Reset course: marievakakis.com.au • Free Conflict Workbook: marievakakis.com.au • Connected Teens parenting course • Marathon sessions at The Therapy Hub: thetherapyhub.com.au askmarie@marievakakis.com.au
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The psychology of the ick and what it says about you
The ick in dating. That sudden, full-body recoil where someone does something completely normal and you just shut down. 64% of people have experienced it, and a quarter ended the relationship because of it. But is the ick a red flag, or is it fear of intimacy disguised as disgust? Therapist Marie Vakakis unpacks the psychology of the ick, what it reveals about your attachment style, and asks: are we being too picky, or are we terrified of being truly seen? This episode covers: • What the ick actually is and why it happens • Red flags vs superficial triggers • How shame, projection and avoidant attachment drive the ick • Are we being too picky in dating? • What to do when the ick shows up Show notes and more at marievakakis.com.au Got a question for the podcast? Email it to askmarie@marievakakis.com.au